Atheist Jonathan MS Pearce’s Straw Man Global Flood

August 30, 2022 By Dave Armstrong

Atheist Jonathan MS Pearce runs the blog, A Tippling Philosopher. He has in the past encouraged me to visit his site and offer critiques, and wrote under a post dated 12-14-21: “I even need to thank the naysayers. . . . Dave, you are welcome at my new place. Come challenge me. . . . thanks for your critiques of my pieces.” Again, in a post dated 1-27-22, he stated: “I do welcome disagreements because I don’t want [my blog] to [be] just an echo chamber. . . . [S]omeone like Armstrong does give me ammunition for some of my pieces!”

I replied (usually point-by-point) to Pearce’s arguments 72 times. He made some sort of response to maybe one-quarter of those and our relations seemed cordial enough. But when I provided him with several “meaty” critiques in February 2022, he wrote on 3-1-22:

STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT. Please stop this. All you are doing is spouting the absolutely debunked drivel apologetics that my book takes to task. . . . I welcome your comments, but these are totally off-topic and you show absolutely no desire to interact with my own material . . . [caps his own]

Despite this disappointing display (at which point I quietly left his blog for good, out of consideration for him, lest he have a heart attack or a stroke), I continue to think that he’s basically a nice guy. I think we’d have a great time in a pub over beer.

Presently, I am critiquing Jonathan’s insistence on bashing the global or universal or worldwide conception of the Flood of Noah, as if it is the mainstream (or biblical) position. It’s not. In logic, we call that a straw man. Here is what he wrote in his article, “Noah’s flood is a heinous story” (OnlySky, 8-8-22):

And don’t get me started on how it [a global Flood] is not physically or practically possible by any stretch of the imagination. Moreover, there is simply no evidence for a global flood or even a large regional flood that some theists will try to argue [links to his replies to me on this topic] (a theory that makes equally little sense).

But let’s focus on the global flood. The one described in the Bible is a terrible event. Of course, this is mythology. It is obviously mythology. But an awful lot of people still believe that it is literally and historically true.

First of all, this involved the death of everyone on Earth bar eight. . . . the entire global population. . . .

And that doesn’t even begin to consider the sheer volume of animal death throughout the globe. Every animal bar two (or seven, depending on which source you read) dies.

Once again, I will provide basically the same argument that I already submitted to Jonathan and his buddies several times. I noted that the Catholic Encyclopedia way back in 1908, was already describing the global flood opinion as scientifically and exegetically obsolete:

Till about the seventeenth century, it was generally believed that the Deluge had been geographically universal, . . . But two hundred years of theological and scientific study devoted to the question have thrown so much light on it that we may now defend the following conclusions:

The geographical universality of the Deluge may be safely abandoned

Neither Sacred Scripture nor universal ecclesiastical tradition, nor again scientific considerations, render it advisable to adhere to the opinion that the Flood covered the whole surface of the earth. . . .

There are also certain scientific considerations which oppose the view that the Flood was geographically universal. Not that science opposes any difficulty insuperable to the power of God; but it draws attention to a number of most extraordinary, if not miraculous phenomena involved in the admission of a geographically universal Deluge. . . .

Some Christians (along with biblical skeptics and atheists) assume that the biblical account of Noah’s Flood, or the Deluge can only be interpreted hyper-literally; in other words, as referring to a global catastrophic event in which the entire world was literally covered with an amount of water so deep that every mountain (including Mt. Everest: 29,032 feet = 5.5 miles elevation above sea level) was covered.

The consensus of both Catholic and Protestant biblical scholars for well over a century has been that the interpretation of a local Flood is perfectly in accord with the best exegetical and hermeneutical principles of biblical interpretation. In other words, it’s not “biblical skepticism” or “liberal theology” to believe in the local Flood.

Baptist theologian Bernard Ramm’s immensely influential book, The Christian View of Science and Scripture (hardcover edition, published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1954; reprinted in 1966) represented mainstream evangelical (as opposed to “fundamentalist”) Protestant, post-World War II thinking. Ramm argued:

To cover the highest mountains would require eight times more water than we now have. It would have involved a great creation of water to have covered the entire globe, but no such creative act is hinted at in the Scriptures. (p. 244)

Getting rid of such a vast amount of water would have been as miraculous as providing it. If the entire world were under six miles of water, there would be no place for the water to drain off. Yet the record states that the water drained off with the help of the wind (Gen. 8:1). A local flood would readily account for this, but there is no answer if the entire world were under water. (p. 245)

The flood was local to the Mesopotamian valley. (p. 249)

Dr. Ramm discussed the question of frequent biblical non-literal, hyperbolic (exaggerated) language:

Fifteen minutes with a Bible concordance will reveal many instances in which universality of language is used but only a partial quantity is meant. All does not mean every last one in all of its usages. Psa. 22:17 reads: “I may tell all my bones,” and hardly means that every single bone of the skeleton stood out prominently. John 4:39 cannot mean that Jesus completely recited the woman’s biography. Matt. 3:5 cannot mean that every single individual from Judea and Jordan came to John the Baptist. There are cases where all means all, and every means every, but the context tells us where this is intended. Thus, special reference may be made to Paul’s statement in Romans about the universality of sin, yet even that “all” excludes Jesus Christ.

The universality of the flood simply means the universality of the experience of the man who reported it. When God tells the Israelites He will put the fear of them upon the people under the whole heaven, it refers to all the peoples known to the Israelites (Deut. 2:25). When Gen. 41:57 states that all countries came to Egypt to buy grain, it can only mean all peoples known to the Egyptians. Ahab certainly did not look for Elijah in every country of the earth even though the text says he looked for Elijah so thoroughly that he skipped no nation or kingdom (I Kings 18:10). From the vantage point of the observer of the flood all mountains were covered, and all flesh died. (pp. 240-241)

Presbyterian geologist Carol A. Hill’s brilliant article, “The Noachian Flood: Universal or Local?” (Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, Volume 54, Number 3, September 2002), is a goldmine in terms of food for thought concerning a local Flood, in harmony with what we know from science. She impressively tackles the question of literal and non-literal biblical language at great length. I can only cite a small portion of it:

Earth. The Hebrew for “earth” used in Gen. 6–8 (and in Gen. 2:5–6) is eretz (‘erets) or adâmâh, both of which terms literally mean “earth, ground, land, dirt, soil, or country.” In no way can “earth” be taken to mean the planet Earth, as in Noah’s time and place, people (including the Genesis writer) had no concept of Earth as a planet and thus had no word for it. Their “world” mainly (but not entirely) encompassed the land of Mesopotamia—a flat alluvial plain enclosed by the mountains and high ground of Iran, Turkey, Syria, and Saudi Arabia (Fig. 1); i.e., the lands drained by the four rivers of Eden (Gen. 2:10–14). . . .

[I]n Mesopotamia, the concept of “the land” (kalam in Sumerian) seems to have included the entire alluvial plain. This is most likely the correct interpretation of the term “the earth,” which is used over and over again in Gen. 6-8: the entire alluvial plain of Mesopotamia was inundated with water. The clincher to the word “earth” meaning ground or land (and not the planet Earth) is Gen. 1:10: God called the dry land earth (eretz). If God defined “earth” as “dry land,” then so should we.

Regarding specifically the water covering “all the high mountains” (Gen 7:19), Dr. Hill states:

[T]he Hebrew word har for “mountain” in Gen. 7:20 . . . can also be translated as “a range of hills” or “hill country,” implying with Gen. 7:19 that it was “all the high hills” (also har) that were covered rather than high mountains.

This being the case, Genesis 7:19-20 could simply refer to “flood waters . . . fifteen cubits above the ‘hill country’ of Mesopotamia (located in the northern, Assyrian part)”. The Hebrew word har (Strong’s #2022) can indeed mean “hills” or “hill country”, as the Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon defines it. Specifically for Genesis 7:19-20, this lexicon classifies the word as following:

mountain, indefinite, Job 14:18 (“” צוּר); usually plural mountains, in General, or the mountains, especially in poetry & the higher style; often figurative; הָרִים, הֶהָרִים, covered by flood Genesis 7:20 compare Genesis 7:19; . . .

In the New American Standard Version, har is rendered as “hill country” (5) many times in the Hebrew Bible: Genesis 10:30; 14:10; 31:21, 23, 25; 36:8-9; Numbers 13:17, 29; 14:40, 44-45; Deuteronomy 1:7, 19-20, 24, 41, 43-44; 2:37; 3:12, 25; Joshua 2:16, 22-23; 9:1; 10:6, 40; 11:2-3, 16; 11:21; 12:8; 13:6; 14:12; 15:48; 16:1; 17:15-16, 18; 18:12; 19:50; 20:7; 21:11, 21; 24:30, 33; Judges 1:9, 19, 34; 2:9; 3:27; 4:5; 7:24; 10:1; 12:15; 17:1, 8; 18:2, 13; 19:1, 16, 18; 1 Samuel 1:1; 9:4; 13:2; 14:22; 23:14; 2 Samuel 20:21; 1 Kings 4:8; 12:25; 2 Kings 5:22; 1 Chronicles 6:67; 2 Chronicles 13:4; 15:8; 19:4.

The same version translates har as “hill” or “hills” nine times too: Deuteronomy 8:7; 11:11; Joshua 13:19; 18:13-14, 16; 1 Kings 16:24; 2 Kings 1:9; 4:27.

Lorence G. Collins is a geologist and petrologist. He wrote a fascinating article, “Yes, Noah’s flood may have happened but not over the whole earth” (Reports of the National Center for Science Education, 2009, 29(5): 38-41). It noted how the Bible habitually uses phenomenological language (including for the Flood):

Northeast and southwest of the nearly flat surface that contains the two rivers [Tigris and Euphrates], the topography rises to more than 455 m [1493 feet] in Saudi Arabia and in Iran. Calculations show that elevations of 455 m high cannot be seen beyond 86 km [53 miles] away, and these places are more than 160 km [99 miles] from the Euphrates or Tigris Rivers. Therefore, none of the high country in Saudi Arabia or Iran would be visible to a tribal chief (or Noah). On that basis, the “whole world” would definitely appear to be covered with water during the Flood, and that was the “whole world” for the people in this part of southeastern Mesopotamia at that time.

I found a good topographical map of Mesopotamia online; see also a second one. One can readily observe that there is a sort of “basin” in the alluvial floodplain in this area.

The question, then, is: why does Jonathan Pearce: an intelligent man, insist on warring against straw men? If he wants to debate the consensus position of Christian thinkers of all stripes, that would be the local Flood. But he derisively dismisses that as dishonest and goes right to the global Flood. It’s shoddy thinking to present the global Flood as undeniably the biblical view and that held by most Christians, when in fact it is held by only a tiny number of Christians: primarily among the sub-group commonly known as “fundamentalists.”

There are those (albeit a tiny — though very vocal and visible — number in Protestantism and even smaller number in Catholicism) who hold to older “Bible and science” traditions and so believe in a universal Flood (i.e., water covering the entire earth to a depth higher than Mt. Everest’s elevation), a young earth (6-10,000 years), flood geology (or “catastrophism”), a literal six-day creation, a complete denial of any aspect of evolution (even theistic evolution), etc. I have nothing against such people. Some are my personal friends. They are as sincere in their beliefs as anyone else and seek to hold a “high” view of biblical inspiration and the Christian faith (as I do). I simply think they are wrong on many levels.

But by no means can they be said (sociologically) to be “mainstream” or representative of the consensus of Christian thought or the entirety of Christianity regarding Noah’s Flood. And this is my point. Jonathan and many atheists pretend and falsely claim that they do represent that. Essentially, they attempt to collapse or reduce all of Christianity to the tiny number who hold to fundamentalism and “hyper-literal” views of biblical exegesis.

Atheists don’t speak for Christians, and almost never present accurately understand or convey in their critiques what the best thinkers in Christianity believe. We Christians speak for ourselves, thank you. If the best atheists can do is only battle against caricatures and straw men when they tackle Christianity and the Bible, then I suggest that they need to better understand the meaning of good dialogue and debate.

Every middle school debating team learns first of all that they must know their opponents’ views even better than their opponents do. Most atheists would spectacularly fail that test when it comes to properly understanding Christianity, and especially when it comes to offering critiques of the real thing, as opposed to cardboard caricatures of their own imaginations and fancies.

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Summary: Atheist Jonathan MS Pearce wrongly assumes that a global Flood is the mainstream Christian position and undeniably the biblical teaching. It’s neither.

Pearce Pablum #72: Flood: 25 Criticisms & Non Sequiturs

March 8, 2022 By Dave Armstrong

Atheist anti-theist and “philosopher” Jonathan M. S. Pearce runs the blog, A Tippling Philosopher. He has encouraged me to visit his site and offer critiques, and wrote under a post dated 12-14-21: “I even need to thank the naysayers. Some of them have put up with a lot of robust pushback and still they come. Bravery or stupidity – it’s a fine line. But they are committed, and there is something to be said for taking that commitment into the lion’s den. Dave, you are welcome at my new place. Come challenge me. . . . thanks for your critiques of my pieces. Sorry I couldn’t get to more of them.” This echoes his words about me in a post dated 7-20-17, where he said, “well done . . . for coming here and suffering the slings and arrows of atheists’ wrath. . . . I commend him for getting involved and defending himself. Goodonya, mate.”

Under a post dated 1-27-22, he stated: “I do welcome disagreements because I don’t want [my blog] to [be] just an echo chamber. . . . [S]omeone like Armstrong does give me ammunition for some of my pieces!” Likewise, on 3-18-14 he proclaimed: “Dissenting views are utterly vital to being sure that you are warranted in your own beliefs and views.” And on 7-20-17: “I put my ideas and theories about the world out there for people to criticise. . . . I want to make damned sure that they are warranted. I can’t stand the idea that I could . . . believe something that is properly unwarranted. . . . What’s the point in self-delusion? . . . I put something out there, people attack it, and if it still stands, it’s pretty robust and I am happy to hold it. If not, I adapt and change my views accordingly.”

I’m delighted to oblige his wish to receive critiques and dissenting views! The rarity of his counter-replies, however, is an oddity and curiosity in light of this desire. He wrote, for example, on 11-22-19: “[I can’t be] someone who genuinely is not interested in finding out the truth about philosophy, God and everything. If I come up against any point that is even remotely problematic to my worldview, I feel the absolute necessity to bottom it out. I need to reconcile at least something; I have work to do. I cannot simply leave it as it is. . . . I would simply have to counter the arguments, or change my position.” Whatever; this hasn’t been my experience with him; only in short and infrequent spurts. I continue to offer critiques / defenses of Christianity in any event, because they aren’t just for his sake.

Here’s what he thinks, by the way, of Jesus: “The Jesus as reported in the Gospels is so far removed from the real and historical figure of Jesus, overlaid with myth, story-telling, propaganda and evangelist agenda, that the end result is synonymous with myth. . . . I’d take mythicism over Christianity any day. And they call mythicists fringe as if the position is absurd? Now that’s crazy.” (8-2-14)

Jonathan’s words will be in blue.

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This is a reply to his article, Why Noah’s Flood Is Utter Nonsense (12-20-19).

I have long maintained that this is a ridiculous story at even the most superficial of analyses.

When one doesn’t properly understand something, indeed it might seem “ridiculous” as a result.

The theology behind the flight is that God was so repulsed by the sinful activity of humans on Earth that he decided to decimate humanity, bar eight, and start again.

Yes; it’s called judgment. That is God’s prerogative as creator, and we mimic it every day with our laws and legal systems. People are punished and go to jail if they violate laws that society deems fit to enact and enforce. Since God gave us our lives and expects us to act in the right way with the intelligence and will that he gave us, He can decide that we have not done so, and judge.

Now, assuming this scenario for the sake of argument, it seems to me that there are two primary choices:

1) the people judged were wicked enough (“the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. . . . all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth”: Gen 6:11-12, RSV) for it to be perfectly just for God to judge them: even with a penalty of death;

or

2) the people judged were not as sinful and rebellious as the biblical texts prior to the Flood make out, so that God’s judgment was unjust.

Most atheists, of course, will casually assume #2, but they have no objective basis on which to doubt the profound sinfulness of the people judged prior to the Flood.

But it was a local Flood, in any event, and so didn’t destroy all of humanity, save eight.

This is a story of gods supposed love, grace and creation,

God is also a judge, just as we have judges on earth to enforce laws. We act no differently than God does. He simply has much more power and knowledge and is transcendent, and as the Creator, He has the prerogative to both take away as well as give life, just as a painter or sculptor can create or destroy works of art as he or she pleases, or as an author does with writing.

after which he realised he should never destroy the world again in this manner.

He didn’t “realize” anything (as if He made a mistake, as Jonathan implies) because an omniscient, immutable God doesn’t change at all. Jonathan assumes this because — like so many — he merely projects human emotions and other creature attributes onto God when they aren’t there at all. God simply stated: “the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh” (Gen 9:15). “All” in the Bible is often used in a non-literal fashion.

I will now list a few reasons why this story is patent nonsense:

1) OmniGod did it because we were a sinful world. We still are; therefore, it didn’t work.

The first sentence is true. The second doesn’t follow. God never claimed or thought that the Flood would wipe out sin once and for all, leading to a paradise earth (or, more correctly a paradise Mesopotamian floodplain) as it was before human beings chose to rebel against God. Again, being omniscient, He knew that it wouldn’t before it happened. It wasn’t a “pragmatic” act, but rather, a judgmental one. He simply chose to judge a certain number of human beings at this point and also chose not to do so by water again.

God, being God, can and does do whatever He wants. And what He does is both loving and just. We don’t blame earthly judges for sending people off to jail. We don’t say they are wicked and vindictive and power-hungry or lack love and mercy in doing so. No; we place the blame where it should be: on the lawbreaking criminal.

2) The account is a reworking of Tablet XI of the Gilgamesh, written some 1000 years before the Bible. Some verses are verbatim, or close to.

There could be, and are, some similarities. If so, it’s no big deal. Christians don’t deny that the Bible and Christianity often borrow from what existed before them. It’s a non-issue. But atheists tout the similarities with the Epic of Gilgamesh. One could just as easily highlight the glaring differences:

The Babylonian ark was 262 feet wide, deep, and long (a giant cube), whereas the biblical ark has similar proportions to actual ocean liners in our time. The biblical Flood lasted over a year, and the waters subsided over seven months’ time. But the Babylonian Flood lasted 14 days. The Epic gives no reason for the Flood; the Bible says it was judgment for man’s sin. The Epic ark has seven levels; the biblical ark, three. The Epic ark is steered; the biblical ark is not. In any event, this is no basis for rejecting the truthfulness of the biblical account.

3) If the deluge destroyed all, why do we have the writings and journals of people before, during and after the deluge?

Because the flood was local, not global, and because people were able to write after it ended.

4) There is internal contradiction from the spliced accounts – 2 of each or 7?

Not t all, as I have written about: Seidensticker Folly #49: Noah & 2 or 7 Pairs of Animals [9-7-20].

5) 8 people looking after the world’s biggest zoo is ridiculous.

Why would it necessarily be? Again, since it was a local Flood, it would only be the animals from that region. As long as they had proper cages and enough food and water, it wouldn’t be impossible to look after them. Wild animals (by definition) are quite capable of taking care of themselves.

6) The ark is physically bigger than a wooden vessel can be made, apparently by 50%.

It may very well have been smaller than a literal reading would suggest, because the numerical system in those days was different than ours. See my articles, for example: 969-Year-Old Methuselah (?) & Genesis Numbers (7-12-21), and Pearce’s Potshots #31: How Many Israelites in the Exodus? [5-27-21].

The Wyoming was the largest wooden schooner ever built. It was 329 feet between perpendiculars. Built in 1909, it sailed until 1924, when it sank. A literal reading of the size of the ark in the Bible (incorporating differences in the length of a cubit) is 525-624 ft x 87.5-104 ft x 52.5-62.4 ft. But since the Sexagesimal numerical system was different in Babylonia in c. 2900 BC, these are likely larger figures than the ark actually was. Geologist Carol A. Hill explained this different system in her article, “Making Sense of the Numbers of Genesis” (Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, Volume 55, Number 4, December 2003). She stated:

We find the same kind of symmetry and symbolism in other chapters of Genesis in the original Masoretic Hebrew text. Some examples that show the numerical “tightness” and regularity of the text are: in Gen. 2, Adam is mentioned 28 (7 x 4) times; in Gen. 4:15, . . .; the names listed in Cain’s family, counting from Adam to Naamah are 14 (7 x 2); and Cain’s name is mentioned 14 (7 x 2) times. In the story of Noah and the Flood in chapters 6–9, there is also a numerical symmetry and parallelism to the text. The number seven is used repeatedly; seven days (Gen. 7:4, 10; 8:10, 12), seven pairs of clean animals and birds (Gen. 7:2–3); the number of times that God spoke to Noah was exactly seven. Repetitions (such as the “waters prevailed and increased”; Gen. 7:17, 18, 19, 20, 24) are included for the sake of parallelism in accordance with the customary stylistic convention of the time. Noah’s age of 600 (60 x 10) was considered to be a perfect number in the sexagesimal system, and was symbolic of Noah’s perfection as a person (Gen. 6:9). The size of the ark was 300 (60 x 5) cubits by 50 (10 x 5) cubits by 30 (6 x 5) cubits—numbers that also probably should be taken symbolically (numerologically) rather than literally.

7) Clearly the gathering of all the animals is impossible – micro-organisms, polar bears, penguins, condors, glow-worms (how did they get there?).

It’s not likely that God was requiring such minute accuracy; rather, just a gathering of all the animals they could find in their local region; “all” again not being literally understood at the time (whereas Jonathan operates under a stunted, uninformed “the Bible must always be interpreted literally methodology and mentality). Since it was not a global Flood, many animals would survive in the different locations other than the Flood (which was most of the earth). With this understanding, rounding up polar bears and penguins would be unnecessary, apart from the fact that they were thousands of miles away.

8) Ark’s reported dimensions would have to be considerably larger to fit the animals.

See my reply to #7.

9) Population of 8 could not rebound in the fashion claimed. Simply not possible.

What is the claim? Since the Flood was local, it wouldn’t take long to repopulate the local region. If Jonathan has in mind the whole world, that’s irrelevant to the perspective of a local Flood.

10) Rainfall would have to be 6 inches per minute. Again, not possible. A category 5 hurricane gives 6 inches per hour which is impossible to sustain over 40 days.

He is making many debatable assumptions, including a global Flood. There was more than enough “natural water” to create the conditions of a local Mesopotamian Flood. See Alan E. Hill’s article, “Quantitative Hydrology of Noah’s Flood” (Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, Volume 58, Number 2, June 2006). Dr. Hill is the Distinguished Scientist of the Quantum Physics Institute at Texas A&M University. He has spent some forty years inventing and developing evermore-powerful lasers of the Star Wars variety. In the early 1960s, while at the University of Michigan, Alan was the first person to discover nonlinear optics.

11) The weight of the water would have disastrous consequences on the earth’s crust, emitting noxious gases and eruptions, leading to potentially, a boiling sea! In all probability, it would have imploded in some way.

This is again assuming a global Flood: a position that has not been held by mainstream Christianity for at least 110 years. See the Catholic Encyclopedia article, “Deluge”, from 1908, and the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia from 1915 (“Deluge of Noah”).

12) There is no geological evidence for any of this.

Not for a global Flood, because it never happened.

13) There are reefs that have been undisturbed in the world for 100,000 years. These would have been crushed and destroyed. They were not.

Irrelevant in the local Flood model . . .

14) Lots more evidence of fossil, radiometrics and isotopes etc. mean that the flood clearly never happened.

Irrelevant in the local Flood model . . .

15) How the hell did Noah actually get all the animals on the ark without them trying to eat each other / the family etc?

I imagine in the same or similar way that zookeepers since time immemorial have managed to gather up disparate animals. Zoos go back to at least 3500 BC (600 years before my proposed date of the Flood). One in Egypt at that time “included hippopotami, hartebeest, elephants, baboons and wildcats.”

16) Asexual animals and hermaphrodites not accounted for.

See my reply to #7.

17) Ventilation/food/faeces problems on the ark.

Lots of windows. Lots of stored food. Lots of shoveling poop out of the windows. I don’t see that this would make it absolutely impossible.

18) Carnivores?

Yeah, I wrote about that: Do Carnivores on the Ark Disprove Christianity? [9-10-15].

19) DNA pool? no trace of this through DNA analysis (ie we know we came from Africa).

A local Mesopotamian Flood would have nothing to do with Africa and whatever happened there in this regard.

20) All sea fish would have died from the influx of fresh water.

Locally, yes. Globally, no; so it’s a non-issue.

21) All plants that do not rely on the seeds of Noah to survive would die. There are many plants that reproduce in many ways other than seeds.

They would save whatever they could in the local area. It’s not a matter of rescuing absolutely every plant in the entire world.

22) Explaining it away as a local flood is contradictory to Genesis,

So he claims. But he is not prepared to enter into the reasoning by which it’s completely compatible with Genesis.

and would also not kill all the humans who were so evil.

“All” here is not literal.

Liquids find their own level, and so a local flood of that magnitude and description is physically impossible.

Not at all, as the Dr. Hill article I cited above illustrates. See also my article, Pearce’s Potshots #47: Mockery of a Local Flood (+ Striking Analogies Between the Biblical Flood and the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927) [9-30-21].

23) This is like using napalm to clear some weeds in your back garden. Is this the best way God could think of for exercising some sin in the world? Could there not be a more precise mess method of locating and ridding the world of these individual sinners? Innocent children, unborn foetuses, all animals, old ladies, pregnant mothers – these were all wiped out in the most slapdash of manners.

That’s his merely subjective and arbitrary opinion of what God did. See my general comments at the top about God’s judgment. Fancy Jonathan suddenly being compassionate about “unborn foetuses” while he is a passionate supporter of childkilling in abortion. God can give or take away lives, being the Creator. Human beings do not have that prerogative.

24) There are literally not enough water molecules on Earth to account for the flood waters.

See my reply to #11.

25) Theologically speaking, it is nonsensical. if OmniGod had full divine foreknowledge and creative power and responsibility, then creating people in the full knowledge of what they would do, and punishing them for features and behaviour you had designed into them, is totally incoherent. God is actually morally culpable for that which he is punishing them for.

Not at all. They had a free will to obey moral strictures and God or to rebel against both. If they rebelled, God was perfectly just in judging them for doing so. Jonathan, of course, thinks everything is deterministic and that free will doesn’t exist, so of course in that ridiculous hypothetical state of affairs, then even God would only be doing what He “must” do, so how could He be blamed?

And so on.

Yes; all fallacies or non sequiturs, as I have shown, and I’m sure any others that Jonathan came up with would be the same. It’s a massive straw man pseudo-“argument” that counts on his readers own ignorance of the many factors I outlined.

Seriously, who believes this nonsense?

Well, only the relatively tiny umber of biblical fundamentalists believe in a global Flood, not the vast majority of Christians, and virtually all theologically educated, “thinking” Christians. So why waste any time on it at all? Jonathan keeps misrepresenting what the Bible actually teaches.

It is not only historically and scientifically indefensible,

That’s right: a global Flood is those things.

but it is also theologically naive

What’s naive is, rather, Jonathan’s ignorance of the Bible and general history of Christian thought and relation to science. Until he figures this out, he’ll keep caricaturing and exposing his own intellectual deficiencies.

and horribly retributive in the most barbaric way.

See my comments on judgment at the top.

***

Photo credit: DevizK (11-6-20): ocean water at New York City [Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license / Wikimedia Commons]

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Summary: Atheist Jonathan MS Pearce comes up with 25 criticisms of the biblical Flood: either the actual one or (mostly) his falsely imagined global flood. I systematically reply.

Pearce Pablum #71: Dragons in the Bible?

March 4, 2022 By Dave Armstrong

I’m delighted to oblige his wish to receive critiques and dissenting views! The rarity of his counter-replies, however, is an oddity and curiosity in light of this desire. He wrote, for example, on 11-22-19: “[I can’t be] someone who genuinely is not interested in finding out the truth about philosophy, God and everything. If I come up against any point that is even remotely problematic to my worldview, I feel the absolute necessity to bottom it out. I need to reconcile at least something; I have work to do. I cannot simply leave it as it is. . . . I would simply have to counter the arguments, or change my position.” Whatever; this hasn’t been my experience with him; only in short and infrequent spurts. I continue to offer them in any event, because they aren’t just for his sake.

Here’s what he thinks (by the way) of Jesus: “The Jesus as reported in the Gospels is so far removed from the real and historical figure of Jesus, overlaid with myth, story-telling, propaganda and evangelist agenda, that the end result is synonymous with myth. . . . I’d take mythicism over Christianity any day. And they call mythicists fringe as if the position is absurd? Now that’s crazy.” (8-2-14)

Jonathan’s words will be in blue.

*****

This is a reply to his article, Answers in Genesis and Dragons. Fact or Fiction? Er… fiction. (11-27-17).

Most of it is a lengthy citation of a fundamentalist piece, which appears to actually believe that dragons (i.e., dinosaurs) lived at the same time as man. That has nothing to do with what I write about or defend. I deal with serious, mainstream, intellectually cogent Christianity. Jonathan commented on it:

Probability-wise, it’s [the article he is critiquing] a shocker which depends on presupposing the truth of the Bible at any rate.

The Bible teaches no such thing, as I will shortly prove. The central issue here is what the Bible means by a “dragon.” There are reptiles today with the name dragon (e.g., bearded dragon, Chinese water dragon), but they are obviously not the fire-breathing mythical animals of folklore, fantasy, and fairy tale. It’s the same with the Bible.

New Bible Dictionary on “Behemoth” states that the word occurs nine times in the Old Testament, “and in all but one of these occurrences ‘beasts’, ‘animals’, or ‘cattle’ is apparently the intended meaning.” In Job 40:15, “the hippopotamus . . . seems to fit the description best.” The Catholic Encyclopedia (“Animals in the Bible”) agrees:

[G]enerally translated by “great beasts”; in its wider signification it includes all mammals living on earth, but in the stricter sense is applied to domesticated quadrupeds at large. However in Job 40:10, where it is left untranslated and considered as a proper name, it indicates a particular animal. The description of this animal has long puzzled the commentators. Many of them now admit that it represents the hippopotamus, so well known to the ancient Egyptians; it might possibly correspond as well to the rhinoceros.

No necessary interpretation of mythical animals here . . .

According to New Bible Dictionary, “Leviathan” in Psalms 104:26 is “generally thought to be the whale.” In Job 41:1-34, “most scholars” think it is a crocodile. In other instances, the use is clearly symbolic. Smith’s Bible Dictionary essentially concurs:

In the Hebrew Bible the word livyathan , which is, with the foregoing exception, always left untranslated in the Authorized Version, is found only in the following passages: ( Job 3:8 ; 41:1 ; Psalms 74:14 ; 104:26 ; Isaiah 27:1 ) In the margin of ( Job 3:8 ) and text of ( Job 41:1 ) the crocodile is most clearly the animal denoted by the Hebrew word. ( Psalms 74:14 ) also clearly points to this same saurian. The context of ( Psalms 104:26 ) seems to show that in this passage the name represents some animal of the whale tribe, which is common in the Mediterranean; but it is somewhat uncertain what animal is denoted in ( Isaiah 27:1 ) As the term leviathan is evidently used in no limited sense, it is not improbable that the “leviathan the piercing serpent,” or “leviathan the crooked serpent,” may denote some species of the great rock-snakes which are common in south and west Africa.

As for “dragons” in the Bible, Smith’s Bible Dictionary states:

The translators of the Authorized Version, apparently following the Vulgate, have rendered by the same word “dragon” the two Hebrew words tan and tannin, which appear to be quite distinct in meaning.

The former is used, always in the plural, in ( Job 30:29 ; Psalms 44:19 ; Isaiah 34:13 ; 43:20 ; Jeremiah 9:11 ) It is always applied to some creatures inhabiting the desert, and we should conclude from this that it refers rather to some wild beast than to a serpent. The Syriac renders it by a word which, according to Pococke, means a “jackal.”
The word tannin seems to refer to any great monster, whether of the land or the sea, being indeed more usually applied to some kind of serpent or reptile, but not exclusively restricted to that sense. ( Exodus 7:9 Exodus 7:10 Exodus 7:12 ; 32:33 ; Psalms 91:13 )

The Catholic Encyclopedia (“Animals in the Bible”) has an excellent treatment of “dragon”:

It stands indeed for several Hebrew names:

(1) thán (Job 30:29; Isaiah 34:13; 35:7; 43:20; Jeremiah 9:11; 10:22; 14:6; 49:33; 51:37; Micah 1:8; Malachi 1:3), unquestionably meaning a denizen of desolate places, and generally identified with the jackal;

(2) tánnîm, in a few passages with the sense of serpent [Deuteronomy 32:33; Psalm 90:13; Daniel 14:22-27), in others most likely signifying the crocodile [Psalm 73:13; Isaiah 51:9; Ezekiel 29:3], or even a sea-monster (Ezekiel 32:2), such as a whale, porpoise, or dugong, as rightly translated Lamentations 4:3, and as probably intended Psalm 148:7;

(3) líweyãthãn (leviathan), meaning both the crocodile [Psalm 73:14] and sea-monster [Psalm 103:26];

(4) çiyyim (Psalm 73:14; Jeremiah 1:39), which possibly means the hyena.

Other places, such as Esther 10:7; 11:6; Ecclesiasticus 25:23, can be neither traced back to a Hebrew original, nor identified with sufficient probability. . . . Of the fabulous dragon fancied by the ancients, represented as a monstrous winged serpent, with a crested head and enormous claws, and regarded as very powerful and ferocious, no mention whatever is to be found in the Bible. The word dragon, consequently, should really be blotted out of our Bibles, except perhaps Isaiah 14:29 and 30:6, where the draco fimbriatus is possibly spoken of.

The word itself doesn’t have to necessarily refer to a mythical creature, and scientists at the time of the King James Version in 1611 referred to large serpents as “dragons.” Wikipedia in its article on dragons provides the etymology:

The word dragon entered the English language in the early 13th century from Old French dragon, which in turn comes from Latin: draconem (nominative draco) meaning “huge serpent, dragon”, from Ancient Greek δράκων, drákōn (genitive δράκοντος, drákontos) “serpent, giant seafish”. The Greek and Latin term referred to any great serpent, not necessarily mythological.

“Flying serpents” are mentioned in Isaiah 14:29, and “fiery serpents” in Numbers 21:6-8. Wikipedia has an excellent article, “Fiery flying serpent” that lists all these passages and provides an altogether adequate and plausible explanation (see further source information there):

Ronald Millett and John Pratt identify the fiery serpent with the Israeli saw-scale viper or carpet viper (Echis coloratus) based on ten clues from the written sources: the serpents inhabit the Arava Valley, prefer rocky terrain, are deadly poisonous, extremely dangerous, especially painful “fiery” bite, reddish “fiery” color, lightning fast strike, leaping/”flying” strike, and death by internal bleeding. A Roman account dated 22 AD about the deserts of Arabia indicates the presence of the saw-scale viper, reporting that “there are snakes also of a dark red color, a span in length, which spring up as high as a man’s waist, and whose bite is incurable.” Other candidates include desert horned viper (and close relatives) and the desert black snake or black desert cobra.

Wikipedia, “Serpents in the Bible” / section: “Fiery serpents” provides more relevant information:

“Fiery serpent” (Hebrew: שָׂרָף, Modern: saraph, Tiberian: sä·räf’, “fiery”, “fiery serpent”, “seraph”, “seraphim”) occurs in the Torah to describe a species of vicious snakes whose poison burns upon contact. According to Wilhelm Gesenius, saraph corresponds to the Sanskrit Sarpa (Jawl aqra), serpent; sarpin, reptile (from the root srip, serpere). These “burning serpents” infested the great and terrible place of the desert wilderness (Num.21:4-9; Deut.8:15). The Hebrew word for “poisonous” literally means “fiery”, “flaming” or “burning”, as the burning sensation of a snake bite on human skin, a metaphor for the fiery anger of God (Numbers 11:1)

The ancient Greeks and Romans, on the other hand, believed in a huge number of mythical animals. For example, Pliny the Elder (AD 23–79), the Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, wrote the 37-volume Naturalis Historia (Natural History), which became an editorial model for encyclopedias. Book 8, devoted to land animals, contained information about legendary creatures such as the Manticore, Basilisk, and Werewolf. He opined about the second:

It is produced in the province of Cyrene, being not more than twelve fingers in length. It has a white spot on the head, strongly resembling a sort of a diadem. When it hisses, all the other serpents fly from it: and it does not advance its body, like the others, by a succession of folds, but moves along upright and erect upon the middle. It destroys all shrubs, not only by its contact, but those even that it has breathed upon; it burns up all the grass, too, and breaks the stones, so tremendous is its noxious influence.

Pliny was the first to describe a mythical animal called the catoblepas “as a mid-sized creature, sluggish, with a heavy head and a face always turned to the ground. He thought its gaze, like that of the basilisk, was lethal, . . .” Herodotus, Ovid, and Virgil all wrote seriously about werewolves. Pliny “describes the [phoenix] as having a crest of feathers on its head” and Tacitus thought its color “made it stand out from all other birds.”

Jonathan Pearce and many atheists seem to assume that the Bible teaches similarly. It does not. The ancient Hebrews, being a far more sophisticated and advanced culture than the Greeks or Romans in this respect, did not believe in mythical animals, as has just been demonstrated. We see that yet another of the innumerable atheist bashings of the Bible is groundless.

For some curious reason, Jonathan never mentioned that the ancient Greeks and Romans believed in all these mythical animals (that doesn’t fit the “plan” of his polemics, you see). All he can do is quote fringe Christian fundamentalists and pretend that they accurately pass along biblical teachings and represent mainstream Christianity. Shame on him.

***

Photo credit: Richard Wagner’s opera Siegfried; Siegfried slays the dragon. From the painting by Delitz; The Victrola book of the opera : stories of one hundred and twenty operas with seven-hundred illustrations and descriptions of twelve-hundred Victor opera records [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

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Summary: Anti-theist atheist Jonathan MS Pearce sez that the Bible teaches the existence of (fire-breathing?) dragons who lived at the same time as man. Once again, he’s wrong.

Pearce Pablum #70: Nativity Book Errors

March 4, 2022 By Dave Armstrong

I’m delighted to oblige his wish to receive critiques and dissenting views! The rarity of his counter-replies, however, is an oddity and curiosity in light of this desire. He wrote, for example, on 11-22-19: “[I can’t be] someone who genuinely is not interested in finding out the truth about philosophy, God and everything. If I come up against any point that is even remotely problematic to my worldview, I feel the absolute necessity to bottom it out. I need to reconcile at least something; I have work to do. I cannot simply leave it as it is. . . . I would simply have to counter the arguments, or change my position.” Whatever; this hasn’t been my experience with him; only in short and infrequent spurts. I continue to offer them in any event, because they aren’t just for his sake.

Jonathan’s words will be in blue.

*****

This is part of a series of replies to Jonathan’s book, The Nativity: A Critical Examination (Onus Books, 2012). I am utilizing a text from Barnes & Noble (Nook Book) which has no page numbers, so I can only cite chapter names.

I. Fact or Fiction?

[T]he infancy narratives are (at least mainly) fictional. (Introduction)

This is just to let my readers know what Jonathan thinks of these biblical texts. As we start to closely examine the rationale and arguments he makes, that form his “cumulative case” that he thinks is “water-tight”, we’ll see how flimsy and pitiful it really is. I’ve already strongly critiqued his related arguments several times and never found any significant difficulty in doing so. One can have fifty weak strands of rope or weak links that won’t become any stronger, just because they are collected together.

II. Incidents That Couldn’t Possibly Have Been Recorded?

Pearce marvels at incidents recorded in the Bible “to which there were probably no witnesses (Jesus talking to Herod) available to the Gospel writers. All these speeches seem to have been remarkably well-preserved . . .” (Introduction to the texts)

What an odd choice of example, since “chief priests and the scribes stood by” (Lk 23:10) as did Herod’s “soldiers” (Lk 23:11). All it would take was one or two of these to report about this encounter, which entered into either oral tradition or directly into one of the Gospels. But as it is, Luke records not a single word that Herod said; it only notes that “he questioned him at some length” (Lk 23:9).

Since only Luke reports this incident, there was no secret or “miraculous” knowledge involved. All that is reported is that Herod questioned Jesus. We’re supposed to believe that no follower of Jesus could have possibly known that that happened? It’s ridiculous. It took only one follower to follow the irate persecuting crowds with Jesus from a distance and see them enter into Herod’s palace.

III. “No” Extra-Biblical Corroboration of the Gospels?

[T]he Gospels . . . are not attested by extra-biblical sources. This means that no other source outside of the Bible, and contemporary with the events or with the Gospel accounts, reports and corroborates the events claimed within the Gospels. (Introduction to the texts)

Nonsense! Jonathan also claimed that Christians can produce a few extra-biblical historians, who only proved that Christians “existed.” What?! I recently completed articles in which I demonstrated that there were fifty such corroborations for Luke’s accuracy in the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts, and another 17 for the Gospel of John. That’s 67 more than none.

Jonathan gets in trouble here with his mindless “universal negatives”: as so often. I appreciate enthusiasm for a cause (even a well-intentioned bad one), but when it leads to utter misrepresentation and lies because one’s extreme bias is so out of control, it’s no longer worth very much.

IV. Jonathan Unable to Distinguish Between a Newborn and a Toddler

We have [in Matthew] . . . Herod massacring children in the search for this newborn ‘usurper’: (The Gospel of Matthew)

The huge error here is that Jesus wasn’t a newborn when the wise men visited Him. He was most likely between 1-2 years old, but definitely not a newborn. I explained this at some length in my article, Bethlehem Joseph / Census Issues (2-28-22).

So we have the deliciously humorous and ironic circumstance of Jonathan — in the midst of carping on and on about supposedly profound Gospel inaccuracy — not even knowing that this passage is not about the newborn Jesus. It’s quite unimpressive to observe him ignorantly distorting the biblical text wholesale in order to mock and “reject” it (i.e., a straw man of the real thing).

V. Ruth Was a Harlot or Adulterer? And Maybe the Virgin Mary, Too, According to Matthew and Jonathan?

Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba . . . were all known adulterers and harlots. With Mary included as a female in this list [a genealogy], perhaps Matthew is hinting something covertly. (The Virgin Birth)

Tamar (Gen 38:13-24) and Rahab (Josh 2:1) were indeed harlots, and Bathsheba an adulterer (famously with King David). Jonathan got some biblical facts right! Stop the presses! But Ruth? One looks in vain throughout the book bearing her name for any hint of harlotry. She was widowed and got married again. That‘s harlotry (or adultery), according to Jonathan?

Having insulted her with one of the worst accusations that can possibly be hurled at a woman, he then makes the blasphemous charge that the Blessed Virgin Mary herself might be in one of these categories [blasphemy is a category that includes much more than just God], and that Matthew was “perhaps . . . hinting” such an unthinkable thing. This is as ridiculous as it is outrageous. Lying blasphemy is never far from skepticism. This is a prime example of that.

VI. Was “Virgin” Mistranslated from Isaiah 7:14?

Jonathan devotes an entire chapter to this question, claiming that “Matthew misappropriated the passage from Isaiah for his own theological ends.” I already refuted his contentions over three years ago: Reply to Atheist Jonathan MS Pearce: “Mistranslation” of “Virgin”? (Isaiah 7:14) (with Glenn Miller) [7-26-17].

He also claimed in this chapter (“The mistranslation of virgin”) that “dual prophecies have no precedent — there are simply no other examples of such a thing.” Nonsense (and more of his clueless universal negative claims). I refuted that idea, too, over a year ago: Dual Fulfillment of Prophecy & the Virgin Birth (vs. JMS Pearce) [12-18-20].

VII. Do Matthew and Luke’s Genealogies Contradict Each Other?

Next up is Jonathan’s chapter, “The contradictory genealogies“. I dealt with this topic already as well: Reply to Atheist Jonathan MS Pearce: “Contradictory” Genealogies of Christ? [7-27-17].

VIII. Micah 5:2, Bethlehem, and Nazareth

Matthew and Luke . . . mistranslate the prophecy [of Micah 5:2] . . . (To Bethlehem or not to Bethlehem)

Once again I have offered a thorough refutation already: Reply to Atheist Jonathan MS Pearce: Bethlehem & Nazareth “Contradictions” (Including Extensive Exegetical Analysis of Micah 5:2) [7-28-17].

[I]t seems that Jesus was born in Nazareth . . . The Gospel of Mark seems to indicate that Jesus was from Nazareth. . . . Mark 1:9 declares: “Jesus came from Nazareth . . .” (To Bethlehem or not to Bethlehem)

His “argument” is that Mark calls Him “Jesus of Nazareth” and calls Nazareth His “hometown.” So what?! It was His hometown from the age of 1 or 2. It doesn’t follow that He was born there or that Mark’s simply not dealing with His birth means that He denied that Bethlehem was where He was born. This is the well-known “argument from silence” fallacy, and it’s always a flimsy, nonexistent pseudo-“argument” whenever it’s desperately trotted out. I dealt with this nonsense in the above paper:

In all appearances of “Nazareth” in conjunction with Jesus, never once does it say that He was born there. The Bible says that He “dwelt” there (Mt 2:23), that He was “from” there (Mt 21:11; Mk 1:9), that He was “of” Nazareth (Mt 26:71; Mk 1:24; 10:47; 16:6; Lk 4:34, 18:37; 24:19; Jn 1:45; 18:5, 7; 19:19; Acts 2:22; 3:6; 4:10; 6:14; 10:38; 22:8; 26:9), “out of” Nazareth (Jn 1:46), “brought up” there (Lk 4:16), that Jesus called Nazareth “his own country” (Lk 4:23-24), . . . Not one word about being born in Nazareth occurs in any of those 28 references. . . .

Take, for example (by analogy), the singer Bob Dylan. He was born in Duluth, Minnesota, but lived in Hibbing, Minnesota from the age of six (I happened to visit this house on our vacation this year: being a big fan). That‘s where everyone who knows anything about him says and understands that he was raised and where he spent his childhood. Consequently, no one ever says that he is “from” Duluth or “of” Duluth or was “brought up” there. Even many avid Dylan fans don’t even know that he wasn’t born in Hibbing.

All of those things are said about Hibbing: precisely as the Bible habitually refers to Nazareth in relation to Jesus. It’s talking about His hometown, where He was always known to live, prior to His three-year itinerant ministry. In the Bible, people were generally named after the places where they were from. Yet Jonathan seems to expect that the Bible should say that Jesus was “of” or “from” Bethlehem, rather than Nazareth, because He was born there. It doesn’t. It says that He was “of” or “from” Nazareth because that was His hometown. And it says that He was born in Bethlehem; never that He was born in Nazareth. All the biblical data is on my side of this contention. All Jonathan has is silence and empty speculation.

IX. Returning to an “Ancestral” or a Present Tribal Town for a Census?

Luke 2:3-4 (RSV) And all went to be enrolled, each to his own city. [4] And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David,

Luke does provide a reason for Joseph to go — because Bethlehem is his ancestral town. [typo corrected; he had Luke instead of Joseph] (Why return to an ancestral town for a census?)

What Luke actually writes is that Bethlehem is Joseph’s “own city”; i.e., he lived there (or at least his family did). The last clause above need not be interpreted as “everyone had to go to their ancestral city.” It could simply mean that Joseph went to Bethlehem and lived there because he was descended from David, who also lived there. But “house and lineage of David” could also refer to one’s tribe.

It doesn’t have to be some convoluted calculation going back 41 generations (as Jonathan has fun with: only making himself look ridiculous). First century Jews knew what tribe they were part of. David and Joseph his descendant were of the tribe of Judah, and Bethlehem was in the northern part of that.

Biblical linguist Marvin Vincent, in his Word Studies in the New Testament, concurs: “According to the Jewish mode of registration the people would be enrolled by tribes, families or clans, and households. Compare Joshua 7:16-18.” Even Roman citizens — as Jonathan notes in his next chapter — “were registered by tribe and class.” So Joseph was going to where his tribe (and he himself) lived.

Joseph was taking his betrothed to a home in Bethlehem, where they lived for 1-2 years after Jesus was born (as we know from the visit of the magi). He happened to live in Bethlehem which just happened to be where his illustrious ancestor David was known from Scripture to have been from. This ain’t rocket science.

X. Pearce Embarrassingly Botches the Meaning of the Immaculate Conception

. . . Mary becoming pregnant via the Holy Spirit . . . she had immaculately conceived . . . (Heavily pregnant? On your donkey!)

As any minimally educated Catholic knows, the Immaculate Conception refers to Mary’s conception and grace received from God, causing her to be free from both actual and original sin. It does not refer to the virgin birth of Jesus. Yet a man this ignorant deigns to sanctimoniously lecture Christians about the supposedly hopelessly contradictory Gospels (that they are almost totally myths). It’s embarrassing. He can’t even get right what they teach in the first place.

XI. “Heavily Pregnant” Donkey Ride?

Jonathan (in the same chapter and its title) describes Mary as “heavily pregnant” on the journey. How does he know that, pray tell? All the text says is that she was “with child” (Lk 2:5). So he makes it up (one of his many fairy tales), to make it look really really bad and callous and cruel on Joseph’s part. At least he restrained his hyper-polemics to some small degree. By the time of his article, Summing up the Nativity as Concisely as Possible (12-2-16), his amazing powers of seeing in Scripture things that aren’t there became exaggerated to describing Mary on this journey as a “9 month pregnant partner.”

XII. Jonathan Still Can’t Figure Out the Difference Between a Newborn and a Toddler

In his chapter, “No work for you, Joseph!” Jonathan finally seems to figure out that the magi visited a 1-2 year old Jesus; not the newborn Jesus. He writes: “These two events . . . appear not to happen concurrently . . . (and many claim that Jesus was a toddler by this time).” He actually got something in the Bible right: just as an unplugged clock gives the correct time twice a day. But alas, as soon as he stumbled into the truth, he went back to the falsehood in his next chapter (“The magi are copied from Daniel and are clearly a theological mechanism“):

They were sent to Bethlehem to praise the newborn king . . .

Then he cites the ubiquitous Richard Carrier spewing the same error: “Matthew alone depicts Magi visiting Christ at birth . . .”

In his chapter 20 (“The magi and shepherds as evangelists are strangely silent“), he reiterates the error: “The magi . . . had undergone a huge effort just to drop some presents off and praise a baby . . .”

XIII. Mary Doubted That Jesus is the Messiah?

[W]hat could have possessed Mary . . . to doubt the messianic qualities of her son? (Any other business)

There simply is no evidence that this was the case, as I have written about several times (perhaps that’s why Jonathan doesn’t even try to document it):

Jesus’ “Brothers” Were “Unbelievers”? (Jason also claims that “Mary believed in Jesus,” but wavered, and had a “sort of inconsistent faith”) (vs. Jason Engwer) [5-27-20]

Did the Blessed Virgin Mary Think Jesus Was Nuts? [7-2-20]

Seidensticker Folly #50: Mary Thought Jesus Was Crazy? (And Does the Gospel of Mark Radically Differ from the Other Gospels in the “Family vs. Following Jesus” Aspect?) [9-8-20]

XIV. Nazareth Maybe Didn’t Exist in Jesus’ Time Because a Supposed Catholic Pawn (Actually Jewish) Archaeologist Said it Did?!

Jonathan starts sowing the seeds of doubt and then mentions an archaeological dig in 2009 and concedes (?), stating: “we can see that the Myth of Nazareth theory . . . falls apart.” (Any other business). Having arrived at this ray of truth he immediately qualifies it in the next sentence: “However, things aren’t so simple. . . . Firstly, the dig was being carried out by the Catholic Church . . . We have no evidence, just the word of an archaeologist employed by the Catholic Church.”

I recently tackled this subject: Pearce’s Potshots #64: Archaeology & 1st Century Nazareth (2-25-22). Jonathan is outdoing himself in his fanatical cluelessness this time: more dumbfoundedness and “polemical desperation” than he usually exhibits (and that’s really saying something). The archaeologist in question, that he mentions by name, is Yardenna Alexandre, a British-Israeli Jew, and she was digging for the Israel Antiquities Authority (hardly a Catholic pawn), according to a report in The Times of Israel (7-22-20). Jonathan lays out bullet points as to why he thinks these findings are “suspect”:

Alexandre has not published any of the findings or verified any of the claims.

In volume 98 of ‘Atiqot (2020): the publication of the Israel Antiquities Authority, her 68-page article, “The Settlement History of Nazareth in the Iron Age and Early Roman Period” is found (fully accessible as a PDF file at the preceding journal link).

The Israel Antiquities Authority published a short statement, only to take it off the web soon after.

I see. Sounds like some kind of conspiracy, doesn’t it?! Be that as it may, since its own publication now hosts a 68-page description of the findings (complete with copious photographs and diagrams), it’s a rather moot point, ain’t it?

The Church remains the only port of call for verifying the claims.

That would come as big news to the Israel Antiquities Authority, who sponsored the dig.

The Church (rather conveniently) proceeded to build over the remains meaning it can never be verified.

Really? Oooh: more nefarious conspiracies by those wicked, devious, science-hating Catholics!

No materials exist in any scholarly record.

Well, if they didn’t in 2012 (since the excavation had only finished up the year before, and these things take time: as anyone familiar with the rigorous method of archaeology knows), they certainly do now, and there is additional evidence noted in my article above.

[I]t clearly shows the levels to which the Catholic Church (or any religious organisation) are willing to go to support their worldview. These points make the entire house claim thoroughly dubious. . . . The evidence has since been destroyed, it seems, without any independent and professional corroboration. . . . I remain agnostic as to whether Nazareth existed or was inhabited at the time of Jesus.

Some folks are slow and reluctant to follow the scientifically ascertained facts. Some might say that Jonathan wrote his book in 2012, and that he might change his mind by now, in early 2022. Not so! I pointed out that I had verified the archaeological excavations of early 1st-century Nazareth on his blog, and (rather than thanking me for the update) he became angry at me and stated that I had misrepresented his view and should read his book to see what that was. Now I have done so. At the time (just a week ago as I write), I was going by his own statement on his blog, from 10-29-12:

In my book, The Nativity: A Critical Examination, I think I give ample evidence that allows one to conclude that the historicity of the nativity accounts is sorely and surely challenged. All of the aspects and claims, that is. There are problems, for sure, if one accepts that some claims are false but others are true. But the simple fact of the matter is that all of the claims are highly questionable.

Here are the hoops that a Christian must jump through. They are flaming hoops, and the Christian can do nothing to avoid being burnt, it seems. From my book:

In order for the Christian who believes that both accounts are factually true to uphold that faithful decree, the following steps must take place. The believer must: . . .

• Believe that, despite archaeological evidence, Nazareth existed as a proper settlement at the time of Jesus’ birth.

As he said, the last two paragraphs there were from his book. And I see them now, on the very next two pages in the Nook Book version. I did nothing wrong in interpreting his words as I did. It was just “the Christian always has to be wrong in a dispute with an atheist, no matter what!” canard.

As it is, Jonathan wants to play the game of talking out of both sides of his mouth. He pokes fun of the Christian belief in the existence of first-century Nazareth (based on both the historically reliable Bible and archaeology), but falls short of asserting that it definitely didn’t, and remains “agnostic” on the question. How intellectually brave and courageous! He covers his rear end, to please whoever he happens to be with at any given moment.

He plays the same game regarding Jesus mythicism, as we see in his words cited near the top of this article. He’s not a mythicist himself, but he mocks and derides anyone who thinks it is a fringe position in academia (as it certainly is: believed by no more than 1% of historians: if even that many). He has to “kiss up” like this because of the ever-growing ranks of mythicists among the atheist crowd these days. It’s an utterly pathetic and a disgraceful performance, from someone who refers to himself as a “philosopher.”

XV. Postscript: Jonathan’s Increasing Mockery and/or Silence in the Face of Legitimate and Substantive Critique

Jonathan doesn’t exhibit much of a desire to interact with substantive critiques anymore: such as the many I have lately been offering and posting on his blog. Here is how he responded to me there, on 3-1-22:

STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT. Please stop this. All you are doing is spouting the absolutely debunked drivel apologetics that my book takes to task. . . . I welcome your comments, but these are totally off-topic and you show absolutely no desire to interact with my own material . . . [capitalized “yelling” is his own]

And a day earlier, he waxed: “Oh very dear. This is rather embarrassing for you.”

As anyone can see, my replies are almost solely devoted to direct interaction with his material. He mostly insults me now, all the while falsely claiming — almost in a semi-paranoid fashion — that my critiques are merely personal attacks on him; and he refuses to offer any intelligent counter-reply.

In other words, he’s melting down, after previously inviting me to come to his blog and offer critiques: see his words at the top of this article. If you persistently refute an atheist’s attacks on Christianity and the Bible (this is my 70th critique of Jonathan), this is what you eventually get. My friend, Paul Hoffer summed up the incongruity of his manifest attitude very well:

If Pearce were a real skeptic, he would thank you for your critical analysis, reexamine his own premises and conclusions and then either defend them if he still thinks he is in the right or adjust his thinking to fit the evidence. Instead, he comes across like a mutton-chopped millennial yelling at the barista at Starbucks who got his latte wrong.

He’s become progressively more hostile and rude. Despite all that sad display, however, I do think he’s basically a nice guy who is a much better person than his putrid, flatulent ideology. I think we’d have a great time in a pub over beer. He simply can’t handle being refuted. He’s like lots and lots of people of all stripes in that respect. And it’s the bane of my existence (as an apologist and lover of socratic dialogue), to see so few people willing to enter into the pleasure of true dialogue.

This is the fruit of the widely held atheist notion that all Christians are idiots, simply by virtue of the fact that they are Christians. They can’t possibly be honest, either: so tens of thousands of atheists think and express. So the more I replied to him, the more hostile he became, because this just ain’t supposed to happen, you see: that a lowly, imbecilic Christian can actually prevail in a debate (and many debates) over a smarter-than-thou atheist.

His blog is supposed to be a place for civil, ethical discussion between atheists and Christians. The new venue where it is hosted (OnlySky) — to its credit — has made a huge and sincere, commendable effort to foster civil discussion. Yet massive insults sent my way are freely allowed on Jonathan’s site, and even the guy who co-runs the blog with Jonathan (Bert Bigelow) made the following comment, congratulating a fellow mocker: “Huzzah! For the best, most articulate, and most detailed put-down of Dave A that I have seen. Thanks for taking the time to do it.” (3-3-22).

See how it works? An atheist blog is a place where the “moderators” [choke] literally encourage the commenters to engage in extended “put-down[s]” of Christians who dare to object to the cynical, lying misrepresentations of Christianity and the Bible. Yet Jonathan and his buddies, almost to a person, are scared to death of coming to my blog and commenting, even though they are treated courteously, and I would disallow personal insults from anyone sent their way.

They keep lying over there and claiming that I ban everyone as soon as they disagree with me, which is laughably ludicrous and manifestly, patently false. My interactions with Jonathan alone (who is most welcome on my blog, but rarely appears there) disprove the tired slander.

Proverbs 9:8 (RSV) Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you; reprove a wise man, and he will love you.

Proverbs 14:6 . . . a fool throws off restraint and is careless.

Proverbs 29:9, 11 If a wise man has an argument with a fool, the fool only rages and laughs, and there is no quiet. . . . [11] A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man quietly holds it back.

The only person who engaged in a perfectly normal, courteous, serious, substantive, enjoyable, charitable, sustained dialogue with me at Jonathan’s blog (i.e., after Jonathan stopped doing so) was “Lex Lata” (see our two-part dialogue [one / two] on the demoniacs and the pigs, Gerasenes and Gadarenes, etc.). People like Lex give me faith in the continuity of dialogue. I know it’s possible, and I’ve engaged in great dialogues with atheists many times (my very favorite of all of my 1000 + dialogues — way back in 2001 –, was, in fact, with an atheist).

But it’s rarer than a needle in a haystack, and the patience required to wait until one finds such an ultra-rare golden opportunity (and the willingness to be a “pin cushion” and a “dart board” for months on end) is scarcely humanly possible. But for the grace of God . . .

I will continue to critique Jonathan’s articles if I find something I haven’t dealt with yet: as opportunity arises. He’ll come to regret his contemptuous attitude, sent in my direction, in full view of all his back-slapping cronies and sycophants, because it only makes me more determined to spend time refuting his (and other atheists’) endless, relentless calumnies and slanders against the faith and the Bible and Christians.

But to end on a positive note: I do sincerely thank Jonathan for the relatively few times that he did actually offer a substantive counter-response to my critiques of his work (see a listing of those, under my name, in a search on his blog). That’s much more than I can say about his fellow well-known online anti-theist atheist polemicists Bob Seidensticker, Dr. David Madison, and John Loftus, who have never done it even once, after literally 80, 46, and 24 critiques (respectively) sent their way: adding up to 150 unanswered critiques.

***

Photo credit: Cover of Pearce’s book on the GoodReads site.

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Summary: I take on anti-theist atheist Jonathan MS Pearce’s Nativity book errors. As always (sorely lacking grace), he demonstrates that he is relentlessly clueless & out to sea.

Pearce Pablum #69: Straw-Man, Mythical “Nativity”

March 2, 2022 By Dave Armstrong

I’m delighted to oblige his wish to receive critiques and dissenting views! The rarity of his counter-replies, however, is an oddity and curiosity in light of this desire. He wrote, for example, on 11-22-19: “[I can’t be] someone who genuinely is not interested in finding out the truth about philosophy, God and everything. If I come up against any point that is even remotely problematic to my worldview, I feel the absolute necessity to bottom it out. I need to reconcile at least something; I have work to do. I cannot simply leave it as it is. . . . I would simply have to counter the arguments, or change my position.” Whatever; this hasn’t been my experience with him; only in short and infrequent spurts. I continue to offer them in any event, because they aren’t just for his sake.

Jonathan’s words will be in blue.

*****

This is a reply to Jonathan’s article, Summing up the Nativity as Concisely as Possible. (12-2-16). His article was very short, since it was intended by our congenial atheist critic as merely a mocking, condescending summary-dismissal of the entire story of the Nativity: meant to elicit laughs and derision rather than thought and a deeper understanding. In fact, it is a handy summary of numerous whoppers, errors, and falsehoods that atheists (including Jonathan) have dreamt-up and fantasized, concerning Jesus’ birth and the events surrounding it.

He makes many statements about what the Bible supposedly teaches that simply aren’t true. And so his hit-piece with my refutation below becomes quite long, because so many falsehoods have to be corrected. It’s very tedious work, but someone has to do it.

My interjecting comments will be bracketed and in regular black color. Almost of this was satisfactorily answered in sufficient depth (if I do say so) in an article of mine from just two days ago, as I write: Bethlehem Joseph / Census Issues (2-28-22): where readers can go to see the reasoning behind my assertions below. But if mockery of this sort is considered useful and effective by atheists, then I say that refutations of them are equally if not more useful to Christians. And so I proceed . . .

Joseph ended up taking his 9 month pregnant partner [the biblical text never asserts that she was nine months’ pregnant on this journey. All we know is that she “was with child”: Lk 2:5 (RSV). Nor does the text indicate exactly when she delivered the baby Jesus in Bethlehem. All we know from it is that it happened “while they were there”: Lk 2:6] (impregnated without anyone’s permission) [that’s not true. Does Jonathan never tire of ignorant whoppers? An angel tells Mary that she will become pregnant by the Holy Spirit’s power: Lk 1:26-37. But this is not without Mary’s permission and consent: what is called her “fiat.” God, being omniscient, knew how she would responded: which was with the full consent of her will, saying, “I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word”: Lk 1:38] on an 80 mile journey on donkey-back on unmettaled roads [since it’s not established that she was nine months’ pregnant, this is uncontroversial and humdrum. First-century Jews traveled to Jerusalem — just as far from Nazareth — several times each year to attend feasts] to a census that, as a woman, his wife did not need to attend [it’s true that she didn’t have to register there, but irrelevant. She was going with Joseph as his betrothed, to get married in Bethlehem], in a different tax area to where they lived [the New Testament never claims that Joseph was from, or resided in Nazareth. It does say that he was going to be “enrolled” in “his own city”: Lk 2:3], for the purpose of a ruler (Herod) who had died 10 years previously [this occurred in 2 BC when Herod was still alive (arguably, and there are solid historical / archaeological arguments for this), but it had nothing to do with him (accordingly, the text never said that it did). Rather, it was a commendation of Caesar Augustus — by his decree (Lk 2:1) from all those under the jurisdiction in the Roman Empire: as Josephus noted] (and who, as ruler of a client kingdom, would not have needed a Roman tax census) [this event was not necessarily a census (RSV calls it an “enrollment”, not a “census”), and the text doesn’t say it was about taxation, either.] in a place where one Gospel (but not the other) said they already lived [Matthew indicates that Joseph lived there; Luke is neutral, so there is no trumped-up supposed “contradiction”: as usual], only to be chased to Egypt for two years [the text says nothing about two years, but that it was “until the death of Herod”: Mt 2:15] when the other Gospel said they returned to Nazareth immediately [it gives no indication of the precise time: Luke 2:39], because said dead ruler [who wasn’t dead] was intent on killing Jesus-aged babies [sounds like a pretty good reason to escape to somewhere else, doesn’t it?!] (which was never recorded in any other place) [why does it have to be? There is no requirement that anything recorded as historical fact must be recorded by at least two people] due to an important prophecy that nobody had realised actually existed. [Jonathan assumes — one of his many mindless “universal negative” claims — that no one knew about it. The Jews were quite well-acquainted with their own prophecies, thank you].

Oh, and the Magi and shepherds, who saw the most incredible things, were never heard from again. [why do they have to be “heard from again”?! They came from a far land and they went back. The Gospels recorded what happened in Israel, in the first third of the first century AD. They’re very localized. What is it with these arbitrary requirements: cynically trotted out for the Bible but nothing else?]

Orrrrrrrrrrr… it never happened. (Just a thought.) [or it did and Jonathan disbelieves it on inadequate / straw man grounds: just as we see here that every single assertion he makes is either factually wrong or irrelevant. Just a thought . . . ]

***

Photo credit: Nativity (1523), by Lorenzo Lotto (1480-1556) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

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Summary: Atheist anti-theist Jonathan MS Pearce sums up the Nativity story in a mocking fashion, but is shown to be wrong or irrelevant at every turn in his assertions.

Pearce Pablum #68: “Thou Shalt Not Kill” [Murder]

March 2, 2022 By Dave Armstrong

I’m delighted to oblige his wish to receive critiques and dissenting views! The rarity of his counter-replies, however, is an oddity and curiosity in light of this desire. He wrote, for example, on 11-22-19: “[I can’t be] someone who genuinely is not interested in finding out the truth about philosophy, God and everything. If I come up against any point that is even remotely problematic to my worldview, I feel the absolute necessity to bottom it out. I need to reconcile at least something; I have work to do. I cannot simply leave it as it is. . . . I would simply have to counter the arguments, or change my position.” Whatever; this hasn’t been my experience with him; only in short and infrequent spurts. I continue to offer them in any event, because they aren’t just for his sake.

Jonathan’s words will be in blue.

*****

This is a reply to Jonathan’s article, “Very simple Johno. Thou shalt not kill.” – Er, not so simple. (8-23-16). He wrote there:

[T]he Ten Commandments are absolutist. This causes problems. Since Christians hate consequentialism as it does not require a god, there can be problems in making sense of their ethical proclamations. I will list some simple potential issues with a deontological claim that “thou shalt not kill”.

He proceeded to outline instances in which this famous command, — which he assumes is about all killing whatsoever –, is problematic:

1) “Good intentions, but with unforeseen collateral”,

2) “Just war”,

3) “All the deaths enacted in the Bible by and for God – millions of dead hypocritically carried out directly by, or ordered by, God.”: what Christians regard as perfectly justified judgments by God,

4) “deaths [as] . . . a result of cutting back on universal healthcare”,

5) “Death penalty”,

6) “Not spending more money on, say, overseas aid, tackling malaria, poverty and any other issue that would thusly allow the death of many – all this inaction, and lack of funding, kills people.”,

7) “What about Jesus? Was he not killed to achieve an end?”,

8) “Self-defense”.

etc etc.

You get the picture. What does “kill” mean here, in this soundbite of a divine order? Such simplistic “comebacks” in argument are thoroughly naive.

Yes, I do get the picture (just not his picture). The command, “Thou shalt not kill” (Ex 20:13) — once we examine the Hebrew word for “kill” — literally means “You shall not murder.” All murder is a species of killing, but (clearly) not all killing is murder.

The Hebrew for “kill” (KJV) in Exodus 20:13 is ratsach (Strong’s word # 7523). Rendering it “kill” is an unfortunate translation in the King James Bible and some of the translations that basically follow its tradition of translation. Strong’s Concordance (we learn at the same link) defines it as “to murder, slay.” So does the standard Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon.

We see in the Englishman’s Concordance entry for this word that the overwhelming translation of it in 47 occurrences in the Old Testament (in both the KJV and more modern NASB) is “murder” / “murderer” or suchlike: that is, one specific, gravely sinful form of malicious killing (homicide).

In fact, even in the KJV, according to Young’s Concordance, out of 47 times, “kill” is used only six times and “be put to death” once. The other 40 instances have “slayer” (18), “murderer” (14), “murder” (3), “be slain” (3), or “manslayer” (2). The terms with the much broader application, then, are used only 15% of the time.

One page lists 54 biblical translations of Exodus 20:13. “Murder” appears in 40 of them (74%). So, either by the criterion of how most Bibles translate ratsach for this passage, or by seeing how it is translated in the 46 other passages besides Exodus 20:13, or by consulting Hebrew Lexicons, it’s crystal clear what the intended meaning is.

The confusion comes from the fact that the word “kill” or “killer” can (in everyday usage) include the meaning of “murder” or “murderer” (in English, and it looks like also in Hebrew). For example, we refer to a “killer on the run” or “Hitler killed six million Jews”: meaning “murderer” and “murdered”. But the better word in this Bible passage, to make it clear what is meant, is “murder.”

That being the case, Jonathan’s entire reply here is null and void.

***

Photo credit: Moses and the Ten Commandments, by James Jacques Joseph Tissot (1836-1902) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

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Summary: Atheist Jonathan MS Pearce makes an elementary category mistake, in thinking that “thou shalt not kill” in the Ten Commandments doesn’t refer specifically to murder.

Pearce’s Potshots #67: Camels Make an Ass of a Man

March 1, 2022 By Dave Armstrong

I’m delighted to oblige his wish to receive critiques and dissenting views! The rarity of his counter-replies, however, is an oddity and curiosity in light of this desire. He wrote, for example, on 11-22-19: “[I can’t be] someone who genuinely is not interested in finding out the truth about philosophy, God and everything. If I come up against any point that is even remotely problematic to my worldview, I feel the absolute necessity to bottom it out. I need to reconcile at least something; I have work to do. I cannot simply leave it as it is. . . . I would simply have to counter the arguments, or change my position.” Whatever; this hasn’t been my experience with him; only in short and infrequent spurts. I continue to offer them in any event, because they aren’t just for his sake.

Jonathan’s words will be in blue.

*****

This is a reply to Jonathan’s article, “New Camel Domestication Research Challenges Biblical Historicity” (2-10-14).

A Tel Aviv University Press Release has built on work hinted at in Israel Finkelstein’s The Bible Unearthed which claimed that camels were not domesticated in the Ancient Near East to long after they are claimed to be existent and members of a goodly number of biblical stories. In other words, these anachronisms strongly suggest that the claims of the Bible are made up.

Sheer nonsense. As Orthodox rabbi and Bible scholar Joshua Berman wrote in his Times of Israel article, “Yes, Virginia, the Patriarchs really did ride on camels” (11-12-20):

Camels in Genesis are right where they belong. It is true that camels were not domesticated in Israel until the time of Solomon. But read Genesis carefully and you see that all its camels come from outside of Israel, from Syria, Mesopotamia, and Egypt, where there is ample evidence of domestication of the camel during the period of the patriarchs. . . .

But what about the camels that carried Joseph off to Egypt (Gen 37:25)? Here, too, Scripture tells us that the camels arrived from outside of Canaan. And just as the spices they bore surely came from the east, so, too, we may surmise, did the camels. And while Jacob rode camels on his trek back from Mesopotamia (Gen 31:17; cf. 30:43), nowhere in Genesis does anyone ride a camel originating in Canaan. In the Joseph story, the brothers descend to Egypt exclusively on donkeys (Gen 42:26–27; 43:24; 44:3, 13); that’s what people rode in Canaan. And thus when Joseph sends them to fetch Jacob, he provides them with donkeys and she-asses (Gen 45:23); those were the animals they knew how to handle. . . .

Camels in Genesis appear right where they should be in the patriarchal period — and, on that score, that’s all the news that’s fit to print.

He’s exactly right. One must distinguish between two things:

1) evidence of camels, period, vs. evidence for domesticated camels,

and

2) camels domesticated in Israel vs. camels used by Israelites / Hebrews [prior to the tenth century BC] that had come from — been domesticated — elsewhere.

Anyone can verify Rabbi Berman’s claims by closely examining (as I have done) the 55 Old Testament passages about camels, plus one reference to “dromedaries” (Is 66:20). Therefore, once one gets past their own ignorance of the biblical references to camels, one learns that nothing here is an “anachronism” or “made up.” It’s just Jonathan spinning his anti-biblical fairy tales once again.

But archaeologists have shown that camels were not domesticated in the Land of Israel until centuries after the Age of the Patriarchs (2000-1500 BCE). In addition to challenging the Bible’s historicity, this anachronism is proof that the text was compiled after the events it describes, according to researchers.

Not at all, as I shall shortly prove.

In the southern Levant, where Israel is located, the oldest known domesticated camel bones are from the Aravah Valley, which runs along the Israeli-Jordanian border from the Dead Sea to the Red Sea . . .

To determine exactly when domesticated camels appeared in the southern Levant, Sapir-Hen and Ben-Yosef used radiocarbon dating and other techniques to analyze the findings of these digs as well as several others done in the valley. In all the digs, they found that camel bones were unearthed almost exclusively in archaeological layers dating from the last third of the 10th century BCE or later . . .

The few camel bones found in earlier archaeological layers probably belonged to wild camels, which archaeologists think were in the southern Levant from the Neolithic period or even earlier. Notably, all the sites active in the 9th century in the Arava Valley had camel bones, but none of the sites that were active earlier contained them.

Having disposed of the myth of the falsely alleged claim that the Bible frequently refers to domesticated camels in Israel before the late 10th century BC, now I shall show that what archaeology has discovered (Israeli domestication “from the last third of the 10th century BCE or later”) is in remarkable agreement with what the Bible states.

1 Chronicles 5:18-21 (RSV) The Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manas’seh had valiant men, who carried shield and sword, and drew the bow, expert in war, forty-four thousand seven hundred and sixty, ready for service. [19] They made war upon the Hagrites, Jetur, Naphish, and Nodab; [20] and when they received help against them, the Hagrites and all who were with them were given into their hands, for they cried to God in the battle, and he granted their entreaty because they trusted in him. [21] They carried off their livestock: fifty thousand of their camels, . . .

The appropriated camels were owned by the Hagrites (5:19), who lived east of Gilead in present-day Jordan. Note that the Israelites “carried off fifty thousand of their camels.” That’s certainly enough to start widespread domestication in Israel. This was “in the days of Jerobo’am king of Israel” (5:17). Jeroboam was the first king of the northern kingdom of Israel (as opposed to Judah). He reigned for 22 years, sometime in the last third of the 10th century BC.

In other words, this was right before the first archaeological evidence of widespread camel use in Israel, in the 9th century BC, and precisely the archaeologically determined earliest time for widespread domestication of camels in Israel.

It’s unclear exactly where this battle took place, but assuming (which seems to me a good guess) that it was in Gilead (the place between the two sides), that area extends down to the plains of Moab to the south, which end near the northern end of the Dead Sea, at Mt. Nebo. The Dead Sea is 31 miles long, and the southern portion of the Aravah Valley starts at its south end and continues 800 miles to the Red Sea.

In other words, where the Israelites likely captured the 50,000 camels (at exactly the “right time”), is likely not far from where archaeology found the earliest evidence of widespread domestication of camels in Israel. Since camels are known to particularly thrive and be useful to human beings in desert climates, it makes sense that their first widespread bones found in Israel were in the southern section, which is a desert with an arid climate.

Thus, there is no problem of biblical inaccuracy yet again; quite the contrary! The biblical text with regard to domesticated camels fits the archaeological record to a tee. But some folks are obviously slow learners (not to mention wishful thinkers and special pleaders).

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Photo credit: Bernard Gagnon (11-7-12). Camels in Tigray Region, Ethiopia [Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license / Wikimedia Commons]

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Summary: Atheist Jonathan MS Pearce vainly tries to make the case that the Bible is “anachronistic” with regard to the domestication of camels. But he’s wrong yet again!

Pearce’s Potshots #66: Bethlehem Joseph / Census Issues

February 28, 2022 By Dave Armstrong

I’m delighted to oblige his wish to receive critiques and dissenting views! The rarity of his counter-replies, however, is an oddity and curiosity in light of this desire. He wrote, for example, on 11-22-19: “[I can’t be] someone who genuinely is not interested in finding out the truth about philosophy, God and everything. If I come up against any point that is even remotely problematic to my worldview, I feel the absolute necessity to bottom it out. I need to reconcile at least something; I have work to do. I cannot simply leave it as it is. . . . I would simply have to counter the arguments, or change my position.” Whatever; this hasn’t been my experience with him; only in short and infrequent spurts. I continue to offer them in any event, because they aren’t just for his sake.

Jonathan’s words will be in blue.

*****

In Jonathan’s article, “The hoops the Christian has to jump through to believe the Nativity” (10-29-12), he wrote:

Here are the hoops that a Christian must jump through. They are flaming hoops, and the Christian can do nothing to avoid being burnt, it seems. From my book:

In order for the Christian who believes that both accounts are factually true to uphold that faithful decree, the following steps must take place. The believer must: . . .

• Find it plausible that people would return, and find precedent for other occurrences of people returning, to their ancestral homes for a census (at an arbitrary number of generations before: 41).

• Give a probable explanation as to how a Galilean man was needed at a census in another judicial area.

• Give a plausible reason as to why Mary was required at the census (by the censors or by Joseph).

• Give a plausible explanation as to why Mary would make that 80 mile journey on donkey or on foot whilst heavily pregnant, and why Joseph would be happy to let her do that.

Jonathan makes even more extreme and pointed claims and charges (including his famous / notorious “universal negative” statements) in his related article, “The Nativity Census Challenge: Update” (12-31-17):

Here is my challenge in the form of statements that he has to address:

A client kingdom has never been taxed directly or had such censuses in the history of the Roman Empire.
When Herod was alive it was a client kingdom.
When he died, his son took over for 10 years, made a mess, and Romans took back direct control.
When they did, they held a census for tax reasons due to having a newly added directly ruled region.
There is no example in the history of censuses in the entire world of people returning to their ancestral home.
There is no need for anyone to return to their ancestral home for reasons of tax since this defeat the entire reason for having a census for tax purposes. People would necessarily move out of tax regions to other areas and so you would have no idea of the taxable value of a given region.
One Egyptian census required ITINERANT/MIGRANT workers to return to their ACTUAL homes for reasons of tax pragmatism. This is in no way analogous to the Lukan census. Going back to my actual home is different to going back to where an ancestor lived 41 generations past, no matter where it was.
The Lukan census required Joseph to return to his ancestral home of 41 generations past, no more, no less.
This would have been impossible and utterly arbitrary for everyone to know their 41 generations past ancestors (I don’t know 3 past).
This would also mean the whole of Judea could connect themselves to David.
Not one single human being in the world of apologetics, or the world, has provided a reason, let alone a good one, why people should return to their ancestral homes for a tax census (let alone at 41 generations past).
There would be a month where virtually no one would be able to work. Who would be looking after households as the whole country moved around to their ancestral homes? This would be economic suicide thus negating the whole point of a tax census, losing Romans valuable taxable money.
Women were not required at censuses.
Bethlehem is a different tax area to Nazareth. . . .

Just answer each of them so that the Lukan account of the census is the most probable theory of claim of reality.

In his article dated 6-17-14, entitled, “Why Return to an Ancestral Town for a Census?”, Jonathan cites his 2012 book, The Nativity: A Critical Examination:

[O]ne cannot help wondering what advantage there could be for the Roman state in this return, for a single day, of so many scattered individuals, not to the places of their birth, but to the original homes of their ancestors. . . . The suspicion, or rather, the conviction, is borne in upon us at first sight that the editor of Luke has simply been looking for some means of bringing Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem, in order to have Jesus born there. A hagiographer of his type never bothers much about common sense in inventing the circumstances he requires.

He goes on in his attacks on the text of Luke:

If the first option is the case (that the law or due procedure required that one returned to their ancestral home 41 generations past or similar), then we are still within the territory of patently ridiculous. Why would a man have to return to the town of an ancestor particularly 41 generations past? . . .

This is countered extremely often by apologists (so often that there is no need to reference it other than Marchant below) by appealing to a census which took place in Egypt. I have to admit extreme annoyance with this tactic, and it is employed by many revered apologists. The census in question took place in 104 CE. . . .

The problem is that this is not a permissible option and should not be used as a precedent (even if it did happen after the 6 CE census) since this required itinerant workers to return to their homes. Not, may I add, their ancestral homes either. This requirement was for workers who happened to be working away from their own house to return to where they lived for purposes of accuracy in taxation and so on. This has nothing at all to do with picking an arbitrary ancestor in your lineage and deciding to return to their home town. Simply put, this papyrus from the 104 CE Egyptian census should never be used to justify the Lucan narrative. It doesn’t hold up to scrutiny but this does not stop Christians rolling it out in virtually every discussion about the census. In logical terms it is a false analogy and therefore fallacious.

Okay! Now I shall offer some explanations and scenarios that do indeed (at least in my humble opinion) answer these charges and provide plausible alternatives. First of all, let’s examine this “ancestral town” business. What does Luke’s text actually assert?:

Luke 2:1-4 (RSV) In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled. [2] This was the first enrollment, when Quirin’i-us was governor of Syria. [3] And all went to be enrolled, each to his own city. [4] And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David,

Sometimes, things are so obvious that they can be easily (or curiously) overlooked. This text doesn’t assert that one must go to his “ancestral city” but rather, simply “to his own city.” Thus, it plainly means that Bethlehem was Joseph’s “own city”; his hometown. Verse 4 is not necessarily referring to the return to an ancestral town for enrollment, but was merely noting that Joseph was of the lineage of King David (who came from Bethlehem) which explains why Joseph lived there.

Throughout the history of the world (especially before travel became fairly easy), people have tended to live in the general area or specific town or city where their ancestors lived. We mustn’t read into the text what is not plausibly in the text (what is called eisegesis, rather than the proper exegesis). Unfortunately, even reputable commentators have done so with regard to this passage, because of several common misperceptions and partial “myths and legends” built up around it. It’s easy to assume that certain elements are in a biblical text, when in fact, upon closer examination, they are actually absent.

At this point, people may wonder, “doesn’t the Bible say that Joseph came from Nazareth?” Actually, it never does. It only asserts that Mary indeed came from there (Lk 1:26-27, 56), as did Jesus, which is why He was known as “Jesus of Nazareth” (see sixteen instances of this in RSV; cf. statements about His hometown: Mt 2:23; 4:13; 21:11; Mk 1:9; 14:67; Lk 4:16; Jn 1:46; Acts 3:6; 4:10).

We also have the evidence that Joseph and Mary resided in Bethlehem up to a year or possibly two after Jesus’ birth, at the time of the visit of the wise men (see my article, “Who First Visited Baby Jesus?” for more on why this is believed to be the case, based on solid exegesis). This fits in with the scenario of Joseph returning with (betrothed) Mary to “his own city” for the enrollment and then staying there in a house after they were married.

Thirdly, Joseph and Mary fled to Egypt when they learned of Herod’s intent to kill Jesus the Messiah (Mt 2:13-15), and remained there until Herod the Great died (2:15). When they learned of that fact, they attempted to return to their home in Bethlehem (in Judea), until they discovered that Herod’s successor might also seek to kill Jesus:

Matthew 2:21-23 And he rose and took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. [22] But when he heard that Archelaus reigned over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there, and being warned in a dream he withdrew to the district of Galilee. [23] And he went and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, . . .

That is the time (1-2 years after Jesus’ birth, plus however long they were in Egypt) where the Gospels first say that Joseph “dwelt” in Nazareth, with Mary and Jesus. But he did not at the time of the enrollment, which is the whole point. He may have had temporary residence in Mary’s house, but likely was not registered as residing in Nazareth (knowing that they would move to Bethlehem after they married: see the next section below). As far as the Roman records were aware, he lived in Bethlehem with his larger family.

Perhaps he had property that he sold, after he met Mary and lived for a time in Nazareth, or he simply moved out of his parent’s house. Many scenarios are possible. In any event, his parents and kin would have been known to be residents in Bethlehem, in which case he would be required to register there: it being his last known “official” residence, as far as Rome was concerned.

Fourthly, we have the data regarding when and where Mary was betrothed and when she was married:

Joseph went up to Bethlehem ‘with Mary, his betrothed’ (2.5, σὺν Μαριὰμ τῇ ἐμνηστευμένῃ αὐτῷ). According to Luke, Mary was still betrothed on the way to Bethlehem, but by the time she gave birth to Jesus in v. 7, she was cohabitating with Joseph. According to Jewish practices in antiquity, marriages were initiated by a betrothal (אירוסין) and finalized by a ‘home-taking’ (נישואין) in which the bride is taken to her husband’s house. [Footnote 52] Both events were celebrated by a public feast, the former at the bride’s house and the latter at the groom’s house. Accordingly, in the logic of the narrative, the point that Mary was still betrothed upon her arrival in Bethlehem (v. 5) but later cohabited with him there (v. 7) means that Bethlehem was the site of their wedding, when Joseph concluded the betrothal period by taking her into his home.

Footnote 52: There is also much literature on ancient Jewish marriage customs. Some of the most useful modern treatments include: Michael L. Satlow, Jewish Marriage in Antiquity (Princeton: Princeton University, 2001); Tal Ilan, ‘Premarital Cohabitation in Ancient Judea: The Evidence of the Babatha Archive and the Mishna (Ketubbot 1.4)’, HTR 86 (1993) 247-64; and Léonie J. Archer, Her Price is Beyond Rubies: The Jewish Woman in Graeco-Roman Palestine (JSOTSS 60; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1990). (Stephen C. Carlson, “The Accommodations of Joseph and Mary in Bethlehem: Κατάλυμα in Luke 2.7”, New Testament Studies, 56, pp. 326-342. © Cambridge University Press, 2010)

The next question then, raised by Jonathan, is whether such an enrollment (or census?) took place when Luke said it did, and whether Joseph had to travel from Nazareth to his hometown of Bethlehem to register in it.

Jewish / Roman historian Josephus, in his Antiquities of the Jews — Book XVII [“Containing the interval of 14 Years. From the death of Alexander and Aristobulus [7 BC], to the banishment of Archelaus [6 AD]”] refers to an event where “all the people of the Jews gave assurance of their good will to Cæsar, and to the King’s government”. But he notes that some of the “Pharisees: who were in a capacity of greatly opposing Kings . . . did not swear: being above six thousand.” According to Josephus, Herod the Great was still alive when this happened.

There is much dispute about the date of Herod’s death (see my collection: Quirinius & Luke’s Census: Resources on the “Difficulty”). Without digressing into that thorny question (and I deferred to others in that paper), I submit that this swearing or oath had to do with Caesar Augustus being declared by the Roman Senate Pater Patriae (“Father of the Fatherland”) in 2 BC. Roman Christian historian Orosius (c. 375/385-c. 420) referred to this event:

The greatness, novelty, and extraordinary character of the blessings in which that year abounded must, I think, surely be well enough known without my repeating them. One peace reigned over the whole earth as a result of the fact that wars had not merely ceased but had been totally abolished. After the causes of war had been wholly removed rather than merely checked, the gates of twin-faced Janus were closed. The first and greatest census was then made. The great nations of the whole world took an oath in the one name of Caesar and were joined into one fellowship through their participation in the census. (Histories Against the Pagans: Book VII: 2; adapted from the translation by I. W. Raymond [1936]

Orosius stated that “In the seven hundred and fifty-second year of the City, Christ was born.” The “City” is, of course, Rome, which was said to have been founded in 753 BC, so that Christ was born in 1 or 2 BC. 2 BC is also the year of the proclamation of Pater Patriae. Moreover, Orosius wrote that “Toward the close of the forty-second year of his [Caesar Augustus’] imperial rule . . . Christ was born”. Augustus took power in 44 BC, after Julius Caesar was murdered. So, 42 years after that also comes out to 2 BC. I am submitting that this “census” or “swear[ing]” is what Luke 2:1 refers to. It was not necessarily for taxation purposes. Rather, as Luke says, “a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled.”

K. B. Vogelman describes this year and its events:

Rome was in the height of its glory commemorating the 750^th anniversary of its founding and was the same year as the Silver Jubilee reign of Caesar Augustus [i.e., of his becoming emperor in 27 BC].

Inspired by the circumstances of 2 BC, the Senate bestowed upon their emperor the honor of Pater Patriae. Augustus considered it to be one the highlights of his reign as listed in The Deeds of Divine Augustus. To underscore this honor, prompted by the Senate, Augustus decreed a “registration” to be taken of the entire Roman Empire claiming allegiance to him as Pater Patriae. . . .

Caesar’s motivation for the “census” was to quantify the entire resources of Rome as part of his breviarium totius imperii eventually to be read at his funeral along with the unveiling of his Res gestae divi Augusti (The Deeds of Divine Augustus). (“An Unusual Roman Census Decree By Caesar Augustus”, The Odds, 8-5-18)

Would this entail Joseph traveling some 90 miles to Bethlehem (its having been established above as his hometown)? Yes. We have two pieces of evidence showing that this was standard procedure with regard to a Roman census or registration. Gaius Vibius Maximus, the Roman prefect of Egypt, which was under Roman jurisdiction from 30 BC to 641 AD. In other words, Egypt was in a similar situation as 1st-century Judea or Israel. Vibius’ decree, dated 104 AD and discovered in 1907, read:

As a house-to-house registration has been authorized, it is necessary to order all persons absent from their homes for any reason whatsoever to return to their homes that they may perform the customary business of registration and may apply themselves to the cultivation of the land, as is their proper duty. [see also an alternate English translation] (from the British Library Papyrus 904)

The second evidence is called Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 255, discovered in 1897 and dated to 48 AD. It reads:

I Thermoutharion along with Apollonius, my guardian, pledge an oath to Tiberius Claudius Caesar that the preceding document gives an accurate account of those returning, who live in my household, and that there is no one else living with me, neither a foreigner, nor an Alexandrian, nor a freedman, nor a Roman citizen, nor an Egyptian. If I am telling the truth, may it be well with me, but if falsely, the reverse. In the ninth year of the reign of Tiberius Claudius Augustus Germanicus Emperor.

This backs up Luke’s contention that “all went to be enrolled, each to his own city” (2:3). Most of Jonathan’s accusatory claims are, therefore, already refuted. This wasn’t technically a Roman census, and so wasn’t directly about taxes. But the general principle would seem to apply: that people had to travel to their hometowns to participate in enrollments, registrations, oaths, etc. It has nothing to do with “ancestral homes”: so that whole line of histrionic rhetoric from Jonathan is one long (albeit rather entertaining) non sequitur.

The next question raised by Jonathan and atheists and skeptics in general, is whether Mary would have been required to go with him. I would say she clearly wasn’t (in a legal sense), since her home was Nazareth, and she could participate there. But, as noted above, she was betrothed to Joseph, so she essentially had no choice but to go to Bethlehem with Joseph, since he was required to, and since that was where their marriage ceremony was to be held. It could also be noted that potentially many in Nazareth who didn’t understand the virgin birth, would have insulted and ostracized Mary, the longer she was pregnant and “showing” more and more: and with no Joseph around to defend and protect her.

But how about an almost-ready-to-deliver Mary making such a trip (some 90 miles on a donkey)? Is that not cruel and heartless, if she wasn’t required to go? This is where we must, again, look at the biblical text more closely:

Luke 2:5-6 to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. [6] And while they were there, the time came for her to be delivered.

Note that the text never says 1) that she was 8-9 months pregnant on the journey, or 2) that she delivered the baby Jesus as soon as they arrived in Bethlehem (like all the movies assume). All we know from these two verses is that 1) she was pregnant while making the journey, and 2) she delivered the baby Jesus in Bethlehem. We know not a thing about how far along in her pregnancy she was, or how long they were in Bethlehem before she bore baby Jesus. It’s all mere groundless assumptions and speculations. So Jonathan can stop all the crocodile tears over this alleged event.

It still remains, however, to explain how it is that Mary and Joseph couldn’t simply stay with his kinfolk once they arrived in Bethlehem. What is this business of “no place for them in the inn”: as most translations describe it? Well, amazingly enough, maybe they did stay with relatives, and maybe the text doesn’t rule that out. Stephen C. Carlson (cited above) makes the case:

[N]either the Greek term κατάλυμα [kataluma] in Luke 2.7 nor even its Vulgate rendering diversorium necessarily means an ‘inn’ as evident from the use of the same term in Luke 22.11 referring to an upper room. Moreover, there would have been no need for an inn, . . . because Joseph had to return to his own town according to the decree, so he must have had family—if not his own house—in Bethlehem where he could stay. . . . [Nor] would [there] have been a throng of census registrants descending upon Bethlehem because subjects did not need to register on a specific day. . . .

The NT usage of κατάλυμα apart from Luke 2.7 coheres with its having a broad meaning. At both Luke 22.11 and its parallel at Mark 14.14, Jesus instructs his disciples to ask a man carrying a jar in Jerusalem about accommodations for eating the Passover: ποῦ ἐστιν τὸ κατάλυμα. Translations usually render this instance of κατάλυμα rather specifically as ‘guest room’, but the generality of κατάλυμα is evident from the further specification in both Luke and Mark that the place to stay is a ‘large, furnished upper room’ (ἀνάγαιον μέγα ἐστρωμένον). We know that κατάλυμα refers to a ‘guest room’ in this context, not because the sense of the word is so specific, rather because the context makes its reference specific. Moreover, when Luke wanted to be specific about an inn, as in the parable of the Good Samaritan, the author used a precise term, πανδοχεῖον (Luke 10.34). . . .

A translation faithful to the sense of κατάλυμα should be satisfied with merely stating that it was a ‘place to stay’ or ‘accommodations’. . . .

The problem facing Joseph and Mary in the story was not that they were denied a particular or well-known place to stay when they first arrived, but that their place to stay was not such that it could accommodate the birth and neonatal care of the baby Jesus. . . .

[T]he entire clause should be rendered as ‘because they did not have space in their accommodations’ or ‘because they did not have room in their place to stay’. This clause means that Jesus had to be born and laid in a manger because the place where Joseph and Mary were staying did not have space for him. . . .

In accordance with contemporary norms of hospitality, Luke’s audience would have expected Joseph’s relatives in his own town to have provided a place to stay for him and Mary if he had no house of his own. . . .

[M]angers were also found in the main rooms of first-century Judean village houses. Typically, the main room was divided into two sections at different elevations separated by about a meter. The animals were housed in the lower section, the people slept in the upper section, and mangers were located between them. These village houses, moreover, could have a small room, either on the roof or on the side, which accommodated family members and guests. . . .

Accordingly, the element of Luke’s narrative that the place where Joseph and Mary were staying had no room to accommodate a newborn or a manger (v. 7) suggests to the reader that they had been staying in one of these small rooms built on top of, or onto the side of, a village family home, and that delivery itself took place in the larger, main room of the house. (Carlson, ibid.)

With this explanation, which I find entirely plausible and in accord with the biblical text, Jonathan’s collection of insults of the biblical text (and those who believe them) are, I believe, successfully refuted.

I learned so many things during the course of this research. I love that about apologetics: we apologists learn while we are seeking to reply to critics of Christianity, and to give aid to Christians and others who wonder about the same things. We learn and then share. I suggest and highly recommend that Jonathan learn from these arguments, too, and retract what has been shown to be false in his presentation on the Nativity. He only gains by that, as anyone does by following truth and facts wherever they lead. It’s a “win” and not a “loss” for someone to be corrected. I’m certainly very grateful when someone corrects me. The last thing I want to do is convey false information.

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See also the excellent related article by Catholic apologist Jimmy Akin: “The Enrollment of Jesus’ Birth” (Jimmy Akin.com, 3-9-22).

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Photo credit: St Joseph with the Infant Jesus, by Guido Reni (1575-1642) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

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Summary: Atheist Jonathan MS Pearce unleashed a host of accusations regarding Bethlehem Joseph / Census Issues. I believe that I have refuted them one-by-one.

Pearce’s Potshots #65: Who First Visited Baby Jesus?

February 26, 2022 By Dave Armstrong

I’m delighted to oblige his wish to receive critiques and dissenting views! The rarity of his counter-replies, however, is an oddity and curiosity in light of this desire. He wrote, for example, on 11-22-19: “[I can’t be] someone who genuinely is not interested in finding out the truth about philosophy, God and everything. If I come up against any point that is even remotely problematic to my worldview, I feel the absolute necessity to bottom it out. I need to reconcile at least something; I have work to do. I cannot simply leave it as it is. . . . I would simply have to counter the arguments, or change my position.” Whatever; this hasn’t been my experience with him; only in short and infrequent spurts. I continue to offer them in any event, because they aren’t just for his sake.

Jonathan’s words will be in blue.

*****

This is a reply to a portion of Jonathan’s article, “The hoops the Christian has to jump through to believe the Nativity” (10-29-12):

Here are the hoops that a Christian must jump through. They are flaming hoops, and the Christian can do nothing to avoid being burnt, it seems. From my book:

In order for the Christian who believes that both accounts are factually true to uphold that faithful decree, the following steps must take place. The believer must: . . .

• Believe that there is (and provide it) a reasonable explanation as to why each Gospel provides different first witnesses (shepherds and magi) without any mention of the other witnesses.

This is an easy one, and it is remarkable to me that Jonathan has made such a basic error as regards the Gospel accounts. First of all, we find the usual sloppy logical thinking in atheist attacks on the Bible. Neither Matthew nor Luke claim that the shepherds or the wise men (magi) were the “first” to witness the baby Jesus. That’s an invention that Jonathan somehow came up with (who knows how?).

And this is a key factor in determining whether an alleged “contradiction” is present. Let me elaborate a bit if I may. If Matthew had said that the wise men were the “first” to visit baby Jesus and Luke said that the shepherds were the ‘first” to do so, then that would have been a true, clear contradiction. But of course neither account says any such thing.

This is so obvious that Jonathan himself even hosted Bible skeptic Bart Ehrman on his blog, making exactly the same point I just made, and contradicting his own:

Of course some of the differences are simply … differences, not “contradictions.” As an obvious example, the fact that Luke mentions the shepherds but not the magi (wise men) and that Matthew mentions the magi but not the shepherds is not a contradiction. If both groups visited the infant Jesus, then Luke mentioned one group and Matthew the other: no contradiction. (Ehrman on the Nativity, 10-29-13)

Somehow, Ehrman avoided the (what did Jonathan call it?) “flaming hoops” and he — inexplicably — managed to navigate this extraordinarily difficult logical conundrum without being “burnt.”

Right after Luke reports that Mary gave birth to Jesus (Lk 2:7), it’s reported that angels inform the shepherds of the birth of Jesus on that very night (Lk 2:8-14). Then the shepherds determined to go see baby Jesus, and indeed did so (Lk 2:15-16). We know that this was the night of Jesus’ birth, complete with his lying in the famous “manger” (Lk 2:7).

Nothing is said about their being the first visitors. They may have been, but we can’t know for sure from the text. They could have been the first or the fifth, or the only ones on that night. From the text we can’t determine those things. And there is no imaginary obligation for a text to mention any or all other visitors too. All we know for sure is that they visited shortly after He was born.

With the wise men (Mt 2:1-11), what Jonathan appears unaware of is that they didn’t visit on the night of Jesus’ birth. No doubt he would appeal to Matthew 2:1: “Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, . . . ” (RSV). But this is one of the thousands of cases in the Bible where the intended meaning was not literal. Many Bible translations bring out more clearly the actual intent, that the incidents about to be recorded were some time after Jesus’ birth, not at the time of His birth:

CSB / CEB / EHV / ESV / ESVUK / HCSB / LEB / MEV / Mounce After Jesus was born in Bethlehem . . .

Darby / DNLT Now Jesus having been born in Bethlehem . . .

ERV Jesus was born in the town of Bethlehem in Judea during the time when Herod was king. After Jesus was born, some wise men from the east came to Jerusalem.

GW Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea when Herod was king. After Jesus’ birth wise men from the east arrived in Jerusalem.

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GNT Jesus was born in the town of Bethlehem in Judea, during the time when Herod was king. Soon afterward, some men who studied the stars came from the East to Jerusalem

ICB . . . After Jesus was born, some wise men from the east came to Jerusalem.

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ISV / NCB After Jesus had been born in Bethlehem . . .

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Phillips Jesus was born in Bethlehem, in Judea, in the days when Herod was king of the province. Not long after his birth there arrived from the east a party of astrologers

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MSG / NASB / NET / NIV / NKJV After Jesus was born in Bethlehem . . . [source]

Here’s a few more from my Bible collection:

Weymouth / Goodspeed Now after the birth of Jesus . . .

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NEB / REB . . . After his birth . . .

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NRSV . . . after Jesus was born . . .

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Barclay When Jesus had been born . . .

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Wuest Now, Jesus having been born . . .

When the magi stopped by, Jesus was a toddler. The word for child in Matthew 2:8-9 is paidion (Strong’s word #3813): defined as “a young child . . . properly, a child under training; the diminutive form of 3816 /país (“child”). . . . implies a younger child (perhaps seven years old or younger). Some scholars apply 3816 (país) to a son or daughter up to 20 years old.”

“Babe” on the other hand (Lk 2:12, 16 in RSV and KJV) is Strong’s word #1025, brephos: which means: “an unborn or a newborn child” and is used of children in the womb in Luke 1:41, 44. In Luke 2, it’s the day of Jesus’ birth (Lk 2:7, 11). So the use of “babe” (2:12, 16) and “child” (2:17) in English (RSV) obviously includes the meaning here of “newborn.” Commentators generally believe He was two years old or younger when the wise men visited, but in any event, not a newborn.

But Jonathan cites one Julian Haydon on his blog, making the same dumb mistake he made, including noting that “it is something I brought up in my last book” [on the Nativity]:

[T]he wise men knew to follow it [Star of Bethlehem] to find the baby Jesus, . . . Why didn’t the “miracle” of the star lead the wise men to baby Jesus in the first place . . .? (Slaughter of the innocents, 11-10-13, my italics)

Two years later, Jonathan was still trotting out this falsehood on his blog:

Herod is not likely to have troubled himself with the newborn . . . On pain of death, those Magi would have led him to the baby. . . . In fact, unless God only magically made the star visible to the Magi, the whole of Jerusalem could have gone to see the newborn Messiah; . . . (Response to Triablogue’s Jason Engwer on Nativity Accounts (Part 1), 12-20-14; my italics)

We know that this error is also present in his 2012 book, The Nativity: A Critical Examination because he cites part of it (p. 146) in a blog post dated 12-14-14:

[W]hy would catching a newborn and murdering this newborn, thereby forcing him to murder many other infants, be something that such an old king would bother to do? (my italics)

The magi visit a “house” (Mt 2:11), not a baby in a “manger” (Lk 2:7, 12, 16), in a place which was, in fact, very much a cave (I’ve been there). There are no angels (Lk 2:9-10, 13-15), shepherds (Lk 2:8, 15-18), or animals are in sight. The star of Bethlehem is a factor in Matthew’s account only. Luke never mentions it. The picture of the star of Bethlehem shining down on baby Jesus (surprisingly enough) is not biblical at all. Scholars believe that Jesus was possibly as old as two years old, based on Matthew 2:16 (RSV):

Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, was in a furious rage, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time which he had ascertained from the wise men.

Herod felt “tricked” because they had departed the country by then (2:12-13). What he “ascertained from the wise men” was that Jesus was up to two years old. See also 2:7: “Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star appeared”. I think they may have said He was a year old, and that Herod then ordered all children under two to be killed, to be sure He killed the Messiah, based on His estimated age given to him by the magi.

Since these are two completely separate events and visitations, Jonathan’s “difficulty” and alleged “contradiction” vanishes.

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Photo credit: 27707 (1-20-16) [Pixabay / Pixabay License]

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Summary: Atheist JMS Pearce claims that the NT contradictorily teaches that both the shepherds & wise men first visited baby Jesus. In fact, the latter visited 1-2 years later.

Pearce’s Potshots #64: Archaeology & 1st Century Nazareth

February 25, 2022 By Dave Armstrong

I’m delighted to oblige his wish to receive critiques and dissenting views! The rarity of his counter-replies, however, is an oddity and curiosity in light of this desire. He wrote, for example, on 11-22-19: “[I can’t be] someone who genuinely is not interested in finding out the truth about philosophy, God and everything. If I come up against any point that is even remotely problematic to my worldview, I feel the absolute necessity to bottom it out. I need to reconcile at least something; I have work to do. I cannot simply leave it as it is. . . . I would simply have to counter the arguments, or change my position.” Whatever; this hasn’t been my experience with him; only in short and infrequent spurts. I continue to offer them in any event, because they aren’t just for his sake.

Jonathan’s words will be in blue.

*****

First, I reply to a portion of Jonathan’s article, “The hoops the Christian has to jump through to believe the Nativity” (10-29-12):

Here are the hoops that a Christian must jump through. They are flaming hoops, and the Christian can do nothing to avoid being burnt, it seems. From my book:

In order for the Christian who believes that both accounts are factually true to uphold that faithful decree, the following steps must take place. The believer must: . . .

• Believe that, despite archaeological evidence, Nazareth existed as a proper settlement at the time of Jesus’ birth.

Nazareth was a very small town when Jesus was born. When my wife and I visited there in 2014, our tour guide told us that it was scarcely as large as the parking lot of the Church of the Annunciation there. But it’s been excavated to the time of Jesus.

Skeptics (like Jonathan) for many years have asserted that Nazareth didn’t exist at all in His time. Their judgments are premature and erroneous, as usual. Amanda Borschel-Dan, reporter for The Times of Israel, wrote an article about this topic and the latest archaeology:

Nazareth. . . as British-Israeli archaeologist Yardenna Alexandre notes . . .,the once small village with huge name recognition existed well before and well after [Jesus’] lifetime. . . .

Among her digs, in 2009, Alexandre discovered the first example of a residential building from the time of Jesus. It was found near today’s Church of the Annunciation, . . . In her report, Alexandre describes the structure as “a simple house comprising small rooms and an inner courtyard was inhabited in the late Hellenistic and the Early Roman periods [late 2nd c. BC to early or mid 2nd c. AD].” . . .

Among the artifacts is a coin of Emperor Claudius that was uncovered on the floor of a corridor that led into a three-story pit complex. According to the report, “The coin was minted in ‘Akko-Ptolemais in 50–51 CE. (“What do we know about Nazareth in Jesus’ time? An archaeologist explains”, The Times of Israel, 22 July 2020)

Here is also my reply to the relevant portion of Jonathan’s article, “Jesus the “Nazarene”: More Prophecy Debate” (12-18-20).

I went to Raymond Brown, the famous Catholic exegete whom I highly rate (all quotes from The Birth of the Messiah, 1977, London: Geoffrey Chapman). . . . He also accepts that no mention of Nazareth exists in pre-Christian writings (p. 207) and so it would be odd for a place that seems not to have existed yet to fits coherently into an OT prophecy. This also coheres with Rene Salm’s thesis in The Myth of Nazareth: The Invented Town of Jesus that Nazareth did not exist at the time of Jesus, according to archaeological analysis, and not until at least 70 CE.

Really? That would come as big news to the folks described in this article: “New archaeological evidence from Nazareth reveals religious and political environment in era of Jesus” (David Keys, Independent, 4-17-20). They actually do science, rather than sit in armchairs and make historically and archaeologically clueless remarks about towns and people like Jesus not existing or never existing:

[T]he archaeological investigation revealed that in Nazareth itself, in the middle of the first century AD, anti-Roman rebels created a sizeable network of underground hiding places and tunnels underneath the town – big enough to shelter at least 100 people. . . .

The new archaeological investigation – the largest ever carried out into Roman period Nazareth – has revealed that Jesus’s hometown is likely to have been considerably bigger than previously thought. It probably had a population of up to 1,000 (rather than just being a small-to-medium sized village of 100-500, as previously thought).

“Our new investigation has transformed archaeological knowledge of Roman Nazareth,” said Dr Dark, who has just published the results of his research in a new book Roman-Period and Byzantine Nazareth and its Hinterland. . . .

The newly emerging picture of Roman-period Nazareth as a place of substantial religiosity does, however, resonate not only with the emergence of its most famous son, Jesus, but also with the fact that, in the mid-first or second century, it was chosen as the official residence of one of the high priests of the by-then-destroyed Temple in Jerusalem, when all 24 of those Jewish religious leaders were driven into exile in Galilee.

See also: “Did First-Century Nazareth Exist?” (Bryan Windle, Bible Archaeology Report, 8-9-18), “Archaeologists: Jesus-Era House Found In Nazareth” (NPR, 12-21-09); also several related articles from a Google search. Did it exist before Jesus’ time? It looks like it did:

The Franciscan priest Bellarmino Bagatti, “Director of Christian Archaeology”, carried out extensive excavation of this “Venerated Area” from 1955 to 1965. Fr. Bagatti uncovered pottery dating from the Middle Bronze Age (2200 to 1500 BC) and ceramics, silos and grinding mills from the Iron Age (1500 to 586 BC) which indicated substantial settlement in the Nazareth basin at that time. (Wikipedia, “Nazareth”)

That’s science. Sorry to disappoint! Jonathan then goes on to describe several more of the numerous possibly hypotheses of Fr. Raymond Brown. He has many theories; so do many others. Archaeology, in contrast, deals with ascertainable historical facts of settlement and other evidences of human presence, based on concrete artifacts.

If you take into account Salm’s whole thesis (which you don’t have to go that far), it didn’t even exist at the time of Jesus (work that wasn’t available to Brown in his life, and was followed up in 2015 with NazarethGate: Quack Archeology, Holy Hoaxes, and the Invented Town of Jesus). I also genuinely find some of the arguments more forceful (such as quoted from Brown above). . . . (since it is a real squeeze to even get archaeology that supports it existing in Jesus’ time).

Take that up with the folks doing the latest “digs” going on in Nazareth now. I go with current science, not desperate atheist myths, made up on the fly (or any fringe Christian conspiracist myths, either).

The Jerusalem Post published an article, “Have archaeologists found Jesus’s childhood home in Nazareth?” (Hannah Brown, 11-27-20):

The location of the home where Jesus, Mary and Joseph lived in Nazareth when Jesus was a child may have been discovered by Prof. Ken Dark of the University of Reading in England, according to research Dark wrote about in his recently published book, The Sisters of Nazareth Convent: A Roman-period, Byzantine, and Crusader site in central Nazareth, which is available from Routledge Press.

Dark, who has spent more than a decade studying the first century ruins that are underneath a modern-day convent, said this spot was first suggested as the home of Jesus and his family in the 19th century but that archaeologists in the 1930s did not find the idea credible.

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However, the professor was intrigued and launched a project to explore the site 14 years ago. “I didn’t go to Nazareth to find the house of Jesus, I was actually doing a study of the city’s history as a Byzantine Christian pilgrimage center,” he told the BBC. “Nobody could have been more surprised than me.” . . .

“I haven’t said that this was certainly the ‘house of Jesus,’ just that it was probably the structure believed by Christians from the fourth century at latest to be that house, and that there is no archaeological reason why that identification is necessarily impossible.”

The evidence is so strong for the existence of Nazareth during the time of Jesus’ childhood (early 1st century AD), that even the biblical skeptic Bart Ehrman, who denies the divinity of Jesus and asserts that He never claimed to be God, defends it (and rather well at that):

One question I repeatedly get asked is about my opinion on whether the town of Nazareth actually existed. I was puzzled when I started getting emails on this, some years ago now. What I came to realize is that mythicists (i.e., those who think that there never was a man Jesus; he was invented, a “myth”) commonly argue that Nazareth (like Jesus) was completely made up. . . .

One supposedly legendary feature of the Gospels commonly discussed by mythicists is that the alleged hometown of Jesus, Nazareth did not exist but is itself a myth. The logic of this argument, which is sometimes advanced with considerable vehemence and force, appears to be that if Christians made up Jesus’ hometown, they probably made him up as well. . . .

[René] Salm’s basic argument is that Nazareth did exist in more ancient times and through the Bronze Age.   But then there was a hiatus. It ceased to exist and did not exist in Jesus’ day. Based on archaeological evidence, especially the tombs found in the area, Salm claims that the town came to be re-inhabited sometime between the two Jewish revolts (i.e., between 70 CE and 132 CE), as Jews who resettled following the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans relocated in northern climes. . . .

There are numerous compelling pieces of archaeological evidence that in fact Nazareth did exist in Jesus’ day, and that like other villages and towns in that part of Galilee, it was built on the hillside, near where the later rock-cut kokh tombs were built.   For one thing, archaeologists have excavated a farm connected with the village, and it dates to the time of Jesus. Salm disputes the finding of the archaeologists who did the excavation (it needs to be remembered, he himself is not an archaeologist but is simply basing his views on what the real archaeologists – all of whom disagree with him — have to say). . . .

Salm also claims that the pottery found on the site that is dated to the time of Jesus is not really from this period, even though he is not an expert on pottery. Two archaeologists who reply to Salm’s protestations say the following: “Salm’s personal evaluation of the pottery … reveals his lack of expertise in the area as well as his lack of serious research in the sources.”   They go on to state: “By ignoring or dismissing solid ceramic, numismatic [that is, coins], and literary evidence for Nazareth’s existence during the Late Hellenistic and Early Roman period, it would appear that the analysis which René Salm includes in his review, and his recent book must, in itself, be relegated to the realm of ‘myth.’” (“Did Nazareth Exist?”, The Bart Ehrman Blog, March 1, 2015)

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Photo credit: Laura Dahl (12-22-05), Young Jesus Teaching at the Temple [Flickr / CC BY-NC 2.0 license]

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Summary: Atheist & anti-theist Jonathan MS Pearce flatly denies the plain evidence regarding archaeology & 1st century Nazareth. Its existence is abundantly confirmed.