Joshua’s Conquest: Rapid, Always Violent, & Total?

May 1, 2023 By Dave Armstrong

This is a reply to a guest article on Jonathan MS Pearce’s atheist blog, by “Lex Lata”: a sharp and civil atheist commentator (a professor?), with whom I have had some stimulating dialogue now and then. It’s entitled, “Canaan begat Israel: What the Bible gets wrong about Hebrew origins” (4-16-23). His words will be in blue; those of others whom he cites in green.

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Per the title, the article is primarily a series of contentions based on (from where I sit) one false premise: that the Bible supposedly teaches a rapid, altogether violent, and total destruction of Canaanite cities and culture by the conquering Israelites, with no gradualism of either a cultural or military / “taking over” nature. Here is a collection of those sorts of statements (bear in mind that mere repetition of a falsehood makes it no less of a falsehood):

1) [R]egiments of Hebrews did not swoop in under Joshua’s command and take or destroy city after city in the space of a generation. Rather, the evidence converges on a more gradual and less violent process.

2) [T]his planned eradication unfolds more-or-less resoundingly and swiftly in the book of Joshua . . . City after city falls to Joshua’s forces.

3) The preponderance of the evidence points to a process not of familial/tribal segregation followed by wholesale, bloody conquest, but of demographic evolution and differentiation, of continuity with change . . .

4) As for the traditional Conquest narrative, on the whole, it does not fare well in the light of modern fieldwork and analysis. Archaeologist William Dever (a careful and caustic academic moderate after my own heart) not long ago surveyed the material alignments and misalignments between the biblical account and the archaeological record at Ai, Arad, Dibon, Hazor, Heshbon, Jericho, and other key sites in his magnum opus about what the Bible gets right and what it gets wrong, Beyond the Texts: An Archaeological Portrait of Ancient Israel and Judah. [2017]

5) [I]n the light of the overwhelming archaeological evidence, there was no large-scale warfare on the thirteenth- and twelfth-century horizon, except that initiated by the Philistines along the coast . . . . The inevitable conclusion is that the book of Joshua is nearly all fictitious, of little or no value to the historian. It is largely a legend celebrating the supposed exploits of a local folk hero. [Dever, ibid., 185-186]

6) [T]here is little that we can salvage from Joshua’s stories of the rapid, wholesale destruction of Canaanite cities and the annihilation of the local population. It simply did not happen; the archaeological evidence is indisputable. . . . there simply was no Israelite conquest of most of Canaan . . . . There was no wholesale conquest, no need for it. [Dever, Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From? (2003), 227-228]

This motif sounds fine and dandy and all wrapped up in a neat little bow, that is, until we discover that the Bible and “maximalist” archaeologists who take the Bible seriously as a profoundly trustworthy historical document, do not actually believe in this myth, as constructed by anti-theist atheists and biblical minimalists. Did you notice how Lex Lata didn’t cite even one individual Bible verse in its entirety? He never got down to Bible specifics and serious analysis of the actual texts involved. I shall correct this serious deficiency presently.

Now, it must be granted that there is a kernel of truth in what Lex states (as in all good grand falsehoods). There are indeed biblical statements that, prima facie, sound as if a sweeping, quick, violent conquest of Canaan took place. For example:

Joshua 10:40-42 (RSV) So Joshua defeated the whole land, the hill country and the Negeb and the lowland and the slopes, and all their kings; he left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the LORD God of Israel commanded. And Joshua defeated them from Kadesh-barnea to Gaza, and all the country of Goshen, as far as Gibeon. And Joshua took all these kings and their land at one time, because the LORD God of Israel fought for Israel. [Joshua’s “southern campaign”]

Joshua 11:16-18, 23 So Joshua took all that land, the hill country and all the Negeb and all the land of Goshen and the lowland and the Arabah and the hill country of Israel and its lowland from Mount Halak, that rises toward Seir, as far as Baal-gad in the valley of Lebanon below Mount Hermon. And he took all their kings, and smote them, and put them to death. Joshua made war a long time with all those kings. [Joshua’s “northern campaign”]

Joshua 21:43-44 Thus the LORD gave to Israel all the land which he swore to give to their fathers; and having taken possession of it, they settled there. And the LORD gave them rest on every side just as he had sworn to their fathers; not one of all their enemies had withstood them, for the LORD had given all their enemies into their hands.

Seems pretty clear, doesn’t it? But it’s not so simple — and it isn’t because it’s a question of how to interpret biblical language and rhetoric in context. The Bible can be literal and it can be non-literal and poetic, including rhetorical exaggeration. Maximalist Egyptologist and archaeologist Kenneth Kitchen explains:

It is the careless reading of such verses as these, without a careful and close reading of the narratives proper, that has encouraged Old Testament scholars to read into the entire book a whole myth of their own making, to the effect that the book of Joshua presents a sweeping, total conquest and occupation of Canaan by Joshua . . . based on the failure to recognize and understand ancient use of rhetorical summations. The “alls” are qualified in the Hebrew narrative itself. In 10:20 we learn that Joshua and his forces massively slew their foes “until they were finished off” . . ., but in the same breath the text states that “the remnant that survived got away into the defended towns.” . . .

Then we have a series of notices which indicate that, already under Joshua, the tribesfolk could not easily take possession of the territories raided; cf. such as 15:63; 16:10; 17:12-13, 18; Joshua’s still later critique, 18:3, before the second allotment; 19:47 . . . So there is no total occupation shown to be achieved under Joshua himself . . .

The type of rhetoric in question is a regular feature of military reports in the second and first millennia, as others have made very clear. . . . It is in this frame of reference that the Joshua rhetoric must also be understood. (1)

The text of Joshua does not imply huge and massive fiery destructions of every site visited (only Jericho, Ai, and Hazor were burned).” (2)

Prominent maximalist archaeologist James K. Hoffmeier concurs:

Joshua does not describe a widespread destruction of the land. Rather, as Joshua admits (13:1), there was still much land not in Israelite hands, and the book proceeds to outline those areas (vv. 2–8). . . . Contrary to a blitzkrieg and “whirlwind annihilation” conquest . . . as understood by some critical readers of Joshua, quite the opposite is reported. . . .

A careful reading of the text of Joshua suggests a far more modest military outcome than those advanced by twentieth-century biblical scholars either supporting or critiquing the conquest model. (3)

The idea of a group of tribes coming to Canaan, using some military force, partially taking a number of cities and areas over a period of some years, destroying (burning) just three cities, and coexisting alongside the Canaanites and other ethnic groups for a period of
time before the beginnings of monarchy does not require blind faith. (4)

A close look at the terms dealing with warfare in Joshua 10 reveals that they do not support the interpretation that the land of Canaan and its principal cities were demolished and devastated by the Israelites. (5)

Since hyperbole . . . was a regular feature of Near Eastern military reporting, the failure of Miller, Dever, Redford, and others to recognize the hyperbolic nature of such statements in Joshua is ironic because the charge usually leveled at maximalist historians is that they take the text too literally. As a consequence of this failure, these historical minimalists have committed “the fallacy of misplaced literalism” that Fischer defines as “the misconstruction of a statement-in-evidence so that it carries a literal meaning when a symbolic or hyperbolic or figurative meaning was intended.” (6) (7)

The idea that the Israelites would have destroyed and leveled cities indiscriminately, makes little sense for they intended to live in this land. A scorched-earth policy is only logical for a conqueror who has no thought of occupying the devastated land. (8)

The Bible portrays a limited conquest of key sites in strategic areas . . . there are regions that the Bible clearly claims were not conquered. These include the territory later taken by the philistines along the southern coast of Canaan, and north to Phoenicia and the Mount Hermon region (Joshua 13:1). Furthermore, there are pockets within north an central Canaan that were not seized. These city-states include Jerusalem (Joshua 15:63), Gezer (Joshua 16:10), Dor, Megiddo, Taanach, Beth Shan and the fertile Jezreel Valley (Joshua 17:11, 16). . . . Clearly the Bible does not claim a maximal conquest and demolition of Canaan as Albright and others believed. (9)

But Lex Lata goes far beyond this error at the level of premise. He cites minimalist archaeologist Dever, absurdly maintaining that “the book of Joshua is nearly all fictitious, of little or no value to the historian. It is largely a legend . . .” I am the author of the book, The Word Set in Stone: How Archaeology, Science, and History Back Up the Bible (Catholic Answers Press: March 15, 2023). It’s doing quite well on Amazon as I write (4-29-23), with Kindle ratings of #9 in Religious Antiquities & Archaeology, #12 in Christian History, and #81 in Christian Historical Theology.

In this book, I massively cite factual archaeological data, with regard to (among many other things) Joshua’s “conquest,” which was quite real and historically substantiated; just not as rapid and total as Lex wrongly believes Christian scholars and maximalist archaeologists think. I devote a 14-page chapter to the topic and an additional related 12-page Appendix.

I painstakingly go over many many individual cities mentioned in the Bible in conjunction with Joshua and warfare or “cultural domination,” that have now been excavated, showing how archaeology is — despite Dever’s false presupposition-driven mythmaking — in more or less complete accord with the biblical accounts. But the maximalists and believers in biblical inspiration such as myself, and the Bible, as shown, do not characterize the entire “conquest” as Lex claims they do. He’s caricaturing and warring with straw men.

Secondly, a sub-theme of this motif of gradualism and process rather than swift and total change is Lex’s contention that Hebrew evolved in large part from Canaanite precursors:

1) . . . continuity with change—not only in material culture (such as pottery), but also in language, . . .

2) [T]he Canaanite origins of Israelite language, . . . remain clearly evident in the literary and archaeological remains of ancient Israel and Judah. [Lester L. Grabbe, The Dawn of Israel: A History of Canaan in the Second Millennium BCE (2022), 281]

3) Scholars of ancient Semitic languages tell us archaic Hebrew began as a dialect that branched out from the Northwest Semitic Canaanite tongue. . . . (In fact, the shared linguistic pedigree allowed the Hebrews and other Northwest Semitic ethnolinguistic groups to readily adopt the Phoenician alphabet for their own writings.) Notably, Semitic philologists see no evidence of the sort of abrupt linguistic domination, displacement, or disruption that external conquerors generally precipitate . . .

But I’m unaware of any important Christian linguistic scholar or expert on the Ancient Near East or “biblical maximalist” archaeologist who would deny this. Nor am I aware of anything in the Bible (maybe I missed something) that would imply such a thing. Certainly there is no claim along the lines of “Hebrew developed completely separately from Canaanite languages!” So it’s a clear straw man in the article: regarding both biblical claims and supposed beliefs of the relevant Christian scholars. In sum, then, Lex contends that there is strong disagreement here when in fact there is little or none.

For example, as just one of numerous statements of this sort made by Kitchen, here is one I cite in my book (page 86). It clearly shows that this area is not one of disagreement among minimalist and maximalist archaeologists (and Kitchen is widely considered the greatest of the latter class of scholars):

From the fourteenth/thirteenth century onward, the [Canaanite] alphabet could be freely used for any form of communication. The contemporary north Semitic texts found at Ugarit in north Phoenicia illustrate this to perfection. . . . The Amarna evidence [c. 1360–1332 B.C.] and handful of pottery finds prove clearly that Canaanite was the dominant local tongue and could be readily expressed in alphabetic writing. . . . During the two centuries that followed, circa 1200–1000, standard Hebrew evolved out of this form of Canaanite, probably being fully formed by David’s time. Copies of older works such as Deuteronomy or Joshua would be recopied, modernizing outdated grammatical forms and spellings. (10)

Thirdly, Lex claims that early Israelite religion was polytheistic, in line with that of most of the surrounding nations:

1) The preponderance of the evidence points to . . . demographic evolution and differentiation, of continuity with change . . . in . . . religious beliefs and practices.

2) [T]he Canaanite origins of Israelite . . . religion remain clearly evident in the literary and archaeological remains of ancient Israel and Judah. [Grabbe, ibid.]

3) [T]he early henotheistic or monolatrous form of Israelite religion was, in many respects, “essentially the Northwest Semitic religion shared by Canaanites and others in the region.” [Grabbe, ibid., 232; Grabbe, Ancient Israel: What Do We Know and How Do We Know it? (2017), 127; Mark S. Smith, The Early History of God: Yahweh and Other Deities of Ancient Israel (2^nd ed., 2002), 28-31]. The Bible itself retains vestiges of the polytheistic Divine Council common to cultures of the Ancient Near East in Deuteronomy 32, Psalm 82, and elsewhere. Relatedly, the God of Abraham is sometimes called “El,” the name of the chief deity in the older Canaanite pantheon, and scholars of the period are in general agreement that a number of Israelites practiced a folk religion involving both Yahweh and Asherah (El’s Canaanite queen/consort goddess) prior to the ascendancy of monotheistic Yahwism.

4) In short, the “religion of the Canaanites . . . constituted the background from which Israelite religion largely emerged.” [Smith, ibid., 13]

This is false. Indeed, there is a stark differentiation from early on (from Abraham or even earlier). As I’ve addressed this claim five times now, there is no need to do it again. See:

Seidensticker Folly #19: Torah & OT Teach Polytheism? [9-18-18]

Seidensticker Folly #20: An Evolving God in the OT? (God’s Omnipotence, Omniscience, & Omnipresence in Early Bible Books & Ancient Jewish Understanding) [9-18-18]

Loftus Atheist Error #8: Ancient Jews, “Body” of God, & Polytheism [9-10-19]

Do the OT & NT Teach Polytheism or Henotheism? [7-1-20]

Seidensticker Folly #70: Biblical “Henotheism” [?] Redux [1-31-21]

Atheists who write about these sorts of topics cite — almost exclusively — both archaeological “minimalists” and theological liberals, who no longer — or never did — adhere to traditional Christian beliefs, and who (generalizing) don’t take into account the Bible’s cultural milieu and the particularities of Hebrew and Greek idiom and style in their interpretation of the Bible.

Lex writes, “current scholarship in archaeology, philology, and history reveals a substantially different account”: as if the only legitimate scholarship is minimalist, as if there are no respectable maximalist scholars, too, and as if one monolithic opinion exists in these fields. Later he similarly refers to “a few exceptions among researchers committed in some way to scriptural inerrancy, . . .”

Convenient, isn’t it? It’s either radical skepticism or intellectually challenged and stunted blind faith. There is no happy medium or “center” of a “orthodoxy.” But such minimalism has its own set of arbitrary dogmatic presuppositions that are altogether challengeable. Kitchen observes about this school of thought:

What had been merely bold theory became fixed dogma, as though set in concrete. A purely theoretical minimalism (lacking any factual verification) was enshrined as dogma in theology and divinity schools and faculties, while the vast worlds of ancient Near Eastern studies slowly began to be unveiled, offering huge additions to factual knowledge. And almost none of it agrees with the dogmas so uncritically perpetuated into the present. Early, middle, and late minimalists alike face the need for some very drastic changes in their fantasy worlds. And that, not from rival brands of philosophy or theology, but in factual terms from the firmly secular disciplines of Assyriology, Egyptology, parallel studies for the rest of the Near East, and the whole of its regional archaeologies (Syro-Palestinian archaeology included). (11)

Dr. Kitchen certainly can speak with authority on the topic, as one of the leading Egyptologists in the world, and co-author of Treaty, Law and Covenant in the Ancient Near East, Part 1-3 (Harrassowitz Verlag: 2012). Volume 1 alone is 1641 pages. The description at Amazon reveals the enormous amount of extraordinary research involved:

This work presents a far-reaching social profile of life in the Ancient Near East, based on its wealth of law-collections, treaties and covenants through three millennia. Volume 1 (The Texts) sets out a uniquely comprehensive corpus of over 100 such documents in 10 languages, mostly displayed in facing-page transliterations and English translations with individual bibliographies. Volume 2 (Text, Notes, and Chromograms) provides essential philological and background commentary to the texts, fully indexes their subject-matter, and concludes with a revolutionary and innovative series of full-colour diagrams of every text, vividly highlighting variations through the centuries. Finally, Volume 3 (Overall Historical Survey) outlines the flowing interplay of political history, changing social norms and varying documentary formats throughout the whole period. Taken together, this tryptich offers a striking and indispensable new overview of its multifaceted world for Ancient Near-Eastern and biblical studies.

Kitchen also authored the “magisterial” Ramesside Inscriptions: Historical and Biographical (8 Volumes, Oxford: B. H. Blackwell Ltd., 1969-1975). See the table of contents of Volume 1 and Volume 8 at Internet Archive. That is firsthand familiarity with the “facts on the ground” of Near Eastern history and archaeology. So he is utterly qualified to make the critiques he does of minimalist archaeologists and armchair theorists and “fantasy” writers.

As far as I know, Lex Lata never responded to my previous lengthy critique of another article of his: Moses Wrote the Torah: 50 External Evidences [12-14-22]. And he was informed of it; or at least I let webmaster Jonathan M. S. Pearce know. If he did reply somewhere, I was never told. Maybe this time it will be different. How nice it would be to have an intelligent debate, and to compare the competing views, point-by-point. Lex is a sharp guy and fun to talk to (what little I have done that). I hope he is willing to engage in a full dialogue. I think it would be challenging and fun, but it takes two . . .

FOOTNOTES

1) Kenneth A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2003), 173-174.

2) Ibid., 183.

3) James K. Hoffmeier, Israel in Egypt: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Exodus Tradition (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 36.

4) Ibid., 43.

5) Ibid., 34.

6) David Hackett Fischer, Historians’ Fallacies: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought (New York: Harper & Row, 1970), 58.

7) Hoffmeier, 42

8) Ibid., 43-44.

9) James K. Hoffmeier, The Archaeology of the Bible (Oxford: Lion Book / Lion Hudson, 2008), 67-68.

10) Kitchen, 304-305.

11) Kitchen, 497.

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Photo credit: Moses Blesses Joshua Before the High Priest (Numbers 27:22), by James Tissot (1836-1902) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

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Summary: I reply to an atheist regarding Joshua’s conquest, and show how in two areas, Bible proponents agree with skeptics, while profoundly disagreeing on a third aspect.

Dialogue w Atheist on the Borders of Science & Theology

January 16, 2023 By Dave Armstrong

0 Comments

“axelbeingcivil” is a cordial atheist who is a biologist. I’ve enjoyed many good dialogues with him. This one occurred in a combox of my blog. His words will be in blue. Citations of older words of mine will be in green.

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Think of, for example, the “missing links” in evolution. That didn’t stop people from believing in it. Folks believed in gradual Darwinian evolution even though prominent paleontologist and philosopher of science Stephen Jay Gould famously noted that “gradualism was never read from the rocks.” Even Einstein’s theories weren’t totally confirmed by scientific experiment at first (later they were). That a book like the Bible would have “difficulties” to work through should be perfectly obvious and unsurprising to all.

Just chipping in with what I hope is some constructive criticism here from a biologist. It’s correct to say that gradualism was never read from the rocks. Darwin actually read gradualism from observations of animals being domesticated. If you read On the Origin of Species, you’ll see that very little of Darwin’s evidences come from fossils (if any at all, really), but principally from studying living creatures and their adaptations to specific environments.

Very little of the actual evidence for evolutionary history actually comes from fossils, especially nowadays. Fossils are tiny snapshots and it’s a miracle we have as many as we do, and they provide a very strong evidence, but if you got rid of every single one, comparative anatomy and genetics, artificial selection, and ecogeography would all still be entirely sufficient to demonstrate the reality of evolution. This was true even in Darwin’s day, though his arguments were definitely supported by Buckland and Cuvier (and Anning, though, as a woman, she is rarely credited there).

Missing links, meanwhile, are something of an artifact of misunderstanding by those critical of evolution. You will not ever have a complete and perfect series of fossils representing every single ancestor between two species. You might get a handful, if you’re lucky, which demonstrate the gradual changes from one to the next, but you’ll never get all of them. There’s the old joke that, upon a scientist finding a missing link, a creationist will say “Aha! Now your theory is even weaker, because there are now two missing links between the three species!”.

I know all of this is criticism of the comparison, rather than the point you’re trying to make, but there are perhaps better analogies to make?

Thanks for your insightful and constructive comment, as always.

I think my comparison remains perfectly valid. In context, my comment that you cite came after the following:

All grand “theories” have components (“anomalies” / “difficulties”) that need to be worked out and explained. For example, scientific theories do not purport to perfectly explain everything. They often have large “mysterious” areas that have to be resolved.

And so I offered the missing links in the fossil record as one such particular anomaly in the theory of evolution. Then I cited the renowned (and great writer!) Gould to back up my contentions, to show that they are not simply my own. Whether there is other evidence to sufficiently establish evolution is really beside the point that I was making, because the lack of a complete or adequate fossil record remains an anomaly in and of itself, and it’s beyond dispute that evolutionists widely and publicly affirmed that the fossil record itself was sufficient to prove the theory, even though it clearly wasn’t. Gould merely pointed out the obvious: that the emperor (surprise!) had been naked all along.

Now, Gould’s theory of punctuated equilibrium, of course, attempted to explain the fossil gaps. But this doesn’t affect my logical point, either, which was that science, like the Bible, believes in things it can’t (and usually can’t) totally explain. So it is with Christians and the Bible. It’s not that different from what atheists do with regard to science, which for many of them functions as a sort of religion or Ultimate Allegiance, so to speak.

By the way, I am a theistic evolutionist. But I think that science continues to be unable to — and perhaps never will be able to — adequately explain all the fine points of evolution based on a materialistic scientific perspective alone and that a God is required in some sense for it to be able to “work” at all. In other words, it was His method of creation and couldn’t (based on present knowledge) have come about without Him.

Always happy to chat with you, Mr. Armstrong. And, to be clear, I think most people will understand your meaning perfectly. People like me probably don’t constitute much of the target audience.

I think a better example, though, might be something like “dark matter”; a piece of the puzzle in physics whereby large quantities of the universe’s mass appear to be “missing”. A great deal of effort has gone into exploring and explaining this problem; trying to identify where this missing mass is.

By comparison, “missing links” aren’t really much of an anomaly or point of contention amongst biologists. No-one expects there to ever be a complete fossil record; the world would be up to the stratosphere in fossils. The conditions for creating fossils are rare and uncommon; requiring large quantities of water, sudden burial, and the imposition of anoxic conditions that prevent decay but also sufficient mineralization to allow for fossil formation. All this then followed by millions of years – sometimes hundreds of millions! – during which geological processes do not destroy the fossil remains.

Gould’s explanation of punctuated equilibrium is not about evolution as a theory itself, but more about the assumption as to how organisms evolve; whether the shift in populations to see changes in traits or the development of new ones that then achieve fixation in the gene pool is more often a sudden thing or something that occurs very gradually over time at a more consistent rate. Nowadays, the idea of variable rates of evolution are much more accepted, in no small part thanks to increased availability to genetic evidence that Gould and his contemporaries did not have. It’s not “gradualism vs. punctuated equilibrium” so much as it is variable rates due to circumstances.

For the kind of analogy you seem to be wanting to make, dark matter – an anomaly that is not currently explained by current cosmological models – might be a better choice.

Setting aside critique of the comparison for the moment, I do want to ask you how you view theology as a discipline. You’re making a comparison here to how, as scientists explore the cosmos through careful study and routinely find their own ideas to be wrong in some way, religious believers ultimately do something at least similar enough to merit comparison. In the sciences, though, we operate from model investigation; generating models and testing hypotheses from those models. If an inconsistency exists, it means the model is wrong and must either be modified or scrapped.

Do you see that as a role that theologians like yourself play? Do you see yourself as trying to explore and test and seek out knowledge? It feels like there’s a fascinating world of experimental theology and philosophy out there, waiting to be explored; testing models of divinity against observations, but I’ve yet to encounter someone who sees their role as a kind of “natural theologian”.

And, while this is a rabbit hole that will probably consume more of both of our times than would be warranted, I am curious as to what barriers you see that would require divine intervention in evolution.

Another great comment! Actually, I have already made an extended “turn the tables” argument from dark energy and dark matter:

Seidensticker Folly #71: Spirit-God “Magic”; 68% Dark Energy Isn’t? [2-2-21]

Here is a good chunk of that:

Bob had a field day mocking Christians for believing that God is a spirit, immaterial, composed of spirit, which isn’t a physical thing (with atoms, etc.). Once again, Christians are made out to be anti-scientific ignoramuses, dummies, and imbeciles. . . .

Please keep the above in mind as I make my argument now (as my entire argument is an analogy). Scientists are currently quite excited about new phenomena called dark energy and dark matter. The very notions have only made their appearance over the last 25-30 years or so. . . . [I then document what scientists are saying about both]

So it’s considered to be 68% of the universe, yet it is almost a complete “mystery” and scientists are “clueless” about its origin. And “everything on Earth, everything ever observed with all of our instruments, all normal matter – adds up to less than 5% of the universe.” So if this is true, it turns out that science in all its glory (the atheist’s epistemological “god” and religion) has been dealing with a mere 1/20th of all that there is in the universe.

Likewise, dark matter (thought to make up 27% of the universe) is “completely invisible to light and other forms of electromagnetic radiation, making dark matter impossible to detect with current instruments” (National Geographic). . . .

Some think dark energy is “a property of space.” Others think space is “full of temporary (‘virtual’) particles that continually form and then disappear.” Some appeal to Greek philosophy and call the mystery “quintessence.” How interesting. So we have this phenomenon, and it is serious science (which I am not doubting at all; sure, bring it on!). The admitted ignorance is extraordinary.

Yet all that is fine and dandy, while Christians are mocked and derided and considered simpletons simply because we have believed all along that God is an eternal spirit, Who created the world? What is the difference? . . .

Lastly: if there is any reply at all [from Bob Seidensticker], we’ll almost certainly be told that “dark energy is just now being investigated by science. Give it time; science always discovers and explains things in due course.” I don’t disagree all that much. Science does do that: though not as completely as the average atheist would make out (it being his or her religion and idol and [usually] sole epistemological guide).

But even if dark energy and dark matter are adequately, plausibly explained and much better understood by science in the near future, it makes no difference at all as to my present argument. The fact remains that conventionally understood matter makes up only 5% of the universe: so they tell us. Science has had up till very recently, literally nothing to tell us about 95% of the universe: all of which is other (spirit? energy?) than what we have known up till now as “matter”: with protons and neutrons and the whole nine yards.

And yet Christians (along with many reputable philosophers through the centuries, and virtually all religious views) are faulted for having believed that there is such a thing as a non-material Spirit-Creator, for 2000 years: following the ancient Israelites, who believed it for some 18 or more centuries before we did? Obviously, non-material entities or whatever we call them, have been a far more important aspect of the universe than we (least of all materialist atheists) had ever imagined.

And so God fits into this “new” schema very well, just as He fit into Big Bang cosmology, and even quantum mechanics, examined more closely, as well as something like irreducible complexity. Present-day scientific consensus is perfectly consistent with the biblical teaching of creation out of nothing too. I think the Bible and Christianity are doing pretty darn good, in terms of being consistent with science, as the latter advances. It seems that Christianity understood things (derived from revelation, communicated by God) for 2000 years that science has only recently come to figure out.

Albert Einstein and most scientists in the 1940s believed in an eternal universe (steady state). Einstein initially opposed the findings of the originator of the Big Bang theory: a Catholic priest. Now virtually no scientist denies that the present universe had a beginning (although some posit prior universes, with no hard evidence). Christians had said that the universe came into existence (by God) from nothing all along. And now science seems to be confirming that non-material spirit or “energy” is awfully important in the scheme of the universe as well: to the tune of 68% of all that exists. Better late than never.

In closing, I’ll mention another debate that was going on long before dark energy was posited: the nature of light: is it a particle or a wave? This has to do with the question of possible non-physical entities as well (the very thing that Bob mercilessly mocked above). . . .

Why then is Bob prattling on as if matter (good old-fashioned matter before we get to dark matter and dark energy) is all there is? He needs to crack open any scientific textbook written since Einstein and get up to speed before embarrassing himself . . . further.

Do you see yourself as trying to explore and test and seek out knowledge? It feels like there’s a fascinating world of experimental theology and philosophy out there, waiting to be explored; testing models of divinity against observations, but I’ve yet to encounter someone who sees their role as a kind of “natural theologian”.

Great question! I think the way I would answer it is to note that the thinking Christian is highly interested in the latest developments of science and how faith can be harmonized with it. When relativity came in, we at length saw that it has nothing in it to threaten Christianity, and we could accept it like everyone else. That was true even with evolution (though less so). Right near us, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, botanist Asa Gray lived and worked. He was a big ally of Darwin who was a prominent theistic evolutionist.

The same happened with quantum mechanics, which was used against us. But Christians thought about it, and realized that God’s providence can easily incorporate the “chance” and unpredictable, random aspects of it. Nothing is unpredictable to Him, because He’s omniscient and created the laws that govern quantum mechanics in the first place (and there will be laws, whether we have discovered them yet or not). Christian thinkers adopted the old earth from geology in the 18th-19th centuries, and the local Flood. Analyses of Adam and Eve are made, with regard to population genetics and evolution. I have linked to them.

We have shown a great willingness to follow science where it leads, but atheists are reluctant to give us any credit for that. Hence, my analysis of dark energy and dark matter and question to atheists: how is this very different (if at all) from what we theists have called spirit and soul for 4,000 years? I’m following it with interest, and I think it poses far more problems for conventional, big-majority materialist atheism than it does for us (which is no problem at all, as far as I can see).

So we’re moving with the times and modifying views where it is necessary. So far, it just hasn’t overthrown anything essential that we believe. The age of the earth is not essential to Christianity. How God created life and the earth and universe isn’t any kind of dogma: only the notion that He did create everything.

Even a discovery of life elsewhere doesn’t affect Christianity one whit. Nothing in the Bible rules out that possibility. C. S. Lewis wrote books about it 80 years ago.

It’s atheists who might be accused of being closed-minded, by ruling out that God can exist, and forbidding in their heads any possibility of any supernatural occurrence ever or anywhere.

I am curious as to what barriers you see that would require divine intervention in evolution.

That’s more easily answered. The notion that mutations, which are considered “mistakes” are the mechanism of natural selection and by extension every morphological change involved in evolution (which is massive and comprehensive) makes no sense to me. It never has. I don’t think this has been adequately explained at all. It seems to be a post-genetics ad hoc [supposed] explanation for lack of anything better, or adequate and sufficient.

I think it explains relatively little: maybe some or most of microevolution, but little else. I don’t believe scientists have adequately explained or understood in any detailed, truly scientific, empirical way, the origin of life or even the origin of its building blocks, like DNA. They just haven’t (at least as far as I can tell). I agree with microbiologist Michael Behe, who calls a spade a spade and suggests that science simply hasn’t explained even the incredible complexity of a cell: not even close.

I conclude as a result that God must have done something at some point (or in an ongoing sense) to allow evolution to proceed at all, because we don’t seem to understand how and why it could do so with our present knowledge. I don’t claim to have worked all of that out. I believe His input is necessary (but not in a creationist sense).

Mutations are not sufficient to explain every change. I think they function merely as a sort of slogan that is repeated so often that everyone accepts it without any protest, even though there is little or nothing there of explanatory value. Yes, I’m not a scientist. I’m merely saying that the evidence I’ve seen for a materialist explanation of evolutionary change (and I have read quite a bit at different times) hasn’t convinced me.

So Behe says perhaps a higher intelligence was involved, which is, of course, anathema to present materialistic science (even though science came out of an entirely Christian and theistic framework and from those minds).

I think the cosmological argument and especially the teleological theistic proof are stronger than ever: the more we know and learn.

Well, if you’re ever interested, I can offer what insight I can on the matter of mutations. I can’t speak to abiogenesis because it’s more organic chemistry than biology and thus outside my specialist area, but my particular work (novel protein function characterization) relies heavily on an understanding of how mutations produce novel functions, so it’s something I can actually talk about with confidence.

Thank you very much for your answers, as always!

Sure, I’d be interested in hearing more about that: especially if you could simplify the technical stuff a bit so that I could understand it. You seem to have the credentials to be able to explain what I am looking for. You’re actually a scientist and a professor?

Heh. Scientist, yes, and I have taught at the university level (introductory bioinformatics, molecular genetics) but I am not a professor. Sadly, there aren’t many tenure-track professorships these days. But I do have published research papers in a handful of journals and am on a chapter in the Handbook of Proteolytic Enzymes.

I can try and explain mutations in general and their relation to the evolutionary process but, if you have any specific questions, it might make it easier.

What I wrote already is the best way I can describe what I find unconvincing. But maybe you could take a shot at responding to Michael Behe’s many challenges to explain how even what we find in a cell could come about by mutation or whatever else is posited as its origin?

Are you saying that someone has made a step-by-step explanation of such things? Some (at least in my perception) simply pour on the technical language, knowing that laymen wouldn’t grasp what they are saying. All the big words look mighty impressive.

I’d like to see such an explanation that a layman can understand; that makes sense and actually explains the process of the thing. But everyone in every field has to be able to explain things to those less educated. I do it in theology to some extent (even though I’m not a scholar) in my capacity as an apologist and teacher of sorts.

[Go to Part II: Dialogue w Atheist on Mutations & Evolutionary Change, for the continuation of the discussion]

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Practical Matters: Perhaps some of my 4,000+ free online articles (the most comprehensive “one-stop” Catholic apologetics site) or fifty books have helped you (by God’s grace) to decide to become Catholic or to return to the Church, or better understand some doctrines and why we believe them.

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Photo credit: Fr. Georges Lemaître: father of Big Bang cosmology, around the mid 1930s [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

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Summary: Friendly, fun dialogue with an atheist biologist on the “borders” of science and Christian theology and philosophy: where they intersect with and influence each other.

Was the Star of Bethlehem a Natural Celestial Event?

December 21, 2022 By Dave Armstrong

Atheist and anti-theist Bob Seidensticker runs the influential Cross Examined blog. I have critiqued 84 of his articles (no counter-reply as of yet). He was gracious enough to send me a free e-book copy of his new volume, 2-Minute Christianity: 50 Big Ideas Every Christian Should Understand (May 2022), which I critiqued point-by-point. His words will be in blue.

*****

See my previous replies in this series (Part 1 / Part 2)

This is a reply to Bob’s articles, “Critique of ‘The Star of Bethlehem’ video” (12-9-22) and “Jupiter, Venus, Regulus, and Revelation: the fireworks of a real Star of Bethlehem?” (12-12-22).

[subtitle] It’s time to address the illogic in this biased video

Yeah; I’ll return the favor and address the illogic in Bob’s critique! Goose and gander! Isn’t dialogue wonderful?

it’s time for some tough love. Are you anxious for a takedown of Rick Larson’s The Star of Bethlehem video? I certainly am. Now that we’ve let the Christian side state their case (part 1 here), it’s time to respond. If you’ve been biting your tongue with rebuttals, let’s turn the tables. This’ll be fun.

And are atheists excited to interact with Christian defenses of the star of Bethlehem, where we turn the tables? I’ve yet to see it (and I’ve tried, believe me), apart from a few limited interactions with a few civil atheists. I think it’s a fun and educational discussion that we can have. It’s an extremely interesting topic (especially the more one learns about it).

That video argued that the conjunctions of Jupiter with Regulus and Venus during the years 3 and 2 BCE explain the story of the magi following the star in Matthew chapter 2. Volumes have been written with many other attempts to explain the star, but this video is a popular explanation, and I will use it as a representation of the field.

I mostly agree with the reasoning in this video, but not necessarily with everything. I’m not defending it per se, but offering my own (similar) opinions, arrived at after much research.

The video makes a clever and intriguing argument, but an intriguing argument doesn’t carry the day.

That’s right.

it may not be that remarkable to weave an interesting argument when you’re not following evidence but selecting it to pave a path to a conclusion you’re determined to reach.

I agree again. I just think that atheists are no more immune to this shortcoming than anyone else. We all have biases, and they often determine the conclusions we reach, almost before we reach them. That being the case, we can only make our arguments and let observers decide which one is more plausible or believable. I interact with opposing positions, as a socratic in methodology. And those who make those arguments can decide whether they want to interact with my reasoning.

Larson knows that he wants to find celestial fireworks at the time of the birth of Jesus to map onto Matthew’s Bethlehem star story, so he sifts and hammers the data to reach that conclusion.

That would be fundamentally dishonest. I don’t believe Larson was intending to be dishonest, anymore than I am. We simply have an opinion different from Bob’s, and provide scientific and historical arguments in favor of our own positions. It’s not a given that someone is a dishonest special pleader or a sophist, simply because they disagree with us.

The New Testament contains two nativity stories, but Larson, without apology, doesn’t bother to reconcile them.

He doesn’t have to. They’re not contradictory, and the goal of the video is to provide a theory about the star, not a comprehensive commentary on the two Nativity stories. This is an unreasonable and absurd demand.

He ignores Luke and focuses on Matthew.

He does so precisely because that’s where the star is mentioned! DUH! It’s like saying, “Bob ignored Newton and focused on Einstein, when discussing space-time and relativity.” What in the world is wrong with that? Nothing! Yet Bob makes out that somehow this is an unsavory method, for anyone to focus on the Gospel that refers to the star. When one is seriously hostile to a position, it adversely affects their reasoning ability, lessens their objectivity, and works against logically coherent and compelling arguments.

And like the zombies stumbling through the streets of Jerusalem in Matthew 27:52–3,

Attempt to ridicule and mock Matthew’s Gospel; in other words, to “poison the well” . . .

we’re left to wonder why the star and magi are also only in Matthew. If it was important enough for Matthew and it actually happened, why wasn’t it reported in the other gospels?

I would say, “I don’t know” but also (with equal vigor), “who cares?” There could be one reason or a dozen reasons. All we can do is analyze what we have. But clearly, none of the Gospel writers were under some supposed “obligation” to make sure they wrote about every jot and tittle that the other three Gospel writers dealt with. It’s ludicrous and unrealistic to posit such a “demand.” Moreover, what would be the point of having four virtually identical Gospels? That’s boring as sin. Most objective observers would note that the (non-contradictory, logically complementary) differences in the Gospels are a strong indication that they are genuine, and not some grand joint conspiracy of mythmaking: just as multiple witnesses in court trials invariably differ on emphases and details.

Matthew’s nativity account says that Jesus was born before King Herod died. 4 BCE is the traditional date of Herod’s death, but this prevents Larson from using the celestial events of 3 and 2 BCE to make his story. Larson tries to salvage his theory by arguing that Herod died in 1 BCE.

4 BCE is the scholarly consensus, . . . Herod dying in 4 BCE defeats Larson’s argument, but let’s ignore that and continue.

I outlined several of the serious arguments against a 4 BC death-date of Herod in Part 2. If this were a full back-and-forth dialogue (not just me critiquing his stuff), then Bob would interact with those, and it would be a great discussion, but after 83 times of not doing so, I won’t hold my breath that he does this time. I still think that if he would change his mind, we could have some enjoyable and stimulating dialogues. Hope springs eternal! I’m pretty sure there is no one else out there who has critiqued Bob’s arguments in -depth, 84 times. I would love for someone (who is friendly and sharp and challenging) do that with my writings.

Larson said that the Bible’s warnings against astrology gave him pause, and we can see why. For example,

If a man or woman … has worshiped other gods, bowing down to them or to the sun or the moon or the stars in the sky, … take the man or woman who has done this evil deed to your city gate and stone that person to death. (Deuteronomy 17:2–5; see also Isaiah 47:13–15, Job 31:26–8, Deut. 4:19 and 18:9–14, Jeremiah 10:1–3)

He need not have worried, because the astrology of the wise men didn’t involve them making the sun or stars “gods” to idolatrously worship. They did no such thing. It was merely seen as portent or signs of what was to come (but not in a causal sense). Therefore, such practices had nothing to do with what the Bible condemned. The likely religion of the wise men, Zoroastrianism, condemned the same things (divination, sorcery, wizardry, etc.).

But of course, we can go to the ancient Greeks (most atheists’ big intellectual heroes) and Romans to find such worship that the Bible condemned. They were far more primitive (and intellectually gullible), and subject to mythological inclinations than the Zoroastrian wise men:

Helios, (Greek: “Sun”) in Greek religion, the sun god, sometimes called a Titan. He drove a chariot daily from east to west across the sky and sailed around the northerly stream of Ocean each night in a huge cup.

In classical Greece, Helios was especially worshipped in Rhodes, where from at least the early 5th century BCE he was regarded as the chief god, to whom the island belonged. His worship spread as he became increasingly identified with other deities, often under Eastern influence. From the 5th century BCE, Apollo, originally a deity of radiant purity, was more and more interpreted as a sun god. Under the Roman Empire the sun itself came to be worshipped as the Unconquered Sun. (Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Helios”)

Zoroastrianism, on the other hand, had significant monotheistic features. The web page, Zoroastrian (Persian) Astrology & Cosmology explains this particular type of astrology (very unlike the prominent version today):

Surviving Zoroastrian texts indicate that astrology was used by ancient Zoroastrians and their priests, the magi (see below), primarily as a method of measuring historical and calendrical time. They developed an astrology of the world and used astrology as a means to date events in Aryan history. The magi also used astrology to predict cyclical events such as seasons and significant climatic changes that would cause community-wide changes.

Today, some Zoroastrians also accept astrology as a means of predicting events or, say, to determine if two people are compatible. Other Zoroastrians reject such use relegating it to superstition. . . .

Since Zoroastrianism philosophy recognizes free will and a person’s individual and complete responsibility for her or his every thought, word and deed, it automatically rejects any suggestion that a person’s choice of thoughts, words and deeds were a result of movements of astral bodies in the skies. . . . Astrology may be used to indicate potential rather than absolute fated destiny, or perhaps favourable and unfavourable timing to undertake a venture. . . .

[A] few Zoroastrians texts do speak of Zoroaster as an astronomer and someone who built an astronomical observatory. One of the primary purposes of the observatory was to measure time, maintain a very precise calendar and predict the seasons and accompanying weather changes – in other words, applied astronomy. The calendar was used to make preparations for planting and harvesting crops; the time for taking animals to pasture or on pastoral circuits, and even the starting and ending of the caravan season for trading and travel journeys along the Silk Roads.

While the Zoroastrian calendar employed a zodiac, the zodiac was used to predict the equinoxes and solstices. The Zoroastrian year started with the spring equinox (commonly March 21). The resulting calendar was very accurate.

The constellations come from the Babylonians, the civilization that conquered Judah in the sixth century BCE. God’s rejection of astrology built on Babylonian constellations is understandable, and yet Larson imagines God using that invention to communicate Jesus’s birth.

Bob employs the fallacy of the false equivalence. There are very different forms of astrology, and the sort that the wise men employed was not the type that the Bible vociferously condemns.

We’ll ignore the Bible’s protests as well and move on.

We’ll tolerate (with protest) Bob’s lack of understanding of proper distinctions to be drawn in the matter of historic astrology, and exactly what the Bible condemns, having refuted Bob’s misconceptions, and move on.

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The first astronomical phenomenon in the star-of-Bethlehem argument is Jupiter making three passes above Regulus, a star in the constellation of Leo, beginning in 3 BCE. That is, the king planet Jupiter “crowned” the king star Regulus in the constellation of the lion, the sign of Judah.

If it did that at a certain time, right before Jesus’ birth, it did (a=a). We have reason to believe (from astronomical calculations) that this did occur.

The first concern is pairing Judah with any Babylonian constellation, given the Bible’s prohibitions against astrology, but Larson pushes ahead.

Repeating falsehoods and fallacies of false equivalence over and over make them no less false or illogical. Bob pushes ahead . . .!

Bob then makes silly arguments (attempting biblical exegesis) against the symbol of the lion representing Judah. The fact is, that a lion is the symbol of Judah, whatever Bob may think of that. It’s featured to this day in the Emblem of Jerusalem, after all. Bob doesn’t get to determine how others wish to create symbols representing their countries or cities or clans (Armstrong is a Scottish clan), etc. This being the case, seeing symbolism in the constellations or stars regarding a lion (and many other things) is to be expected of ancient Persian astrologers.

Countries were often identified with animals in antiquity, but the lion for Judah wasn’t one of the associations.

See also: “The Lion of the Tribe of Judah: Symbol & Meaning” (Study.com). Or: “The Lions of Judah are the most dynamic philanthropic Jewish women in the world” (18,000 of them!). There’s much more (anyone can search the term). It’s foolish to make this a point of contention.

And the three Jupiter/Regulus conjunctions—the “crowning” of Regulus—wasn’t like fireworks.

No one is arguing that it was.

This was a slow-motion event that took close to a year. It’s not like you could’ve gone outside and seen the event over the course of hours, like a lunar eclipse. It likely would have seemed mundane, if it were noticeable at all.

Exactly. And of course, this complexity is why it was specifically noticed (in the biblical account) by the Persian Zoroastrian magi, who were trained in the astronomy of the time / overlapping into astrology (just as chemistry and alchemy were later connected in some imperfect fashion). They were taught to notice things in the sky that others wouldn’t. They were so sophisticated that they understood things like, for example, the intricate scientific question of the retrograde motion of planets, as I discussed in previous entries in this series. The Bible never says that anyone else was startled by the star of Bethlehem: led alone led by it. That’s simply “Christmas cardology” or “Christmas carolology.”

The magi could’ve known enough about Jupiter’s movements that they could anticipate how the entire retrograde phase would play out.

Bob recognizes again that they had this technical knowledge. In doing so, he is making a huge concession in this discussion.

They could’ve tracked it night after night to gradually piece together its movements over months, but why would they?

Because that was one of their fields of interest and knowledge. Why does anyone do anything? They do what they like: what piques their curiosity or entertains them. If you were a skywatching / stargazing astrologer around 3-2 BC, this is the sort of thing you would notice. And — here’s a fascinating thing — the biblical writers acquired and communicated this piece of knowledge: knowing exactly who it was who would be part of the small number of ancient primitive astronomers who would know about such celestial events in the first place (as Bob correctly notes, the initial manifestations wouldn’t be readily apparent); who would know about (including even predicting) retrograde motion, conjunctions, etc. They weren’t called “wise men” for nothing.

Seeing the “crowning” in seconds with a modern computer simulation, as Larson talks about doing, is a very different experience, and seeing it in (glacial) real time would not have been noteworthy.

It would have been, if a person understood what they were looking at, which is the whole point. Again, the Bible states that these sophisticated, trained magi saw the star, not just Joe Everyman on the street; not even the shepherds in the field (since it occurred 1-2 years after the day of Jesus’ birth).

Revelation 12 forms no part of my analysis of the star of Bethlehem, so I won’t get into that.

Next up was an unusually close planetary conjunction. Jupiter and Venus were less than one minute (1/60 degree) apart on June 17 of 2 BCE.

There is a Jupiter/Venus conjunction roughly once per year. In 2016, there was a Jupiter/Venus conjunction just four minutes apart, and there are 17 conjunctions less than 30 minutes apart in the seventy years 1990–2060. Add in conjunctions between other planets, and surprising conjunctions aren’t that unusual. Close conjunctions appear to be little more than opportunities to observe, “Oh, cool—look at that. You don’t see that every day!”

Yes, I saw one such conjunction two years ago. The thing here is that the Bible never states that it was some spectacular thing never seen before (the destruction of Sodom is far more spectacular: and we now know it was likely due to a meteor blast). The biblical language is very humdrum and brief: “we have seen his star in the East” (Mt 2:2), “the star” (2:7), “the star which they had seen in the East” (2:9).

Nowhere does it address the question of how bright the star was, or how rarely a star of that brightness appeared. So why is it that Bob’s critical rhetoric seems to assume that the Bible presented it as a momentous, extremely bright and rare event, when it clearly does not? More “Christmas cardology” . . . Maybe he’ll explain this if he ever replies to one of my counter-posts.

Larson calls Venus the “Mother Planet,”

Here he appears to be wrong, since the moon usually represented “mother” in astrology.

but the Bible has another interpretation.

How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations! (Isaiah 14:12)

This is a reference to Lucifer, the morning star (another name for Venus). A Lucifer/Venus connection is probably not what Larson was hoping for, but it’s no less valid than his claims.

In this instance, the Bible need not classify Venus as the “mother star.” The relevant question is what Persian astrology at the time would have considered it. So Larson may be wrong in some of his analysis, when he becomes too speculative and botches a few known facts.

Larson opted for a planetary conjunction as the Bethlehem star because he says that comets and novas were often seen by the ancients as bad omens.

True enough.

Unfortunately, the same might’ve been true for Jupiter/Venus conjunctions. In Assyria, this was considered a sign of war or danger to the king. Assyria was a long-time neighbor of Babylon, the region where the magi might’ve come from.

Most who have studied the issue seem to think that they came from Persia, where it was known that there was this class called magi.

I answered Bob’s last post on this topic in Part 1.

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Photo credit: [PickPik / Royalty-Free Photo]

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Summary: I interact with the reasoning & conclusions of atheist Bob Seidensticker, in the third of three replies dealing with the astronomical evidence for the star of Bethlehem.

Star of Bethlehem: Scientific Verification (vs. an Atheist)

December 20, 2022 By Dave Armstrong

Atheist and anti-theist Bob Seidensticker runs the influential Cross Examined blog. I have critiqued 83 of his articles, (no counter-reply as of yet). He was gracious enough to send me a free e-book copy of his new volume, 2-Minute Christianity: 50 Big Ideas Every Christian Should Understand (May 2022), which I critiqued point-by-point. His words will be in blue.

*****

This is a reply to his articles, “Can the Star of Bethlehem be scientifically verified?” (11-28-22) and “The Star of Bethlehem, a real event?” (12-6-22).

The New Testament has two nativity stories, one in Matthew and one in Luke. They both claim Bethlehem as the birthplace and a virgin birth, but that’s all they agree on.

The last clause is not true. Simply having different but complementary accounts is not disagreement. It’s not even logical to claim that, unless there are demonstrable direct contradictions in play (and there aren’t). It would be like me writing about a white Christmas (that we are about to have in Michigan) and my wife writing about the presents our family got.

Is that “contradictory”? Apparently, Bob would say it is, and that we disagreed. I and classical logic say it isn’t. A real contradiction would be, for example, me saying that our family exchanged no presents this Christmas, and my wife describing fifty presents that we opened up this Christmas.

The shepherds “keeping watch over their flock by night,” murderous king Herod, the census, the baby in a manger, fleeing to Egypt—these are all unique to one or the other of those gospels.

Yeah, so what? It’s irrelevant: what we call a non sequitur in logic. They chose to highlight different aspects. Big wow.

Larson ignored that little problem . . .

It is no problem, so it didn’t have to be “ignored.”

Larson . . . focused just on the magi (perhaps best thought of as astrologers in the royal court) following the star in Matthew chapter 2.

Since his video was about the star of Bethlehem, that makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?! What: now we can’t focus on one topic unless we comprehensively deal with every jot and tittle of alleged NT “contradictions” according to atheists? It’s absurd. Secondly, they were of the priestly caste. They weren’t kings, and the Bible never refers to them as such (that’s just more mythical “Christmas carolology”).

If you’re going to look at historical astronomical phenomena to find what happened in the sky around Jesus’s birth, you need to know when to look.

I totally agree.

Matthew tells us that Jesus was born during the reign of King Herod, who scholars say died in 4 BCE.

That’s the current consensus, but there are serious objections to it. I summarized some of them in chapter 13 of my soon-to-be-published book, The Word Set in Stone: How Science, History, and Archaeology Prove Biblical Truth:

Historians have primarily relied on the Jewish historian Josephus (37-c. 100 A.D.) for determination of this date, as influentially interpreted by Protestant theologian and historian Emil Schürer in his 1891 book, A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ. But physicist John A. Cramer noted that the lunar eclipse preceding Herod’s death, as noted by Josephus, may have been at a later date than the usually accepted one:

This date [4 B.C.] is based on Josephus’s remark in Antiquities 17.6.4 that there was a lunar eclipse shortly before Herod died. This is traditionally ascribed to the eclipse of March 13, 4 B.C. Unfortunately, this eclipse was visible only very late that night in Judea and was additionally a minor and only partial eclipse. There were no lunar eclipses visible in Judea thereafter until two occurred in the year 1 B.C. Of these two, the one on December 29, just two days before the change of eras, gets my vote since it was the one most likely to be seen and remembered. That then dates the death of Herod the Great into the first year of the current era, four years after the usual date.[i]

This argument was also advanced in the nineteenth century by scholars Édouard Caspari, Florian Riess, and others, so it’s not new. Josephus[ii] also noted that Herod died before the Jewish Passover holy day.

These are our two historical clues. John A. Cramer, continuing his analysis based on Josephus, concluded:

Only four lunar eclipses occurred in the likely time frame: September 15, 5 B.C., March 12-13, 4 B.C., January 10, 1 B.C. and December 29, 1 B.C. . . .

The December 29 eclipse, the moon rose at 53 percent eclipse, and its most visible aspect was over by 6 P.M. It is the most likely of the four to have been noted and commented on.[iii]

Noted professor of New Testament history and archaeology Jack Finegan (1908-2000) took a different approach and examined the manuscript evidence in Josephus:

The currently known text of Josephus’ Ant. 18.106 states that [Herod] Philip died in the twentieth year of Tiberius (A.D. 33/34 . . .) . . . This points to Philip’s ascension at the death of Herod in 4 B.C.. . . .

In 1995 David W. Beyer reported to the Society for Biblical Literature his personal examination in the British Museum of forty-six editions of Josephus’s Antiquities published before 1700 among which twenty-seven texts, all but three published before 1544 read “twenty-second year of Tiberius,” while not one single edition published prior to 1544 read “twentieth year of Tiberius.” . . .

[This] points to 1 B.C. . . . as the year of death of Herod. . . . Accordingly, if the birth of Jesus was two years or less before the death of Herod in 1 B.C., the date of birth was in 3 or 2 B.C., presumably precisely in the period 3/2 B.C., so consistently attested by the most credible early church fathers.[iv]

Jack Finegan noted some early writers’ reckoning3/2 B.C. for the birth of Jesus, including Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Julius Africanus, Hippolytus of Rome, Hippolytus of Thebes, Origen, Eusebius of Caesarea, and Epiphanius of Salamis. Another argument that can be made is the date of coins issued by Herod the Great’s successors. The evidence shows that none can be dated before 1 A.D. These coins were controlled by Rome, and only after Herod the Great’s death could such coins be issued. It would be odd for a five-year gap to occur.

As we shall see, a tentative acceptance of Herod’s death in 1 B.C. or 1 A.D. (if Finegan and others of the same opinion are in fact right) will be significant in terms of lining up the known astronomical data regarding an extraordinary “bright star” in the sky that can ostensibly or speculatively be equated with the star of Bethlehem.

[i] John A. Cramer, “Herod’s Death, Jesus’ Birth and a Lunar Eclipse: Letters to the Editor debate dates of Herod’s death and Jesus’ birth,” Bible History Daily / Biblical Archaeology Society (30 November 2020; originally 7 January 2015):

[ii] Josephus, Antiquities 17.9.3; The Jewish War 2.1.3.

[iii] Cramer, ibid.

[iv] Jack Finegan, Handbook of Biblical Chronology (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Hendrickson, 1998), 298-299.

Larson said that he was temporarily sidelined by worries that this might be astrology, because the Bible warns its followers away from astrology. [cites Isaiah 47:13–15] However, Larson found a green light in biblical references to constellations Orion and Pleiades (Job 9:9) and reminders that God created the stars and named them (Isaiah 40:26). This is another example that the Bible can be made to say just about anything. Astrology is bad or astrology is not bad—it’s all there.

Having rationalized an argument that his work wasn’t blasphemous, Larson soldiered on.

Nonsense. Astrology as it is today is indeed condemned in the Bible. But simply observing the stars and constellations is not condemned. As I wrote in my book:

They were . . . Zoroastrians: members of a religion that forbade sorcery, and astrologers in the ancient Mesopotamian definition, where the appearance of the heavens was seen as a reflection of what happened on earth but not an actual cause. [italics added presently]

So, nice try to manufacture another “contradiction,” but no cigar. The Bible never says that the star of Bethlehem or any celestial phenomenon caused the birth of Jesus. The cause is clearly spelled out: He was conceived supernaturally by the Holy Spirit (Mt 1:18-21; Lk 1:35).

(8) The star went ahead of them, and then (9) it stopped. Taking the story literally, it sounds like the star was a moving light, like a firefly.

I dealt with this yesterday in another reply to Bob regarding the star. It was referring to retrograde motion of planets: a phenomenon that Bob himself conceded could account for the star “stopping” (and one which the stargazers of that time — amazingly — were already familiar with). None of this requires a “Tinker Bell” or “firefly”-like event.

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The Star of Bethlehem was (drum roll, please), the planet Jupiter!

It was in the last six-mile portion of the wise men’s journey (from Jerusalem to Bethlehem). Initially, it was Jupiter in conjunction with Regulus, Venus, Mars, and other celestial bodies, in the period between September, 3 BC and December, 2 BC. But Jupiter was the common denominator of all these “light shows.” Bob wrote about Regulus:

Jupiter had not one but three conjunctions with Regulus (September of 3 BCE, then February the next year, and finally in May). Regulus is actually a four-star system, but the magi would have known it as a single, bright star in the constellation Leo. . . .

The three Jupiter/Regulus conjunctions are because of Jupiter’s retrograde motion.

All natural phenomena, that God in His providence used to guide the wise men.

Next on the calendar was a very close Jupiter/Venus conjunction on June 17 of 2 BCE, so close that the distance separating them was about the apparent width of either planet. Specifically, they were about 40 seconds apart. (There are 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in a degree and 360 degrees in a full circle. For comparison, a full moon is 30 minutes, or 1800 seconds, in diameter.)

Another natural event, producing a bright “star” . . .

The magi would’ve been familiar with conjunctions, and the remarkable thing about this conjunction wasn’t the brightness but the closeness. Conjunctions this close aren’t that rare astronomically, but they would’ve been unusual or unique in the lifetimes of these men.

There you go . . .

This is an interesting set of facts, but Larson benefits from 20/20 hindsight. He knows what he wants to find, so he scans the possibilities (and moves the date of Herod’s death to open up more possibilities) to find what he wants.

The date of Herod’s death has to be determined in and of itself. If it was 4 BC, none of these events are relevant: they would not have been the “Star of Bethlehem” (period; game over). But if he did die a few years later, then it’s a live possibility that these events were what the wise men saw: leading them to Jerusalem. Larson didn’t “move” the date. He simply threw out for consideration that it may have been later. None of this constitutes dishonestly “find[ing] what he wants” or special pleading or rationalization. People can have honest disagreements!

The Bible’s nativity story is feeble evidence that any magi could or did draw the conclusions Larson would like.

It can be verified by astronomical data, and (again) if Herod didn’t in fact die in 4 BC, then it seems remarkably backed up by what we can determine from astronomy. Atheists always demand “evidence!!!” and “verification” (because many of them seem to think — falsely — that science is the only form of valid, solid knowledge) and that’s precisely what this undertaking is presenting.

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Photo credit: mskathrynne (9-14-18) [Pixabay / Pixabay License]

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Summary: I interact with the reasoning & conclusions of atheist Bob Seidensticker, in the second of three replies dealing with the astronomical evidence for the star of Bethlehem.

Did the Star of Bethlehem Move Like Tinker Bell?

December 19, 2022 By Dave Armstrong

+ Discussion of Micah 5:2 (The Prophecy of Jesus’ Birth in Bethlehem)

Atheist and anti-theist Bob Seidensticker runs the influential Cross Examined blog. I have critiqued 82 of his articles, (no counter-reply as of yet). He was gracious enough to send me a free e-book copy of his new volume, 2-Minute Christianity: 50 Big Ideas Every Christian Should Understand (May 2022), which I critiqued point-by-point. His words will be in blue.

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This is a reply to portions of his article, “How did the Star of Bethlehem move like Tinker Bell?” (12-19-22).

Can the Star of Bethlehem be explained naturally?

Yes, there are very plausible, science-backed explanations of it. I have adopted one myself (similar to Rick Larson’s), which is included in chapter 13 of my soon-to-be-published book, The Word Set in Stone: How Science, History, and Archaeology Prove Biblical Truth.

Micah chapter 5 has the Bethlehem reference: “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel.” As usual with claims that see Jesus behind every rock in the Old Testament, when you look at the context, the prophesied ruler doesn’t sound at all like Jesus.

Sure it does; see my paper, Reply to Atheist Jonathan MS Pearce: Bethlehem & Nazareth “Contradictions” (Including Extensive Exegetical Analysis of Micah 5:2) [7-28-17].

Micah was written after Assyria had conquered the northern kingdom of Israel, and little Judah might be next. During these troubled times, Micah predicted that there would be a king from Bethlehem (since King David was born here, this may simply mean “a king in the line of David” rather than a literal birth in Bethlehem). God will abandon Israel, but then countrymen (presumably scattered Israelites from the aftermath of the conquest) will return to support the new king. With God’s renewed support, the king will bring peace to Judah, defeat any invasion by Assyria, and be celebrated worldwide.

This doesn’t sound like the career of Jesus.

To the contrary, it doesn’t sound like anyone else. The catch is the phrase, “whose origin is from of old, from ancient days” (RSV). The Hebrew word for “ancient days” is ʿôlām (Strong’s Hebrew word #5769): according to Brown-Driver Briggs, its range of meaning includes the following:

1) long duration, antiquity, futurity, for ever, ever, everlasting, evermore, perpetual, old, ancient, world

1a) ancient time, long time (of past)

1b) (of future)

1b1) for ever, always

1b2) continuous existence, perpetual

1b3) everlasting, indefinite or unending future, eternity

If Micah was referring to a current king or a soon-to-be-king, he would not have been “everlasting” or of “ancient time,” etc. This clearly refers to God. No one else can be described like this. See also this article of mine: Dual Fulfillment of Prophecy & the Virgin Birth (vs. JMS Pearce) [12-18-20].

And there’s no mention of the punch line to the Jesus story, the sacrifice and resurrection of mankind’s savior.

Who says that has to be included? It doesn’t. It’s simply predicting the location of the birth of the Messiah. The topic isn’t His redeeming death.

What actually happened was that the Babylonians conquered Judah in the sixth century, so Micah’s prophecy was wrong.

It wasn’t, because it was referring to Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity, Who is eternal.

However, if magi from the east didn’t visit Herod or any other Judean ruler on their ascension to the throne, why (besides literary reasons) is it plausible that the magi would visit this time?

Because they saw what they believed were signs in the heavens leading to that conclusion.

If they were knowledgeable about Judaism, why did they have to be told about Bethlehem?

Technically, it’s not certain that they were told about it in the sense of not previously knowing it (according to Matthew). It was Herod who inquired as to where the Messiah was to be born (Mt 2:4), and was told that it was in Bethlehem (2:5), on the biblical basis of Micah 5:2 (2:6). Herod then “sent” the wise men “to Bethlehem.” The text doesn’t indicate whether they already knew about Bethlehem or not. They may have; or if they didn’t, they simply had an incomplete knowledge of Judaism (being likely adherents of Zoroastrianism), just as many Christians and Jews to this day have a lousy, inadequate knowledge of the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament.

It may very likely have been that they thought (or “knew”) the event would be in Jerusalem or its environs. When they arrived, they asked, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?” (Mt 2:2). They either didn’t know it was to be in Bethlehem, or they did, and were asking more specifically, “where exactly does he live?” It would be (under this hypothesis) the difference between knowing what city or township one lives in, and knowing their actual address, or at least street. We can only speculate about what the text doesn’t clearly spell out. And by this time, it was one-to-two years after His birth, anyway. The Holy Family could have moved somewhere else (in fact, they did eventually move to Nazareth). In my upcoming book, I wrote about this as follows:

My own educated guess, based on my own studies and research, is that the visit of the wise men occurred when Jesus was a year old and that they told Herod the star had appeared a year and three months previously (thinking he may have been born then), based on the conjunction of Jupiter (thought by ancient astrologers to be the “king” of planets) and Regulus (the star of kingship, and brightest in the constellation Leo) in September, 3 B.C. Herod then decided to kill all children under two just to make extra sure that he killed Jesus.

Perhaps they only knew of a Jewish canon with no Micah, but the book of Micah would’ve been over 500 years old at this point.

Maybe they didn’t know of it, or they had a different interpretation of that verse: perhaps not regarding it as the prediction of this king or Messiah. The Jews argued amongst themselves about all kinds of issues. That’s what the Talmud is about. But the Persians knew about Jews and Judaism to some extent as a result of having freed them (after they conquered Babylon), and allowing them to go back to Israel and Jerusalem in the 5th century BC, due to the magnanimity of Kings Darius and Cyrus.

They might have been isolated from mainstream Judaism, but then we’re back to the question of why they would make the difficult trip to connect with a Judaism they were isolated from.

Again, because the stars suggested it (according to their ancient astrological knowledge). I wrote in my book:

It’s not rocket science (then or now) to know and understand that Jerusalem was west of Persia—so a star to the west having to do with a king (Jupiter and Regulus were associated with a king) and a lion (of Judah), the constellation Leo, provided that there was an existing familiarity with Judaism, would logically lead to Jerusalem, both geographically and in the context of the religions of that time.

I examined my own globe of the world and saw that Jerusalem is almost exactly due west from northwest Persia, where the Magi likely came from. In current maps, Baghdad and Amman, Jordan are roughly on the line due west from this area. Baghdad was built in the eighth century. Ancient Babylon lies about 53 miles south of Baghdad, but it was conquered by the Persians in 539 B.C. and was never the same again, eventually becoming a ruin and wasteland.

Amman (ancient Ammon, in the region of the Ammonites in current-day Jordan) was not religiously significant enough at this time, either, and after the fourth century B.C. it was conquered by the Greeks, Egyptians, and Romans. It was no extraordinary astronomical deduction, then, to conclude that some important happenings due west were to occur in Jerusalem.

Since God spoke to the magi directly when he warned them in a dream to avoid Herod on their return, why couldn’t he just have told them, “Go to Bethlehem, avoiding Jerusalem, by date X to visit the new king of the Jews”?

Who knows? Many things God does are mysterious, and we should fully expect this, if indeed He is omniscient, as Jews and Christians believe He is. But what is truly silly is to think that we can totally figure such a God out, and second-guess Him at every turn.

Why would the ambiguous motion of Jupiter be preferable?

Heavenly signs are important to many religions. The Bible stated:

Numbers 24:17 A star shall come forth out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel.

Joel 2:30 And I will give portents in the heavens . . .

Avoiding a visit to Herod would’ve also avoided tipping him off to the rival king, which caused the Massacre of the Innocents (not that avoiding bloodshed is much of a priority in the Bible).

We either have free will or we don’t. If we do, we are truly free, and God isn’t obliged to intervene every time human beings commit evil or plan to do so (I wrote about this very thing at great length, twenty years ago). The example I always use to illustrate the point relates to the Nazi Holocaust. Atheists and many others seem to want to blame God for that. For the life of me, I have never been able to understand or figure out why:

Atheist or other critic of God: ” why didn’t you stop the Nazis? You’re responsible for them and for the Nazi Holocaust!”

God: “I’m not! The rest of the world was perfectly capable of observing the German military build-up and stopping it before it got off the ground. But it preferred to close its eyes. John F. Kennedy wrote his book, Why England Slept about this. Knowing this propensity for head-in-the-sand irresponsibility, I did, however, send my messenger Winston Churchill, who warned vociferously through the mid-30s of the German build-up. No one wanted to believe him. So why do you blame Me for your own willful blindness and stupidity? You were amply warned of the great tragedy that was to occur. You could have fully prevented it. You chose not to. And so it’s just the usual human blame-shifting. You foolishly and vainly try to blame Me for your own blindness and wickedness. In a similar manner, Malcolm Muggeridge warned England and the west of the Soviet forced starvation of ten million Ukrainians in the early 1930s and no one wanted to believe him, either, preferring their own fantasies of good old ‘Uncle Joe’ Stalin. How is that My fault?”

Of course, if we’re questioning God’s motivation,

What makes anyone think they are competent to do so in the first place: especially a person who doesn’t even believe in God?

we could ask why he celebrated the most important event on earth since Creation with a vague light show that would be understood by a few strangers rather than something grand that would alert the world.

He does lots of unexpected things like that. God becoming a baby in a manger is perhaps the most inexplicable thing of all from our warped human perspective. We want kings coming from the heavens throwing thunderbolts around (like Zeus). That’s the kind of “god” we invariably manufacture. But the real God chose instead to come to earth as a baby in a stinky, lowly cave (I’ve been there, and it is indeed a cave), and for that matter, to be tortured and executed in one of the most painful ways known to man. Scarcely anyone could have predicted either thing.

But of course, when God does indeed do something grand like, for example, making the sun dance and have different colors, and immediately drying up the rain and mud, as happened at Fatima, Portugal in October 1917, with 70,000 witnesses, atheists simply blow that off, too. It’s what they claim they want (Bob expressed it above, again, and I’ve seen this demand a hundred times), but when it actually happens, they thumb their nose at it, as they do with every other miracle God has ever performed. Nothing is ever good enough for them. And that’s because they refuse to believe, not that they are unable to or that there isn’t enough reason to. It’s two different things (will vs. mind).

The real light show and universal manifestation will be the Second Coming, but by then it will be too late for those who refuse to believe and follow God. They will have had every chance to believe, and to choose to cease their rebellion, or continue in it all the way to hell, where they can finally be free from the “oppressive” God that they so despised, altogether, and forever.

But (just a trifle I should note), the star of Bethlehem phenomenon happened a year to two years after Jesus’s birth. The “light show” that actually happened at His birth was to the shepherds in the fields:

Luke 2:8-14 And in that region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. [9] And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. [10] And the angel said to them, “Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people; [11] for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. [12] And this will be a sign for you: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” [13] And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, [14] “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased!”

Note that this is not the star of Bethlehem. It’s the supernatural light of the “glory of the Lord.” The Star never shone down on the manger and the baby Jesus (it couldn’t have anyway because He and it were in a cave), despite 10,000 Christmas cards conditioning us to believe otherwise. We should get our theology from the Bible, not Hallmark.

God could’ve told everyone or he could’ve told no one, but instead he gave just a hint to a few men hundreds of miles away from the birthplace of Jesus.

Yes, and what of it? I see nothing wrong with it. See my next comment.

Apparently, God moves in stupid ways.

The story of both the wise men and the shepherds both made it into inspired revelation, which has now been read by several billion people. I think that’s a pretty good way to go about things. An event: even a spectacular one, is still confined to time and place, and those who come later can always find a way to dismiss it if they are determined to do so. But an inspired message in a book that can move souls and change lives goes on and on. God has His messengers, too: priests, pastors, evangelists, monks, nuns, teachers, catechists; even apologists like me! We spread the Good News. All of this is far more efficient than one “light show” at one point of time. That’s not “stupid.” But the objection is, if I may say so.

Finally, let’s consider how Jupiter “went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was.”

Yes, and when and how long did that happen? It was on the six-mile long journey from Jerusalem to Bethlehem (Mt 2:1, 7-9). A camel travels about 3 miles per hour on average (the same as a man’s walk), so it would have taken two hours to get to Bethlehem, either by camel or foot. That’s roughly the entire time the Bible refers to them (in non-literal language, I believe) following a star. In the language of appearance (non-literal language), it “went before them” not in perceived motion, but because it was always ahead of them on the way.

We know from the astronomical charts that Jupiter, in later November and early December in 2 B.C. was to the south from Jerusalem; therefore, it “went before” the wise men as they traveled south to Bethlehem—the journey that the text refers to. Jupiter wouldn’t have moved much on the way from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. This (I submit) is what the Bible (which habitually uses phenomenological language) means by saying that the star “went before” them.

In other words, it would always have been “ahead” or “in front of” or “before” them as they traveled: much as we say we are “following the sun west” or how American slaves (in folklore, at least, if not in fact) attempting to escape to the north followed the “drinking gourd” (the Big Dipper) north. Thus, one could say the Big Dipper or North Star “went before” the slaves, just as we say they “followed” it. The North Star would also lead anyone to the North Pole if he kept following it; that is, by our vantage point, it would “go before” him. It’s all phenomenological language, which we use all the time, just as the biblical writers also did.

“[The star] stopped over the place where the child was” is not something Jupiter could ever do.

That’s not true, and Bob himself concedes how it could do so:

Larson’s attempt to salvage his theory uses one of Jupiter’s switches between forward and retrograde motion (it switches directions twice a year) as a “stopping” point. Yes, Jupiter’s motion relative to the fixed background of stars would apparently stop for several days, but this does nothing to get us to “it stopped over the place where the child was.”

It explains how it could settle over Bethlehem for only roughly two hours of time (at a minimum). The ancients at this time actually knew about retrograde motion, and I believe this is how they described it in simple, observational language. Let’s examine more closely what the author may have been describing in saying that the star “came to rest over the place where the child was.”

First of all, the text (Matt. 2:9) doesn’t indicate that it shone specifically on a “house.” This is a common misconception. Matthew 2:11, just two verses later, simply says they went “into a house”—not that the star was shining on it, identifying it. We must be precise about what any given text under consideration actually asserts and does not assert. Two of the very best and renowned Protestant Bible commentators and exegetes of our time (R. T. France and ) agree:

R. T. France: It is not said to indicate the precise house, but the general location where the child was.

D. A. Carson: The Greek text does not imply that the star pointed out the house where Jesus was or that it led the travelers through twisty streets; it may simply have hovered over Bethlehem as the Magi approached it.

The Greek “adverb of place” in Matthew 2:9 is hou. In the RSV, hou is translated by “the place where” (in KJV, simply “where”). It applies to a wide range of meanings beyond something as specific as a house. In other passages in the RSV, it refers to a mountain (Matt 28:16), Nazareth (Luke 4:16), a village (Luke 24:28), the land of Midian (Acts 7:29), and the vast wilderness that Moses and the Hebrews traveled through (Heb. 3:9). Thus, it can easily, plausibly refer to “Bethlehem” in Matthew 2:9.

This is an important point because it goes to the issue of supernatural or natural. A “star” (whatever it is) shining a beam down on one house would be (I agree) supernatural—not any kind of “star” we know of in the natural world. But a star shining on an area, in the direction of an area (which a bright Jupiter was to Bethlehem in my scenario, at 68 degrees in the sky), is a perfectly natural event.

Matthew 2:9 is similar to how we would speak in English, “Where I was, I could see the conjunction very well.” “Where” obviously refers to a place. And one’s place is many things simultaneously. Thus, when I saw the “star of Bethlehem”-like conjunction in December 2020, I was in a field, near my house (in my neighborhood), in my town (Tecumseh), in my county (Lenawee), in my state (Michigan), and in my country (United States). This is my point about “place” in Matthew 2:9. It can mean larger areas, beyond just “house.” If the text doesn’t say specifically, “The star shone on the house,” then we can’t say for sure that this is what the text meant.

I have found eighteen other English Bible translations of Matthew 2:9 that also have “the place where” (Weymouth, Moffatt, Confraternity, Knox, NEB, REB, NRSV, Lamsa, Amplified, Phillips, TEV, NIV, Jerusalem, Williams, Beck, NAB, Kleist & Lilly, and Goodspeed). In all these cases, they are translating hou, literally meaning “where” but at the same time implying place (which is the “where” referred to). The Living Bible (a very modern paraphrase) has “standing over Bethlehem,” which bolsters my argument as well (because it doesn’t say “house”).

Remember the Bible’s cosmology. Stars weren’t light years away but were close enough to fall to the ground after the tribulation.

That was the initial Hebrew conception, yes (and we could delve into the philosophical, scientific Greeks and their ridiculous cosmology at the same time), and there is much non-literal poetic expression involved as well. But by this time, their pre-scientific knowledge (whatever they knew) was expressed phenomenologically, and God saw to it that it was accurate as far as it went (i.e., the words are in inspired revelation).

The author of Matthew could have easily imagined tiny stars moving like Tinker Bell (a fairy in Peter Pan who looks like a darting light) to direct the magi to the house where Jesus lived,

Yes, if he had seen Peter Pan on TV, but alas, he did not. And as I just proved at length, the text does not say that the star shone on a house.

but this doesn’t fit with magi supposedly knowledgeable enough to know how planetary motion actually worked.

No it doesn’t. The text as read, however, does fit in with a layman’s perspective of what retrograde motion produces: a seemingly stationary “star” (planet in this case). And we know that they had this knowledge at that time (whether Matthew and the Jews in general did or not), as ones who were stargazers and very aware of what was happening in the heavens.

So back to the title of this article: how did the Star of Bethlehem move like Tinker Bell? Answer: it didn’t. At least not with a natural interpretation, . . .

I fully agree! It moved like Jupiter does, because it was Jupiter.

There is plenty of room to make a plausible skeptical case against Matthew’s nativity story.

And there is plenty of objective scientific data (from astronomical charts) for us to know where a bright Jupiter or conjunctions were in this general time-period. That can be determined. The much thornier question to work through is the year of Herod’s death, which gives us proposed chronologies of actual years. I get into that in my book as well (and elsewhere), but it’s too involved to enter into in this article.

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Photo credit: OpenClipart-Vectors (10-8-13) [Pixabay / Pixabay License]

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Summary: I elaborate upon several of the fascinating aspects of the story of the star of Bethlehem and interact with various (failed) objections from atheist Bob Seidensticker.

“Mother of God”: Refuting Lucas Banzoli’s Absurdities

June 2, 2022 By Dave Armstrong

Lucas Banzoli is a very active Brazilian anti-Catholic polemicist, who holds to basically a Seventh-Day Adventist theology, whereby there is no such thing as a soul that consciously exists outside of a body, and no hell (soul sleep and annihilationism). This leads him to a Christology which is deficient and heterodox in terms of Christ’s human nature after His death. He has a Master’s degree in theology, a degree and postgraduate work in history, a license in letters, and is a history teacher, author of 25 books, as well as blogmaster (but now inactive) for six blogs. He’s active on YouTube.

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The words of Lucas Banzoli will be in blue. I used Google Translate to transfer his Portugese text into English.

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This is a reply to Lucas’ heretical and blasphemous articles, “Maria é mãe de Deus (Theotókos)?” [Is Mary the mother of God?] (9-20-12) and “Deus tem mãe?” [Does God have a mother?] (5-12-13).

Let’s start with definitions and basic explanations, so readers will know with certainty exactly what the catholic claim is, and what UI am defending. Theotokos, the term in question, means literally, “God-bearer.” Mary is the mother of God the Son. If someone denies that Mary is the mother of God (the Son), then they deny that Jesus is God. If, on the other hand, someone denies that Mary is the mother of God (the Son), then they deny the virgin birth, and in effect, also the incarnation.

This resolves the problem altogether. But she is not only the mother of Jesus’ human nature (Christotokos) because motherhood is about giving birth to persons, not natures (or souls, as in our case, when mothers give birth).

Historic Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants all believe that Jesus was God Incarnate: God in the flesh; the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. This title for Mary was specifically intended by the early Church to protect the deity or divinity of Jesus, since some were arguing that she was the mother of His human nature only. It would be odd to argue that human mothers give birth only to the bodies of their sons and daughters, rather than to a person who consists of body and soul. Human beings “co-create” in a sense the bodies of their children (implied by the word “procreate”), while they have nothing to do with their souls, which are directly created by God.

Likewise, Mary gave birth to Jesus as a human person, even though she had nothing to do with His divine nature (now merged with a human nature), which existed eternally. She gave birth to “the man Who was God,” so she is the mother of God (the Son). At no time have Catholics or Orthodox thought that Mary was “mother” of God the Father or the Holy Spirit. It’s impossible to find any official Catholic dogmatic document stating that Mary is the “mother of God the Father” or “mother of the Holy Spirit.” It is only from sheer misunderstanding that anything other than this was thought to be implied by “Mother of God.” Many notable Protestants have also used the title:

She became the Mother of God, in which work so many and such great good things are bestowed on her as pass man’s understanding. For on this there follows all honor, all blessedness, and her unique place in the whole of mankind, among which she has no equal, namely, that she had a child by the Father in heaven, and such a Child . . . Hence men have crowded all her glory into a single word, calling her the Mother of God . . . None can say of her nor announce to her greater things, even though he had as many tongues as the earth possesses flowers and blades of grass: the sky, stars; and the sea, grains of sand. It needs to be pondered in the heart what it means to be the Mother of God. (Martin Luther, Commentary on the Magnificat, 1521; in Luther’s Works, Pelikan et al, volume 21, 326)

On account of this personal union and communion of the natures, Mary, the most blessed virgin, did not conceive a mere, ordinary human being, but a human being who is truly the Son of the most high God, as the angel testifies. He demonstrated his divine majesty even in his mother’s womb in that he was born of a virgin without violating her virginity. Therefore she is truly the mother of God and yet remained a virgin. (Formula of Concord, from 1577: one of the Lutheran confessions, translated by Arthur C. Piepkorn: Solid Declaration, Article VIII: “The Person of Christ,” section 9)The description of Mary as the “Mother of God” was and is sensible, permissible and necessary as an auxiliary Christological proposition. (Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, I, 2, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1963, 138) [see documentation of several other prominent early Protestants using the title “Mother of God”]

Scripture teaches that:

1) Jesus is God (many biblical proofs; Jn 1:1; Col 2:9).

2) Mary is His true mother (Is 7:14; Mt 1:16,18; 2:11, 13, 20; 12:46; Lk 1:31, 35, 43; Jn 1:15; 2:1; Gal 4:4).

Ergo, “Mary is the Mother of God” [the Son].

Another, less direct, but equally effective way of arguing the point is noting Elizabeth’s exclamation to the Blessed Virgin Mary: “And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Luke 1:43, RSV). The Greek word for “Lord” here (as usually in the New Testament) is Kurios. It’s widely applied both to God the Father and to Jesus, since they are both “Lord” and God” and equal as the Father and Son in the Holy Trinity. In fact, in a single passage (Rom 10:9-13), both the Father and the Son are called “Lord” (Kurios).

John Calvin, the most influential early Protestant leader after Martin Luther, wrote about Luke 1:43:

She [Elizabeth] calls Mary the mother of her Lord This denotes a unity of person in the two natures of Christ; as if she had said, that he who was begotten a mortal man in the womb of Mary is, at the same time, the eternal God. (Harmony of the Synoptic Gospels)

Martin Luther also made many affirming statements about Theotokos. Here are two of the most striking ones:

We, too, know very well that Christ did not derive his deity from Mary; but it does not follow that it must, therefore, be false to say, “God was born of Mary” and “God is Mary’s Son” and “Mary is God’s mother.”

Mary is the true, natural mother of the child called Jesus Christ, and the true mother and bearer of God . . . Mary suckled God, rocked God, made broth and soup for God. For God and man are one Person, one Christ, one Son, one Jesus, not two persons . . . just as your son is not two sons . . . even though he has two natures, body and soul, — body from you, soul from God alone. (On the Councils and the Church, 1539)

James Cardinal Gibbons: a great apologist in the early 1900s, brilliantly explained the doctrine of Theotokos:

We affirm that the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the Word of God, who in His divine nature is from all eternity begotten of the Father, consubstantial with Him, was in the fullness of time again begotten, by being born of the Virgin, thus taking to Himself, from her maternal womb, a human nature of the same substance with hers.

But it may be said the Blessed Virgin is not the Mother of the Divinity. She had not, and she could not have, any part in the generation of the Word of God, for that generation is eternal; her maternity is temporal. He is her Creator; she is His creature. Style her, if you will, the Mother of the man Jesus or even of the human nature of the Son of God, but not the Mother of God.

I shall answer this objection by putting a question. Did the mother who bore us have any part in the production of our soul? Was not this nobler part of our being the work of God alone? And yet who would for a moment dream of saying “the mother of my body,” and not “my mother?” . . . . .

In like manner, . . . the Blessed Virgin, under the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost, by communicating to the Second Person of the Adorable Trinity, as mothers do, a true human nature of the same substance with her own, is thereby really and truly His Mother.

. . . in this sense, and in no other, has the Church called her by that title. (The Faith of Our Fathers, New York: P. J. Kenedy & Sons, revised edition, 1917, 137-138)

Nestorius was not a “heretic”. On the contrary, he tried to restore the biblical principle that Mary is “Christotokos” (mother of Christ), while there were people who taught that she was “Theotokos” (mother of God). For him, the issue was not as simple as saying that (1) Jesus is God; (2) Mary is the mother of Jesus; then (3) Mary is the mother of God.

Then he rejected clear biblical teaching, and inexorable logic. Mary was the mother of Jesus, Who was the Second Person of the Holy Trinity and God the Son.

Proof of this is that, using similar syllogisms, we could conclude that Jesus “sinned” because (1) all men sin; (2) Jesus was a man; then (3) Jesus sinned. It is obvious that the Scriptures affirm that Jesus was without sin, but a syllogism similar to the one used by Catholics could show us otherwise.

This syllogism is a false one, because it has a false premise (“all men sin”). It is not of the essence of man that he must sin. Human beings were created good, and before they rebelled and fell, they were sinless. Therefore, “all men sin” is false, because Adam and Eve did not sin, pre-fall. The unfallen angels are also creatures (though not human beings) who never sinned. Babies who are murdered in abortion have not ever sinned, yet they are human beings. Mary never sinned, because she was filled with grace, by a special miracle of God.

Furthermore, they use other similar syllogisms to prove the other Marian dogmas as well. For example: (1) The pure cannot be born of the impure; (2) Jesus was pure; therefore (3) Mary is immaculate.

This is not correct Catholic theology. Any Catholic who uses this argument — though he may be perfectly sincere and pious — doesn’t know what he is talking about. I explain why the above argument is incorrect in my article, Was Mary’s Immaculate Conception Absolutely Necessary? [1-5-05; published at National Catholic Register on 12-8-17]. Catholics say that Mary’s Immaculate Conception was “fitting” (i.e., appropriate and to be expected) but not absolutely necessary. And we say that Jesus, being God for all eternity, can’t possibly sin (impeccability). This would be the case whether Mary was a sinner or not. Nor could He possibly receive original sin from Mary because He is not among creatures who rebelled against God and fell (since He is God).

If we read Job 14:4, we see that premise #1 is correct.

This is proverbial-type language at a very early stage of Judaeo-Christian theology. It can’t be used to determine fine points of very highly developed Christian theology.

However, this does not mean that conclusion (3) is right, since, by the same logic, Mary (pure) could not be born from someone impure either;

This is untrue. Mary’s immaculate state has nothing whatsoever to do with her mother, since it came from a special supernatural act of grace: she was filled with grace from the time of her conception. That has nothing to do with 1) Mary’s free will choice, or 2) her mother.

therefore, by the same syllogism we arrive at the conclusion that Mary’s mother is also immaculate.

If so, then this would be an example of being right for the wrong reasons.

But it doesn’t stop here. If Mary’s mother is immaculate and the pure cannot be born from the impure, then Mary’s grandmother is also immaculate. And so on: great-grandmother, great-great-grandmother… until Eva… all without blemish! It is evident, therefore, that those who arrive at the “conclusion” that Mary is the mother of God by the simple syllogism demonstrated above, incur the same fallacy presented in the other points.

No one other than Mary has to be immaculate in order for her to be,. It has nothing to do with her ancestors. It’s all about God and what He chose to do.

In addition, syllogisms similar to those used by Catholics can also be used to turn against themselves. For example: (1) Mary is not the mother of the Father; (2) The Father is God; therefore (3) Mary is not the mother of God.

That means that Mary is not the mother of God the Father, which is true. “Mother of God” only refers to being the mother of God the Son. There are distinctions even in the Trinity. The Father and the Holy Spirit do not become incarnate and take on flesh. They are immaterial spirits.

Also: (1) Mary did not beget the Holy Spirit; (2) The Holy Spirit is God; therefore (3) Mary is not the mother of God.

It’s the same error again, based on not understanding what Theotokos means in the first place. This is carnal reasoning, that Paul talks about with regard to the Corinthians and their pagan Greek philosophical background.

Interestingly, the syllogisms used by Marian fanatics are turned against themselves when we analyze them carefully.

Not at all. The one confused here is Lucas, not Catholics (and the Orthodox and Martin Luther and many Protestants who agree with us), as shown.

And that was exactly the question that Nestorius addressed: to say that Mary is or is not the mother of God is not as simple as that syllogism, but we must go into deeper terms if we want to reach a more certain conclusion. For, apparently, there is no problem with the Catholic syllogism; however, when we look more closely, we find like Nestorius that:

(1) One is only the mother of that which generates.

(2) Mary did not generate Christ’s divinity, but humanity.

(3) Therefore, Mary is the mother of Jesus as a man, and not of God.

In other words, Mary is the mother only of Christ’s humanity, and not of his divinity, which existed long before Mary. Therefore, the conclusion we come to is that Mary is the mother of Christ (Christotokos), and not the mother of God (Theotokos), as Catholics say.

This is just silly. As some of my citations above note, our mothers are not the mothers of our souls, which are directly created by God. But we don’t say that they are mothers only of our bodies. They are our mothers, and we are composed of both body and soul. Likewise, Mary is the mother of Jesus Christ the Person, Who has a Divine and Human Nature (neither of which Mary brought about through reproductive biological processes. What she did was participate in the ineffable joy of bearing the incarnate God: being a necessary and glorious part of the incarnation.

About Nestorius being accused of “heresy” by the Council of Ephesus (431 AD), we must, first of all, emphasize that infallibility does not come from the councils, but from the Bible.

That teaching is never in the Bible, while the Bible does teach that the first Christian council, at Jerusalem (Acts 15) was indeed infallible, since the decision was described as follows:

Acts 15:28-29 (RSV) For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: [29] that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from unchastity. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”

1 Timothy 3:15 also teaches that “the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth” (not just Scripture) is infallible

If councils were infallible and inerrant, then there would be no argument as to which councils are valid, for they would all be valid equally. Proof of this is that Roman Catholics accept 21 councils, while the Orthodox adopt only seven.

People disagree because not all men arrive at truth in equal measure. Look at the multiple hundreds of Protestant denominations to see that. But because a lot of falsehood is floating around, it doesn’t follow that there is not one truth (and one divinely protected Church). Nestorius is heretical based on what the Bible teaches, before we ever get to what an ecumenical council (correctly) said about him.

Tertullian was considered a “heretic” by the Church of the time, he was excommunicated, joined the Montanists and then created his own religious segment, and Catholics and Evangelicals still cite abundantly the writings of the great theologian Tertullian in all his teachings.

This is nonsense through and through. Wikipedia (“Tertullian”) noted: “today most scholars reject the assertion that Tertullian left the mainstream church or was excommunicated” [citing source: Tertullian and Paul, by Todd D. Still & David E. Wilhite, A & C Black, 2012]. Co-author Wilhite observed:

The past half-century of scholarly investigation into the life of Tertullian has formed an overwhelming consensus that Tertullian was not a Montanist schismatic. (p. 46)

Wilhite noted (p. 47) that St. Jerome (De virg. vel. 53) was the first to claim that Tertullian had formally left the Catholic Church and committed schism. He was born (c. 343) about 113 years after Tertullian died (c. 225), so that obviously didn’t occur during Tertullian’s own lifetime, and they believe that there was “a complete lack of evidence that Tertullian was a schismatic” (p. 47). Wilhite asserts:

Tertullian remained, and repeatedly referred to himself as, within the church. (p. 48)

I have contended that dismissing Tertullian’s views as “Montanist” is premature . . . (p. 49)

So (I’m extremely curious) what scholarly source does Lucas draw from, where he learned that Tertullian was 1) called a “heretic” by the Church in his lifetime, and 2) was excommunicated?

Therefore, condemning Nestorius as a heretic for the simple fact that part of the Church of the time and a council considered him to be so, is at least an act of immaturity, committed by novice and amateur “apologists”, who think that the Church in the 5th century (Nestorius’ time) preached all the harmonic doctrines as found in the Scriptures!

Yes, we believe in ecumenical councils, which are infallible in some of their proclamations, following the scriptural model of the council of Jerusalem. Nestorius was formally and rightly declared to be a heretic by the ecumenical Council of Ephesus in 431.

Furthermore, the fact that the Church did not have an “official” position on this is evident, and that opinions were divided, which we can evidence in the Council of Ephesus itself. Bishop Celestine of Rome joined the side of Cyril, who took charge of the Council, opening the discussions without waiting for the arrival of the long-delayed entourage of Eastern bishops from Antioch, who were in favor of Nestorius. Therefore, they condemned Nestorius without giving the defense due opportunity and to hear both sides.

However, as the Council progressed, John I of Antioch and the eastern bishops arrived and were furious to learn that Nestorius had already been condemned. They gathered in a synod of their own and deposed Cyril. Both sides appealed to the Emperor and he initially ordered both of them exiled. However, Cyril eventually returned after bribing several members of the imperial court! This story is not told by them, for they only tell half of the story, hiding fundamental truths that belie their ploy.

Lucas obviously wants to emphasize the disagreements, but in his selectivity, neglects to point out that ultimately John I of Antioch and Cyril were reconciled (against Nestorius). The Protestant McClintock and Strong Biblical Cyclopedia (1880: “Nestorius”) stated:

Nestorius saw himself deserted by many of the bishops of his party; and though John of Antioch and a number of the Eastern bishops stood firm for a time, John and Cyril were ultimately brought to an agreement, and both retained their sees.

So yes, there was significant agreement, which is why both Catholics and Orthodox agree that Nestorianism was heretical and that Theotokos is a good and proper title. Nestorianism barely exists today in a formal sense. Encyclopaedia Britannica (“Nestorianism”) noted:

The modern Nestorian church is not Nestorian in the strict sense, though it venerates Nestorius and refuses to accept the title Theotokos for the Blessed Virgin.

The article continues:

In 1551 a number of Nestorians reunited with Rome and were called Chaldeans, the original Nestorians having been termed Assyrians. The Nestorian Church in India, part of the group known as the Christians of St. Thomas, allied itself with Rome (1599) and then split, half of its membership transferring allegiance to the Syrian Jacobite (monophysite) patriarch of Antioch (1653).

On the second issue, Luke 1:43 says absolutely nothing about Mary being “the mother of God”. To affirm this is to go beyond what is written (1 Cor.4:6). The biblical text only says “mother of my Lord”, not mother of God. In Greek, the word used for “Lord” is “Kyrios” (kuriou). This term, applied to Jesus in Luke 1:43, is not used to refer to God alone. Let’s look at some references to “Lord” (kuriou) in the New Testament without being specifically to Jehovah:

1st Owners of property are called Lord (Mt. 20:8, kurios is “owner” – NIV).

2nd The owners of houses were called Lord (Mk. 13:35, owner = kurios).

3rd The owners of slaves were called Lord (Mt. 10:24, lord = kurios).

4th The husbands were called Lord (1 Pet. 3:6, lord = kurios).

5th A son called his father Lord (Mt. 21:30, lord = kurios).

6th The Roman Emperor was called Lord (Acts 25:26, His Majesty = kurios).

7th The Roman authorities were called Lord (Mt. 27:63, lord = kurios).

So if anyone claims that Luke 1:43 is some “proof” that Mary is “the mother of God,” he is at the very least a gross immaturity and a blatant lack of biblical knowledge.

Kurios can indeed be used in a wider, “non-God” sense. But we know that both God the Father (Mt 11:25; 21:42; Mk 13:20; Lk 4:18; 1 Tim 6:15) and Jesus (Lk 2:11; Acts 7:59; 10:36; 1 Cor 12:3; Phil 2:10-11; Heb 1:10; Rev 17:14; 19:16) are called Kurios in the sense of LORD (= God). The Father and the Son are both called “Lord” in one passage (Mt 22:41-45; Rom 10:9-13). God the Father is called “Lord” (Kurios) and “God” (Theos) in one passage many times (Mt 22:37-38; Mk 12:29-30; Lk 1:32, 46-47, 68; 20:37; Acts 3:22; Rev 18:18). Likewise, Jesus is called “Lord” (Kurios) and “God” (Theos) in one passage (Jn 20:28-29; also true of Hebrews 1:8 and 1:10, if seen as one passage in the larger context; and God the Father uses both words for Jesus). See all of these passage and more fully written out in my paper, “Deity of Jesus: Called “Lord” (“Kurios”) and “God” (“Theos”)”.

“Mother of God” doesn’t rest scripturally only on Luke 1:43 anyway. It can easily be shown through straightforward deduction:

1) Mary is the mother of Jesus (Mt 1:18; 2:11, 13-14, 20-21; 12:46; 13:55; Mk 3:31-32; Lk 1:43; 2:33-34, 48, 51; 8:19-20; Jn 2:1, 3, 5, 12; 6:42; 19:25-26; Acts 1:14).

2) Jesus is “God” / Theos:

Matthew 1:23 “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel” (which means, God with us).

John 1:1, 14 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.. . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us . . .

John 20:28-29 Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” [29] Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.”

Titus 2:13 awaiting our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,

Hebrews 1:8 But of the Son he says, “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever, the righteous scepter is the scepter of thy kingdom. [God the Father calls God the Son, “God”; The larger passage cites Ps 102:25-27, which is applied to God]

2 Peter 1:1 . . . in the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ:

1 John 5:20 And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, to know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.

3) Therefore, Mary is the Mother of God [the Son: Jesus].

And finally, on the third question, there is no historical evidence (I repeat: no evidence!) that goes back to the apostles and that tells us explicitly that Mary was the mother of God.

I just provided biblical proof, which is from the apostles. There is quite a bit of corroborating evidence from Church fathers prior to 431 as well.

The first and largest historical source that refers to the apostles that we have today is the New Testament, which makes 39 mentions of Mary as being “mother of Jesus” (Christotokos), but absolutely none of her being “mother of God” (Theotókos).

It’s an inexorable deduction, as shown.

The first who preached Theotókos was Irenaeus of Lyon, at the end of the 2nd century AD. Opinion in the Church was not uniform in this regard, and we have no apostolic or 1st to early 2nd century AD evidence to show that Christians at the time believed in Theotokos.

It’s in the Bible itself, as shown, and that is apostolic, first-century, and inspired, infallible revelation.

I always ask Catholics: “Did God die on the cross”?

Yes He did, because Jesus was God. God the Son died on the cross. God the Son alone became man. God the Son alone atoned for the sins of mankind by His sacrificial death on the cross.

The answers are always divided, most of the time dubious and contradictory, and not infrequently confusing.

That’s because there are apologists with differing degrees of knowledge answering.

The truth is that they themselves resist saying that God died on the cross, because to say that God dies is the height of blasphemy, nor does the devil believe in such a thing.

The Bible says both that Jesus died on the cross and was raised “from the dead” (Mt 17:9; 27:50; 28:7; Mk 9:9-10; 15:37; Lk 23:46; 24:46; Jn 2:22; 19:30; 20:9; 21:14; Acts 3:15; 4:10; 10:41; 13:30, 34; Rom 5:6, 8; 6:8-10; 8:34; Rom 14:9, 15; 1 Cor 8:11; 15:3; 2 Cor 5:15; Gal 2:21; 1 Thess 4:14; 5:10; 1 Pet 3:18; Rev 1:18; 2:8; see many more) and that He was God / Theos (see seven Bible passages not far above). So now the Bible is blasphemous?

But if God does not die,

God the Father and God the Holy Spirit don’t die, because they don’t have bodies. God the Son dies.

that means that Jesus died on the cross as a man.

He died as the incarnate God-man. This is all carnal thinking. Lucas just doesn’t get it. And that’s sad. Most historic Protestants have understood this.

And if the Jesus who walked here on earth was a man like all of us, then Mary is the mother of the human Jesus, not of God.

No; she is His mother, period, and He is God and man both. Mothers give birth to people, not natures or souls.

Did God die on the cross?

Yes, God the Son did.

Can God have a mother?

God the Son can, yes. And that’s what Theotokos refers to. Only the willfully ignorant or consciously heretical person could fail to see that.

The answer to both questions is a resounding “No”!

The answer to both questions is a resounding “Yes”!

In this way, we see that the Catholic claims to support the Marian dogma that Mary is the mother of God are nothing more than deception, with only an “appearance of wisdom” (Col.2:23), but that, when analyzed more closely, we see that they are “ingeniously invented fables” (2Pe.1:16).

Then I eagerly await Lucas’ answers to this article. The real “fun” and challenge in theological debates comes in the second round and after, where people are subject to cross-examination and counter-reply. I’m here, waiting, and will defend all that I wrote, or retract if shown to be wrong.

Now onto Lucas’ second article on the topic: “Deus tem mãe?” [Does God have a mother?] (5-12-13).

Today, May 12, 2013, is Mother’s Day, and, as it could not be otherwise, an old discussion comes to the fore again: does God, the Eternal Creator and First Cause of everything, also have a mother?

No; God the Father obviously does not. No one with an IQ higher than a slug ever said otherwise.

Without wanting to delve too deeply into the subject, which I have also addressed here, here and here, I have elaborated the following ten points that clearly indicate that no, God does not have a mother:

1st Because, in the first place, to be considered a “mother of God” we must take into account the trinitarian concept of God. God is not limited to just the Father, just the Son or just the Holy Spirit, but the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is the one true God. Therefore, for Mary to be considered as “mother of God” she would also have to be mother of the Father and the Holy Spirit.

That’s not true at all. Each Person of the Holy Trinity is fully God, but there are a few differences between them (only the Son is incarnate and takes on flesh; the Spirit proceeds from the son: filioque). What is said of any of them is said of God. Again, Lucas is thinking in carnal terms, not spiritual, biblical terms. Theology and spirituality do not reduce merely to Greek logic. It’s not philosophy. It’s a religious faith. And biblical / Hebraic “both/and” thought is very different from Greek, secular “either/or” (and too often, Protestant) thinking. Lucas here and throughout these two papers reasons like an atheist, not a believing trinitarian Christian.

Otherwise, we could use exactly the same syllogism used by Catholics against themselves:

a) Mary is not the mother of the Father;
b) The Father is God;
c) Therefore, Mary is not the mother of God.

a) Mary is not the mother of the Holy Spirit;
b) The Holy Spirit is God;
c) Therefore, Mary is not the mother of God.

Once again, I reiterate that Theotokos, the word in question, means “God-bearer.” Only one Person of the Triune Godhead (God the Son) was born of and from a human mother. Mary can’t give birth to eternal spirits. If we had been present at Jesus’ birth, and got to hold baby Jesus, we would say, “this is Jesus: the Person that Mary gave birth to, and is the mother of, Who is Lord, Messiah [Christ] and Immanuel [“God with us”]”. No one in their right mind would say, “this is the human nature that Mary gave birth to.” Even saying or writing it sounds utterly ridiculous. But this is what the hyper-rationalistic Nestorianism entails.

Lucas again reasons like an atheist here, not a Christian. I would have opposed him just as vigorously on this point when I was an evangelical Protestant, because these things are plain in Scripture (i.e., to one who thinks spiritually, not carnally) and because one of my first great apologetics projects in the early 1980s was compiling the biblical evidences for the divinity / deity of Christ and the Holy Trinity.

2nd Furthermore, even in the case of Jesus Christ, we must consider that Mary was his mother during the 33 years he was here on earth, and not in eternity.

She will remain His mother then, just as my own mother or my wife’s mother will remain so for eternity, and I will remain my children’s father and my grandchildrens’ grandfather.

Mary cannot be considered as the mother of Jesus as he already existed from eternity

She became His mother when He came down from heaven and took on flesh (incarnation) and human nature in addition to His Divine Nature that He had always possessed.

and she was not even born yet, nor in the condition of Creator/creature. In order to claim that Mary remains the mother of Christ, it would be necessary to prove, first of all, that Jesus maintained the same earthly nature even after having already entered the heavens, so that Mary is biologically the mother of God.

It’s implied that He will still have His body (then glorified and able to go through walls) and wounds, because He did in His post-Resurrection appearances. It’s also implied in what St. John saw in heaven, after Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension:

Revelation 5:6 And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders, I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, . . .

And one passage states it outright:

Philippians 3:21 who will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body . . .

It happens, however, that God is spirit (Jn.4:24),

God the Father and God the Holy Spirit are spirits. Jesus is not, since His incarnation. The meaning of resurrection is a renewed, reborn physical body. This is true of Jesus, and it is true of us, who will be “like him” after we die. Denying this is blasphemous heresy.

and a spirit does not have flesh and bones (Lk.24:39).

That’s right. Jesus does have flesh and bones after His resurrection. He ate fish. He was embraced. Thomas put his hand in His wounds.

Jesus, in His heavenly condition, is no longer in the flesh (Heb.5:7),

Nonsense. “In the days of his flesh” in Hebrews 5:7 simply means “His earthly life.”

and therefore does not have human genetics, which is why Mary is no longer biologically linked to Him.

He has the same human genetics that He had from the day of His birth. He has DNA received from Mary.

3rd Furthermore, to say that God has a mother because Mary was the mother of Jesus on earth implies other even greater absurdities, such as, for example, that God has a father or stepfather who is Joseph, brothers (or “cousins”, as the Catholics prefer) and other relatives.

Paul referred to “brothers [literally, cousins] of the Lord” (1 Cor 9:5). And “Lord” (Kurios) is continuing the usage of “LORD” in the Old Testament which stood for “YHWH”: the name of God that God revealed to Moses at the burning bush.

And along the same lines, Mary’s mother is God’s grandmother, Mary’s grandmother is God’s great-grandmother, Mary’s great-grandmother is God’s great-grandmother, and so on in an endless succession until we get to Eve. So Eve would be related to God to a very distant degree! What is more rational: to think that God has a mother, has a brother in the flesh, has a father, has cousins, has a grandmother, great-grandmother and great-grandmother (and all this in a biological and genetic sense), or to believe that all these mentioned are just creatures of God, making the correct distinction already quoted between the heavenly and the earthly?

Only one person bore God: Mary. Every other “relation” is in a limited sense only. None of them were conceived by the Holy Spirit as Jesus was.

4th Taking into account that one is only the mother of what she generates, we must ask: did Mary generate the divinity of Christ? No!

Of course Mary didn’t “generate” Jesus’ Divine Nature, which is eternal. We fully agree. Our mothers didn’t generate our souls, either, which were direct creations of God at the time of our conceptions. But they are still “our mothers” not merely the mothers of our bodies: which no one ever says, because it’s silly and stupid. Analogously, Mary is Jesus’ mother, because He is one Man, with a Divine Nature and a Human Nature. He can’t be divided. Mothers also didn’t generate the fathers’ DNA that every child receives.

Mary generated only the human nature of Jesus, while he was “in the days of his flesh” (Heb.5:7).

That’s not at issue, so it’s a non sequitur in this discussion. But she helped generate His physical body, too. Jesus probably looked like Mary.

The divine nature of Christ has always existed, it is eternal, it comes from long before Mary even existed.

Indeed.

Claiming that Mary is the mother of God implies falling into two absurdities: that of claiming that she can be the mother of something that was not generated by her, or that Mary did generate the divinity of Christ.

It implies no such thing, correctly understood, and as explained above. Lucas simply doesn’t understand it, and he won’t until he stops thinking carnally and approaches it biblically and spiritually.

In the first case, Mary would be the mother only of the humanity of Jesus, not of the divinity (and, therefore, the mother of the man Jesus, not of the divinity of Christ), while in the second case Mary would have to be previous to the divine nature of Christ to have generated her, which is impossible, since Jesus is Creator and Mary is a creature.

Those are not the only two choices, as shown. She is the mother of a Person, the God-Man Jesus, Who has two natures.

5th Placing Mary on the level of “mother of God” (Theotokos)

She bore God the Son. Or does Luca dispute that, too?

is an abominable heresy that even amounts to blasphemy, on the same level as pagan peoples who always had a “mother-goddess” who was considered the “mother of God” for these people.

They are not using the term in the same sense and meaning that we hold.

Catholics reject the title of “mother goddess”, but accept that of “mother of God”,

That’s because Mary isn’t a goddess, as if she were a female member of the trinity or a “Quaternity.” She’s the Mother of God the Son.

in an attempt to camouflage their clear connection with pagan peoples, such as Isis, worshiped in Egypt as the “mother of God”.

Again, that is vastly different from what we believe. It’s a dumb, clueless comparison.

Interestingly, she also held the title of “Queen of Heaven” (Jer.7:18; 44:17-25), exactly the same title Catholics today ascribe to Mary, in addition to “Our Lady”. This clear syncretism with paganism shows that considering Mary as the mother of God is not merely an affirmation of the divinity of Christ, as Catholics claim, but the defense of a pagan religious syncretism in which Mary is worshiped with the same titles and attributions that the pagans offered to their mother goddess, the Queen of Heaven.

That’s a lie and Lucas can’t prove any sort of equation with paganism, which is why he doesn’t attempt it. He just repeats the same tired old anti-Catholic whoppers that (sadly) millions of theologically undereducated, gullible people have swallowed without thinking for 500 years now.

6th Although this question is delicate and may scandalize many, we should ask: Does God have a penis? Of course not.

Of course God the Father doesn’t, being a spirit.

But Jesus’ human nature had.

Natures don’t have a penis. Men do.

Failing to clearly differentiate as two distinct extremes the human nature of Christ on earth from the divine nature of Christ in Heaven would lead us to innumerable absurdities, going far beyond the aforementioned.

I haven’t seen any yet in Catholic, Orthodox, and mainstream Protestant thinking. But I’ve seen numerous ones in Lucas’ carnal thinking and the ridiculous conclusions he comes up with. It’s sad to observe.

If Mary is the mother of God because she was the mother of Jesus for 33 years while he was in the flesh here on earth, then God has all the physical characteristics of the Christ-man.

God the Son, Jesus does; only glorified now.

But if these characteristics are no longer part of Him, as God, then how can Mary be considered the mother of God?

Lucas wrongly assumes that He doesn’t have a body because he has adopted the heresy of denying that Jesus maintains His resurrected, glorious body forever. I would venture to guess that 95% of Protestants disagree with Him that Jesus is now supposedly a spirit again, rather than a gloriously resurrected body resembling what He looked like during His 33 years on earth. It’s blasphemous and heretical and has no biblical basis.

7th If Mary is the mother of God because she was the mother of Jesus on earth, then we should conclude that God died on the cross. Now, this is absurd, since the Bible teaches that God is immortal, He cannot die under any circumstances (1 Tim.6:16). So, if God is immortal and cannot die, it logically follows that God did not die on the cross. And, if God did not die on the cross, Mary cannot be called the mother of God, since she had been the mother of exactly that Jesus who was nailed and killed on a cross.

We’ve already been through all this. It’s just repeating carnal nonsense.

8th Another similar question is: Was God born after nine months?

Jesus, God the Son was born (as my patience quickly reaches it’s limits . . .).

If so, this would lead us to believe that God had a beginning, which totally goes against the universal theological belief that God is the First Cause, is the Eternal, the one who had no beginning and will have no end of days (Heb.7 :3). Therefore, God did not have a beginning, He was not born from the womb of Mary. And if God was not born after nine months, that means Mary can be considered the mother of the Son of God, or the mother of “the man Jesus Christ” (1 Tim.2:5), but not the mother of God if God was not born. in her belly. Mother of God is a wrong terminology, which may well be replaced by several others that may properly apply.

This is too silly and ridiculous to be worthy of any response. But I’ve already essentially addressed it above. Two more to go . . .

9th We must also remember that Jesus emptied himself when he became man, as Paul says: “but he emptied himself, becoming a servant” (Phil.2:7). He “did not count it as usurpation to be equal with God” (v.6).

He was humble. He never ceased to be God.

In the preserved record of the apostle Thaddeus, who lived with Christ, we confirm the interpretation that this emptying involved deposing his own divinity. This was recorded by Eusebius of Caesarea, . . .

This is the ahistorical material in Eusebius referred to as the Abgar Legend. The Wikipedia article on this summarizes:

The letters, while taken seriously in many Christian traditions for centuries, are generally classed as pseudepigrapha by modern Christians and scholars. . . . The letters were likely composed in the early 4th century. . . .

[T]he origins of the story are far still from certain, although the stories as recorded seem to have been shaped by the controversies of the third century CE, especially as a response to Bardaisan.

This is not a serious argument, and I refuse to give it any attention beyond what I just gave it: to expose it’s true nature.

Mary was the mother of Jesus while he was emptied of his attributes of divinity, and not as God.

Sheer nonsense. This blasphemous falsehood is based on the spurious documentation of the Abgar Legend, not Holy Scripture or legitimate sacred tradition.

This explains why He did not know the day of His own return (Mk.13:32), for He had already emptied Himself of the attribute of omniscience,

Nonsense again. Jesus was always omniscient in His Divine Nature. My friend David Palm did a master’s thesis on this question: “The Signs of His Coming”: for Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois (1993). He wrote it as an evangelical Protestant, later became a Catholic, and recently noted that he would change nothing in it. I summarized his arguments in this paper:

Seidensticker Folly #58: Jesus Erred on Time of 2nd Coming? (with David Palm) [10-7-20]

Banzoli Sez Origen & Tertullian are Sola Scripturists

May 31, 2022 By Dave Armstrong

***

The words of Lucas Banzoli will be in blue. I used Google Translate to transfer his Portugese text into English.

*****

This is a reply to his article,“Tertuliano e Orígenes em defesa da Sola Scriptura” [Tertullian and Origen in defense of Sola Scriptura] (4-17-16).

• Tertullian (160 – 220)

Tertullian also took pains to show the unique authority of the Bible:

“For even the apostle, in his declaration – which he does not do without feeling the weight of it – that ‘Christ died,’ immediately adds, ‘according to the Scriptures,’ that he might lighten the harshness of the declaration by the authority of Scripture, and thus remove the offense from the reader” [Contra Práxeas, 29]

He notes that Paul argued from the Scriptures. So what? Of course he did. So do all the fathers, all Catholic apologists, theologians, bishops and popes, priests in their homilies, and I myself constantly in my work. This doesn’t prove sola Scriptura. It proves use of Scripture as an inspired authority.

For him, the only reason that could lead them to believe a doctrine is if it were given to them in Scripture:

“Surely one could not believe even these things even of the Son of God, unless they were given to us in the Scriptures.” [Contra Práxeas, 16]

This is an interesting one and carries some force, I grant [link]. It can’t be immediately dismissed like so many Protestant patristic arguments. But I think it could probably be interpreted in terms of material sufficiency. My own take on what he says here is that he is commenting on all these amazing events recounted in the Bible, that are so much so that it would be difficult for people to believe in them, but for the fact that they are included in the inspired revelation of the Bible. We know that elsewhere (as I will show below) Tertullian stated that extrabiblical doctrines (harmonious with the Bible) could and should be believed, so he is not absolutely against that.

Remember, Catholics fully agree that the Bible is unique. We simply assert that there are other infallible — not inspired — authorities, too (Church and tradition).

He does not say, “unless it is given to us in Scripture or tradition,” but only in Scripture. It is the only authority that can lead a Christian to believe any doctrine.

He says those things elsewhere (which Lucas will have to grapple with). But it could be partly an exaggerated or rhetorical argument as well, because immediately after this cited portion, he says: “possibly also they could not have been believed of the Father, even if they had been given in the Scriptures, since these men bring Him down into Mary’s womb, and set Him before Pilate’s judgment-seat, and bury Him in the sepulchre of Joseph.” He isn’t going to argue that these things shouldn’t be believed, despite being in the Bible. So it seems to me at least this second statement must be rhetorical and non-literal, with a particular meaning. If it is (which seems clear), then it is likely that the preceding statement may be, too.

She is also enough, as he said:

“Make us happy to say that Christ died, the Son of the Father; and let that be enough, because the Scriptures have told us so.” [Contra Práxeas, 29]

Material sufficiency . . .

For him, the “voice of the Holy Spirit” present in Scripture is enough and no other deliberation is necessary beyond that:

“And why should I, a man of limited memory, suggest anything more? Why remember anything else in Scripture? As if the voice of the Holy Spirit wasn’t enough; or else any other deliberation were necessary, if the Lord cursed and condemned by priority the artisans of these things, of whom He curses and condemns the worshippers!” [On Idolatry, 4]

Well, yes, inspired Scripture is enough to settle problems. But this is not also a logically necessary denial that nothing else could also do so.

Against the school of Hermogenes, he declares one of the most emphatic statements of Sola Scriptura, saying:

“Let the school of Hermogenes show us that what it teaches is written: if it is not written, tremble at the anathema fulminated against those who add to Scripture, or take away from it.” [Contra Hermógenes, 22]

There were, therefore, two options: either the doctrine was written (in Scripture) and valid; or, if it was not written, it represented an addition to the Scriptures, and would be the object of God’s anathema withering. From this statement we see how seriously the early Church Fathers took the concept of Sola Scriptura, where only doctrines that were written in the Bible were accepted and where anything more or less than that was anathema.

The topic at hand here [link] was whether creation was made out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo), or from “underlying matter.” The sentence immediately before Lucas’ citation reads: “But whether all things were made out of any underlying Matter, I have as yet failed anywhere to find.” So Tertullian asks his opponent to produce such a passage (I have produced the contrary) and then notes that no one should add or take away from Scripture because the book of Revelation (22:18-19) tells us not to do so. No one disagrees with that. I don’t see how this is any sort of proof of sola Scriptura.

This represents the entirety of Lucas’ arguments with regard to Tertullian and the rule of faith (one semi-convincing proof that’s not compelling). I can produce far more than this, because I don’t ignore the many relevant passages in Tertullian, like Lucas does:

The material below is from Philip Schaff’s 38-volume collection of the Church fathers. Anglican Church historian J. N. D. Kelly summarizes Tertullian’s view on the rule of faith:

[F]or Tertullian what was believed and preached in the churches was absolutely authoritative . . . on occasion [he] described this original message as tradition, using the word to denote the teaching delivered by the apostles, without any implied contrast between tradition and Scripture . . . Tertullian can refer [de praescr. 21; c. Marc. I, 21;4 5] to the whole body of apostolic doctrine, whether delivered orally or in epistles, as apostolorum traditio or apostolica traditio . . .

Tertullian’s attitude does not differ from Irenaeus’s in any important respect . . . In its primary sense, however, the apostolic, evangelical or Catholic tradition [C. Marc. 4, 5; 5, 19; de monog. 2] stood for the faith delivered by the apostles, and he never contrasted tradition so understood with Scripture . . .

But Tertullian did not confine the apostolic tradition to the New Testament; even if Scripture were to be set on one side, it would still be found in the doctrine publicly proclaimed by the churches. Like Irenaeus, he found [E.g., de praescr. 21; 32; c. Marc. 4, 5] the surest test of the authenticity of this doctrine in the fact that the churches had been founded by, and were continuously linked with, the apostles; and as a further guarantee he added [De praescr. 28] their otherwise inexplicable unanimity . . .

This unwritten tradition he considered to be virtually identical with the ‘rule of faith’ (regula fidei), which he preferred to Scripture as a standard when disputing with Gnostics . . . where controversy with heretics breaks out, the right interpretation can be found only where the true Christian faith and discipline have been maintained, i.e., in the Church [De praescr. 19] . . .

He was also satisfied, and made the point even more forcibly than Irenaeus, that the indispensable key to Scripture belonged exclusively to the Church, which in the regula had preserved the apostles’ testimony in its original shape. . . . the one divine revelation was contained in its fulness both in the Bible and in the Church’s continuous public witness. (Early Christian Doctrines, HarperSanFrancisco, revised 1978 edition, 36, 39-41)

The Church

[T]he churches, although they are so many and so great, comprise but the one primitive church . . . (Prescription against Heretics, ch. 20)

[I]t is incredible that these could have been such as to bring in some other rule of faith, differing from and contrary to that which they were proclaiming through the Catholic churches, — as if they spoke of one God in the Church, (and) another at home, and described one substance of Christ, publicly, (and) another secretly, and announced one hope of the resurrection before all men, (and) another before the few; although they themselves, in their epistles, besought men that they would all speak one and the same thing, and that there should be no divisions and dissensions in the church, seeing that they, whether Paul or others, preached the same things. Moreover, they remembered (the words): Let your communication be yea, yea; nay, nay; for whatsoever is more than this comes of evil; [Matthew 5:37] so that they were not to handle the gospel in a diversity of treatment. (Prescription against Heretics, ch. 26)

Sacred Tradition

It remains, then, that we demonstrate whether this doctrine of ours, of which we have now given the rule, has its origin in the tradition of the apostles, and whether all other doctrines do not ipso facto proceed from falsehood. (Prescription against Heretics, ch. 21)

When, however, that which is deposited among many is found to be one and the same, it is not the result of error, but of tradition. Can any one, then, be reckless enough to say that they were in error who handed on the tradition? (Prescription against Heretics, ch. 28)

Such are the summary arguments which we use, when we take up arms against heretics for the faith of the gospel, maintaining both that order of periods, which rules that a late date is the mark of forgers, and that authority of churches which lends support to the tradition of the apostles; because truth must needs precede the forgery, and proceed straight from those by whom it has been handed on. (Against Marcion, Book IV, ch. 5)

We have it on the true tradition of the Church, that this epistle was sent to the Ephesians, not to the Laodiceans. (Against Marcion, Book V, ch. 17)

For if, even at that time, the tradition of the gospel had spread everywhere, how much more now! Now, if it is our gospel which has spread everywhere, rather than any heretical gospel, much less Marcion’s, which only dates from the reign of Antoninus, then ours will be the gospel of the apostles. (Against Marcion, Book V, ch. 19)

Apostolic Succession

[E]ven if a discussion from the Scriptures should not turn out in such a way as to place both sides on a par, (yet) the natural order of things would require that this point should be first proposed, which is now the only one which we must discuss: With whom lies that very faith to which the Scriptures belong. From what and through whom, and when, and to whom, has been handed down that rule, by which men become Christians? For wherever it shall be manifest that the true Christian rule and faith shall be, there will likewise be the true Scriptures and expositions thereof, and all the Christian traditions. (Prescription against Heretics, ch. 19)

They [the Apostles] then in like manner founded churches in every city, from which all the other churches, one after another, derived the tradition of the faith, and the seeds of doctrine, and are every day deriving them, that they may become churches. Indeed, it is on this account only that they will be able to deem themselves apostolic, as being the offspring of apostolic churches. . . . Therefore the churches, although they are so many and so great, comprise but the one primitive church, (founded) by the apostles, from which they all (spring). In this way all are primitive, and all are apostolic, while they are all proved to be one, in (unbroken) unity, by their peaceful communion, and title of brotherhood, and bond of hospitality — privileges which no other rule directs than the one tradition of the selfsame mystery. (Prescription against Heretics, ch. 20)

From this, therefore, do we draw up our rule. Since the Lord Jesus Christ sent the apostles to preach, (our rule is) that no others ought to be received as preachers than those whom Christ appointed; for no man knows the Father save the Son, and he to whomever the Son will reveal Him. Matthew 11:27 Nor does the Son seem to have revealed Him to any other than the apostles, whom He sent forth to preach — that, of course, which He revealed to them. Now, what that was which they preached — in other words, what it was which Christ revealed to them — can, as I must here likewise prescribe, properly be proved in no other way than by those very churches which the apostles founded in person, by declaring the gospel to them directly themselves, both vivâ voce, as the phrase is, and subsequently by their epistles. If, then, these things are so, it is in the same degree manifest that all doctrine which agrees with the apostolic churches— those moulds and original sources of the faith must be reckoned for truth, as undoubtedly containing that which the (said) churches received from the apostles, the apostles from Christ, Christ from God. Whereas all doctrine must be prejudged as false which savours of contrariety to the truth of the churches and apostles of Christ and God. It remains, then, that we demonstrate whether this doctrine of ours, of which we have now given the rule, has its origin in the tradition of the apostles, and whether all other doctrines do not ipso facto proceed from falsehood. We hold communion with the apostolic churches because our doctrine is in no respect different from theirs. This is our witness of truth. (Prescription against Heretics, ch. 21)

[N]or can they presume to claim to be a church themselves who positively have no means of proving when, and with what swaddling-clothes this body was established. (Prescription against Heretics, ch. 22)

But if there be any (heresies) which are bold enough to plant themselves in the midst of the apostolic age, that they may thereby seem to have been handed down by the apostles, because they existed in the time of the apostles, we can say: Let them produce the original records of their churches; let them unfold the roll of their bishops, running down in due succession from the beginning in such a manner that [that first bishop of theirs ] bishop shall be able to show for his ordainer and predecessor some one of the apostles or of apostolic men, — a man, moreover, who continued steadfast with the apostles. For this is the manner in which the apostolic churches transmit their registers: as the church of Smyrna, which records that Polycarp was placed therein by John; as also the church of Rome, which makes Clement to have been ordained in like manner by Peter. In exactly the same way the other churches likewise exhibit (their several worthies), whom, as having been appointed to their episcopal places by apostles, they regard as transmitters of the apostolic seed. Let the heretics contrive something of the same kind. For after their blasphemy, what is there that is unlawful for them (to attempt)? But should they even effect the contrivance, they will not advance a step. For their very doctrine, after comparison with that of the apostles, will declare, by its own diversity and contrariety, that it had for its author neither an apostle nor an apostolic man; because, as the apostles would never have taught things which were self-contradictory, so the apostolic men would not have inculcated teaching different from the apostles, unless they who received their instruction from the apostles went and preached in a contrary manner. To this test, therefore will they be submitted for proof by those churches, who, although they derive not their founder from apostles or apostolic men (as being of much later date, for they are in fact being founded daily), yet, since they agree in the same faith, they are accounted as not less apostolic because they are akin in doctrine. Then let all the heresies, when challenged to these two tests by our apostolic church, offer their proof of how they deem themselves to be apostolic. But in truth they neither are so, nor are they able to prove themselves to be what they are not. Nor are they admitted to peaceful relations and communion by such churches as are in any way connected with apostles, inasmuch as they are in no sense themselves apostolic because of their diversity as to the mysteries of the faith. (Prescription against Heretics, ch. 32)

Since this is the case, in order that the truth may be adjudged to belong to us, as many as walk according to the rule, which the church has handed down from the apostles, the apostles from Christ, and Christ from God, the reason of our position is clear, when it determines that heretics ought not to be allowed to challenge an appeal to the Scriptures, since we, without the Scriptures, prove that they have nothing to do with the Scriptures. . . . But on what ground are heretics strangers and enemies to the apostles, if it be not from the difference of their teaching, which each individual of his own mere will has either advanced or received in opposition to the apostles? (Prescription against Heretics, ch. 37)

No doubt, after the time of the apostles, the truth respecting the belief of God suffered corruption, but it is equally certain that during the life of the apostles their teaching on this great article did not suffer at all; so that no other teaching will have the right of being received as apostolic than that which is at the present day proclaimed in the churches of apostolic foundation. You will, however, find no church of apostolic origin but such as reposes its Christian faith in the Creator. But if the churches shall prove to have been corrupt from the beginning, where shall the pure ones be found? Will it be among the adversaries of the Creator? Show us, then, one of your churches, tracing its descent from an apostle, and you will have gained the day. (Against Marcion, Book I, ch. 21)

Petrine Primacy / Papacy

Was anything withheld from the knowledge of Peter, who is called the rock on which the church should be built, who also obtained the keys of the kingdom of heaven, with the power of loosing and binding in heaven and on earth? (Prescription against Heretics, ch. 22)

Afterwards, as he himself [St. Paul] narrates, he went up to Jerusalem for the purpose of seeing Peter, [Galatians 1:18] because of his office, no doubt, . . . (Prescription against Heretics, ch. 23)

[T]hey at first were believers in the doctrine of the Catholic Church, in the church of Rome under the episcopate of the blessed Eleutherus, . . . (Prescription against Heretics, ch. 30)

*****

Lucas then moves onto Origen, where he commits the same misguided error again and again:

Like the others, Origen reinforced the fact of the sufficiency of Scripture. He declared that “what we have taken from the authority of Scripture must be sufficient to refute the arguments of heretics” [De Principiis, Livro II, 5:3]. When he entered into theological debates, he made a point of saying that the discussion at hand should be resolved on the basis of the Bible.

This is pure material sufficiency. Most Catholics agree, so it is a non-issue.

He said:

“Thirdly, the apostles manifested to us the Holy Spirit, associated in honor and dignity with the Father and the Son. In this, however, it is no longer clearly distinguished whether the Holy Spirit is begotten or unbegotten, or whether he must also be considered the Son of God or not. It is these things that must be investigated to the best of our ability through a careful search from the Holy Scriptures.” [De Principiis, Cap.4]

“It is important, therefore, that he use these things as elements and foundations, according to the commandment that says: ‘Illuminate yourselves by the light of science’, anyone who wishes to construct a series and a body of reasons for all these things, to investigate by means of manifest and necessary affirmations what there is of truth in each of them, and to build up a body of examples and affirmations from what I have found in the Holy Scriptures” [De Principiis, Cap.10]

“Now all this, as we have underlined, was done by the Holy Spirit that, seeing that those events which lie on the surface can be neither true nor useful, we may be guided to the investigation of that truth which is most deeply hidden, and to the affirmation of a meaning worthy of God in those Scriptures which we believe to have been inspired by Him.” [De Principii, 4:15]

Yeah, we should check all doctrines by Scripture. I did that today, in my previous reply to Lucas, showing that sola Scriptura can’t be found in Holy Scripture. Nothing proving sola Scriptura here . . .

He also made a point of analyzing in the Bible the veracity of each doctrine or theory elaborated. When something was not confirmed by the authority of Holy Scripture, he rejected it, to make way for what was biblical:

“I do not observe that this is greatly confirmed by the authority of Holy Scripture; whereas, in relation to the other two, a considerable number of passages are found in the Holy Scriptures which seem capable of being applied to them” [De Principii, 4]

The proof of the doctrines which he asserted he took not from tradition, but from Scripture: “To deal with so many and such things, it is not enough to entrust the sum of this subject to human senses and common intelligence, speaking, so to speak, visibly about invisible things. We must also take, for the demonstration of the things of which we speak, the testimonies of the Divine Scriptures” [De Principiis, Livro IV, Cap.1]

“Exhorted thus briefly by the very logic and coherence of the subject, though we have extended ourselves a little, what we have said is sufficient to show that there are some things whose significance cannot be explained by any discourse of human language, but which are declared by an intelligence, simpler than the properties of any words. The understanding of the divine letters must also adhere to this rule, and what is said must be considered not for the baseness of the word, but for the divinity of the Holy Spirit who inspired the one who wrote them.” [De Principiis, Livro IV, Cap.27]

Exactly right. Catholics totally agree! Go to the Bible to back up all of your doctrines. If we agree with this, then obviously it’s not an argument against us. It’s not even on-topic.

The reverse was also true. If the reason a doctrine was accepted was because of its conformity to Holy Scripture – not tradition – the reason why some erred was not because they ignored tradition, but because they ignored the Scriptures or did not read them correctly:

“Having made this brief comment on the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures by the Holy Spirit, it now seems necessary to explain why some, ignoring the way by which the understanding of the divine letters is reached, not reading them correctly, have fallen into so many errors” [De Principiis, Livro IV, Cap.8]

Scripture as the basis of all doctrines becomes even clearer when we see Origen saying that both the simplest and the most advanced would have to be built up by Scripture, not to mention tradition either for one or the other:

“He must do this, first, that the simplest may be edified by the very body of Scripture, as it were. This is what we call common and historical understanding. If, however, they already begin to advance a little, so that they can understand something more deeply, let them also be edified by the very soul of the Scriptures” [De Principiis, Livro IV, Cap.11]

His entire search for true doctrine was grounded in Scripture:

“All this, as we have said, the Holy Spirit sought so that, insofar as what is on the surface could not be true or useful, we would speedily be called to seek a higher truth, and search the Scriptures, which we believe to be inspired by God, a sense worthy of God” [De Principiis, Livro IV, Cap.15]

If one doesn’t study and understand the Bible, they leave themselves open to serious errors. The Catholic says “amen!” This all has to do with material sufficiency.

The same Scripture, which the Papists hold to be insufficient for salvation,

But we don’t do that . . .

Origen said was given just for our salvation!

“Just as man is said to be made up of body, soul and spirit, so is Holy Scripture, which by divine liberality was given for the salvation of men.” [De Principiis, Livro IV, Cap.11]

Of course it was. DUH!

He also advocated free examination. Instead of saying that the meaning of the passages could only be examined and discovered by the Roman magisterium, he asserted that any intelligent person who studied the Scriptures could discover the meaning for himself:

“People of intelligence who wish to study Scripture can also discover its meaning for themselves.” [Contra Celso, Livro VII, 11]

The Catholic Church (Council of Trent) required one interpretation only for all of seven verses in the Bible. That’s it! The rest can be interpreted as one wishes. Nor was it true historically that the Catholic Church tried to suppress the Bible, as the common myth would have it:

Were Vernacular Bibles Unknown Before Luther? (Luther’s Dubious Claims About the Supposed Utter Obscurity of the Bible Before His Translation) [6-15-11]

Dialogue: “Obscure” Bible Before Luther’s Translation? [7-24-14]

Catholic Church: Historic “Enemy” of the Bible? [9-11-15]

Did Pope Innocent III Forbid the Bible in 1199? (+ Does the Bible Itself Teach That it Should be Read Without Need of Any Authoritative Interpretation?) [5-11-21]

Did Medieval Catholicism Forbid All Vernacular Bibles? [5-11-21]

Council of Trent: Anti-Bible or Anti-Bad Bible Translations? [5-12-21]

“Unigenitus” (1713) vs. Personal Bible Study? (+ Other Supposed “Anti-Bible” Catholic Proclamations & Analogies to Calvinist “Dogmatism” at the Synod of Dort) [5-14-21]

Sometimes it wished to suppress unauthorized or bad translations; but of course Protestants have always done that, too, so it’s not an issue.

Even the “deeper truths” could be discovered by one who investigated the meaning of Scripture on his own, citing three biblical texts in his defense:

“The deepest truths are discovered by those who know how to ascend from simple faith and investigate the underlying meaning of the divine Scriptures, according to the admonitions of Jesus, who said, ‘Search the Scriptures,’ and the desire of Paul, who taught that ‘we must know how to respond to every man’, yes, and also of those who said ‘always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the faith that is in you’” [Contra Celso III, 33]

Material sufficiency again . . .

Interestingly, Origen never told Celsus that if he wanted to discover the deeper meanings of biblical texts he would have to turn to an infallible magisterium in Rome, or consult a pope who would interpret Scripture infallibly. Rather, what he reaffirms is that anyone can study the Bible and discover for himself the meaning of the passages. It was exactly the same principle restored by the Reformers, being explicitly preached at that time.

If only one aspect of his teaching is presented, one would get such an impression. But I believe that all the relevant material one can find about a specific Church father should be set forth, so that we get the whole truth, not half-truths and carefully selected portions meant to convey an impression in one direction only. And so I now present Origen’s writings that are actually relevant to this debate and on-topic:

And therefore, to those who believe that the sacred books are not the compositions of men, but that they were composed by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, agreeably to the will of the Father of all things through Jesus Christ, and that they have come down to us, we must point out the ways (of interpreting them) which appear (correct) to us, who cling to the standard of the heavenly Church of Jesus Christ according to the succession of the apostles. (On First Principles, Book IV, Section 9; English translation based on extant Greek of Origen)

As in all such cases, one must also determine what the writer believes about the Church and Christian tradition, because the rule of faith has to do with the relationship of those two entities with Scripture. We already see that Origen, in the second excerpt above, incorporates the Church and apostolic succession into the mix (“who cling to the standard of the heavenly Church of Jesus Christ according to the succession of the apostles”), so that he is expressing the Catholic “three-legged stool” view.

The word “standard” is particularly noteworthy and revealing. Church and tradition/ apostolic succession are involved in the rule of faith alongside Holy Scripture. All we need do now is supplement the above with other related utterances from Origen, and reputable Protestant scholarly opinion. Origen also wrote the following:

Since many, however, of those who profess to believe in Christ differ from each other, not only in small and trifling matters, but also on subjects of the highest importance, as, e.g., regarding God, or the Lord Jesus Christ, or the Holy Spirit; and not only regarding these, but also regarding others which are created existences, viz., the powers and the holy virtues; it seems on that account necessary first of all to fix a definite limit and to lay down an unmistakable rule regarding each one of these, and then to pass to the investigation of other points. For as we ceased to seek for truth (notwithstanding the professions of many among Greeks and Barbarians to make it known) among all who claimed it for erroneous opinions, after we had come to believe that Christ was the Son of God, and were persuaded that we must learn it from Himself; so, seeing there are many who think they hold the opinions of Christ, and yet some of these think differently from their predecessors, yet as the teaching of the Church, transmitted in orderly succession from the apostles, and remaining in the Churches to the present day, is still preserved, that alone is to be accepted as truth which differs in no respect from ecclesiastical and apostolical tradition. (De Principiis, preface, complete section 2; ANF, Vol. IV)

Origen, in this Preface, reiterates over and over the same non-scriptural elements of the rule of faith: “the teaching of the apostles” (4), “most clearly taught throughout the Churches” (4), “the apostolic teaching” (5), “This also is clearly defined in the teaching of the Church” (5), “the teaching of the Church” (again in 5, and in 6, 7, 10), “the Church’s teaching” (7), “Respecting which there is one opinion throughout the whole Church” (8). He continues on in the same manner throughout this work:

“he may judge these to be heretical and opposed to the faith of the Church” (Bk. I, ch. 7, part 1); “We have now to ascertain what those matters are which it is proper to treat in the following pages according to our dogmatic belief, i.e., in agreement with the creed of the Church” (Bk. I, ch. 7, part 1). “the punishments of sinners, according to the threatenings of holy Scripture and the contents of the Church’s teaching”; “some take offense at the creed of the Church” (Bk. II, ch. 10, part 1), “Those, however, who receive the representations of Scripture according to the understanding of the apostles, . . . (Bk. II, ch. 11, part 3).

Therefore, it is apparent that Origen held to the Catholic rule of faith and apostolic succession, and that he denied sola Scriptura.

Protestant historian J. N. D. Kelly describes Origen’s view of the relationship of the Bible and tradition:

Early third-century writers, like Clement of Alexandria and Origen, continued to use language about it [tradition, in context] closely akin to that of Irenaeus and Tertullian, and spoke of ‘the ecclesiastical canon’ or ‘the canon of faith’ . . . in addition to the Church’s public tradition, they believed they had access to a secret tradition of doctrine . . . for Origen it seems to have consisted of an esoteric theology based on the Bible . . . According to Origen, the rule of faith, or canon, was the body of beliefs currently accepted by ordinary Christians; or again it could stand for the whole content of the faith. In his usage it was equivalent to what he called ‘the ecclesiastical preaching’ . . . and he meant by it the Christian faith as taught in the Church of his day and handed down from the apostles. Though its contents coincided with those of the Bible, it was formally independent of the Bible, and also included the principles of Biblical interpretation. (Early Christian Doctrines, San Francisco: Harper & Row, fifth revised edition, 1978, 43)

Kelly’s last sentence describes almost exactly the Catholic distinction between material and formal sufficiency of Scripture. We agree with Protestants that Scripture is materially sufficient, but not formally sufficient as a rule of faith, independently of Church and Tradition.

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Related Reading

For much more on sola Scriptura: see my Bible, Tradition, Canon, & “Sola Scriptura” web page.

For documentation of many more Church fathers who rejected sola Scriptura, see the “Bible” section of my Fathers of the Church web page.

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Photo credit: Lucas Banzoli, Facebook photo as of 5-3-22, dated 15 January 2018.

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Summary: Brazilian Protestant apologist Lucas Banzoli attempts to show that Origen & Tertullian were sola Scripturists. They were not, as I abundantly prove with citations.

Dialogue: Biblical Inspiration & Bible “Contradictions”

April 13, 2022 By Dave Armstrong

This exchange took place in the combox of my article, Jesus’ Last Words: Biblical “Contradictions”? (4-8-21). Words of JohnMC (atheist?) will be in blue.

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I think it is right to point out that it is not unreasonable to expect texts regarded as holy and revealed to show consistency. Even minor inconsistencies invite scepticism because of the rigorous claims made for the significance of the texts.

I fully agree, which is why I have largely devoted my writing and research over the last two-three years to answering precisely these objections (as well as establishing a positive support of Scripture from archaeology, which will be the subject of my next “officially published” book). A full listing of those efforts can be found in my collection, “Armstrong’s Refutations of Alleged Biblical ‘Contradictions'”.

These efforts include scores and scores of systematic replies to atheists who specialize in trying to attack the Bible and its alleged massive self-contradictions. Some never reply to my counter-replies to their claims (Bob Seidensticker, Dr. David Madison, John Loftus, Bart Ehrman, Richard Carrier, and more). Others do occasionally (and kudos to them for doing so), but (frankly) not very well when they do (Jonathan M.S. Pearce).

Let me ask you (since you ask me so many questions): if these atheists’ arguments are so compelling, why don’ they prove it and blow my counter-replies out of the water? But they don’t. They prefer to almost always ignore them. They say it’s because I am an ignoramus, imbecile, and idiot (always easy to say). I say it is because they have a lousy case and are intellectual cowards.

I hope that this dealing with “contradictions” will be the topic of my next book (if a publisher wants it), after my next on archaeology is published.

The application of standard reasoning and principles of reliability to historical documents are fine by me

Yeah, me too.

but they are being applied to documents that are claimed to have divine sanction.

We apply reason and intelligence to biblical interpretation, just as we do to any other topic or extensive set of writings like the Bible. That’s what apologetics (my field) is about: applying reason to theology.

Why do we even need to apply human reasoning to their comprehension, and why might a simple claimed error of interpretation lead anyone into misconstruing divine writ?

Because we have to reason in order to properly understand theological documents that are all are 1920 or more years old, written in different languages (including hundreds of non-literal idioms and metaphors, etc.), and produced by a vastly different culture from our present one. That’s not even arguable. It’s self-evident.

The problem with the routine lists of atheist or skeptics’ “contradictions” is that they are so terribly weak, pathetic, and 90% of the time (or more!) clearly not even contradictions in the first place. It’s not so much that the Bible is difficult to understand (although parts of it certainly are: particularly portions of Paul’s letters), but that the skeptics who approach the Bible like a butcher approaches a hog are so 1) abominably ignorant of the Bible’s contents and interpretation, and 2) seem to have never familiarized themselves with classical logic or a textbook of logic. [in case you are wondering, I did take logic in college]

Some inconsistencies may not be contradictions but represent ambivalences that cannot be batted away.

Well, then, since all these big shot / big name atheists almost always ignore my replies, perhaps you will show the courage of your convictions and take up some of them? We agree on the premises (that it’s worthwhile to have those discussions). You seem to be capable. Have at it! I gave you the list of all my defenses.

You see how I have replied to you here, as I always do if an inquiry has substance. You didn’t immediately insult my honesty, as C Nault did [“Your response is the standard playing with what the Bible actually says and twisting it to suit your personal interpretation”: in the same combox]. So I responded quite differently and at length.

Then there are the fully-fledged contradictions and ambiguities and obscurenesses. And then we see the self-referential legitimating arguments. A biblical statement of belief for example the Trinity does [not] become true because it is repeated.

Of course not (just like anything else). The Trinity comes from revelation and cannot be understood from a logic-alone / rationalistic perspective. It is an exceedingly subtle doctrine and requires faith. No Christian has ever denied that. What I focus on is to prove that the Bible teaches it in the first place (many atheists deny this), and why Christians believe that the Bible does so.

Evidence of consistency of belief is not evidence of truth of belief.

Strictly speaking, no. It’s evidence of a lack of contradictoriness, which is the bare minimum. But a consistent showing from the Bible that alleged contradictions are in fact not so (which I have done myself, and many other apologists have done), does, by a cumulative effect, tend to support the notion of biblical inspiration. Consistency doesn’t prove biblical inspiration (which is also a matter of faith), but it’s consistent with it; whereas massive contradictions actually proven are inconsistent with inspiration.

The latter is why I think it is important to deal with these sorts of charges, because it’s important to defend inspiration (indirectly) from reason. We need to “defeat the defeaters” and show how very weak they are.

Few things bolster my Christian faith more than dealing with the alleged “contradictions”: because the arguments are so abominable and laughable that we see the Christian faith as far more rational and sensible. Observing (while I am making my own arguments) the Bible being able to withstand all attacks is incredibly, joyfully faith-boosting. It’s the unique blessing we apologists receive for our efforts.

Statements of miraculous happenings are not proved because there are a lot of them. If extravagant claims are made for the absolute value of scripture, why is it so easy wonder if the texts do not actually just display the predictable raggedness of human ones?

I say they can withstand all the accusations thrown out them, and prove it by my own work. If you disagree, as I said, start sending me counter-counter-replies to my counter-replies, since virtually all of the folks I have replied to refuse to do so (most with rank insults sent my way, too).

Thanks for the serious, non-insulting interaction and have a great day.

[if JohnMC replies, I will add his words to this paper with my further replies]

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Photo credit: Fotografie-Link [public domain / PxHere.com]

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Summary: Good discussion about the nature of alleged Bible “contradictions” in which I explain the rationale for my recently devoting so much time and energy to solving them.

Refutation of 194 Biblical “Contradictions” (#101-125)

April 8, 2022 By Dave Armstrong

I will be resolving all of the alleged “contradictions” from the web page entitled “194 CONTRADICTIONS, New Testament.” It’s perpetually striking to observe how many of these are obviously not logical contradictions, and how very easy they are to refute (many being patently and evidently absurd). A few here and there do seem to be genuinely perplexing (at first glance) and require at least some thought and study and serious examination (they save my patience). But all are ultimately able to be (in my humble opinion) decisively resolved. Readers can decide whether I succeed in my task or not, in any given case. My biblical citations are from RSV. The words from the web page above will be in blue.

See further installments:

Refutation of 194 Biblical “Contradictions” (#1-25) [4-5-22]

Refutation of 194 Biblical “Contradictions” (#26-50) [4-6-22]

Refutation of 194 Biblical “Contradictions” (#51-75) [4-7-22]

Refutation of 194 Biblical “Contradictions” (#76-100) [4-8-22]

Refutation of 194 Biblical “Contradictions” (#126-150) [4-9-22]

Refutation of 194 Biblical “Contradictions” (#151-175) [4-11-22]

Refutation of 194 Biblical “Contradictions” (#176-194) [4-11-22]

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101) One doubted. Jn.20:24.
Some doubted. Mt.28:17.
All doubted. Mk.16:11; Lk.24:11,14.

That’s “Doubting Thomas” in John, and he believed after Jesus appeared to him (20:28). In Mark, the disciples didn’t believe Mary Magdalene’s report of the risen Jesus at first, but later did believe (16:20). Matthew doesn’t specify later belief of the doubters, but doesn’t deny it (argument from silence). We know from the Gospels and early Church history that all the disciples (save Judas) were enthusiastic believers and evangelists, and all but John died martyr’s deaths.

In Luke, the two disciples on the road to Emmaus later believed (24:32-35), and so did the rest of the disciples (24:52). What is the point of this “objection”? So some folks momentarily doubted . . . so what?! People often doubt things and come around later. People can waver, too, between faith and doubt, or have a perpetually weak faith, or fall away from the faith altogether. The accounts reflect this, with regard to a miracle that most of us would find hard to accept at first. It perfectly reflects human nature and how people usually react. This is supposed to be a demonstration of logical contradictions in the Bible and there are none here.

I definitely need supernatural grace to endure the inanities of the final 93 supposed “contradictions.” But I will do it!

102) Jesus said that his blood was shed for many. Mk.14:24.
Jesus said his blood was shed for his disciples. Lu.22:20.

The disciples were a sub-group of the “many.” Duh! If taxes were lowered for the entire middle class, then my family would have our taxes lowered, too!

103) Simon of Cyrene was forced to bear the cross of Jesus. Mt.27:32; Mk.15:21; Lu.23:26.
Jesus bore his own cross. Jn.19:16,17.

Jesus obviously carried His cross in all accounts. It was part of the Roman punishment. John simply didn’t mention Simon of Syrene, and never stated, “and no one else bore His cross . . .”. For the tenth time: arguments from silence are not “contradictions” and they don’t prove anything, one way or the other.

104) Jesus was offered vinegar and gall to drink. Mt.27:34.
Jesus was offered vinegar to drink. Jn.19:29,30.
Jesus was offered wine and myrrh to drink. Mk.15:23.

The Domain for Truth website offers a characteristically thorough and devastating rebuttal:

Just a quick observation: What the skeptics call “vinegar” the NASB calls “sour wine.”
The skeptic tries to pit Mark 15:23 on the one hand against Mark 15:36 and Luke 23:36 on the other hand. According to the skeptic Mark 15:23 teaches that the Roman soldiers gave wine and myrrh for Jesus to drink while both Mark 15:36 and Luke 23:36 teaches that the Roman soldiers gave Jesus vinegar/sour wine to drink. Yet the two are not contradictory because these two sets of passages occurred at separate time[s].
1. Notice for Mark 15:23 wine and myrrh was offered before Jesus was crucified. How do we know that?
  1. Jesus being crucified is stated in the next verse in Mark 15:24a.
  2. Notice the offering of wine and myrrh occurred right when they got to the place of the crucifixion as the verse before mentioned (Mark 15:22).
  3. Jesus being offered wine and myrrh is also before the soldiers divided Jesus’ garments in Mark 15:24b, suggesting the offer of wine and myrrh was early on.
  4. Why would they offer wine and myrrh? It was a way to make the pain less painful. Yet Jesus did not take it.
2. As a contrast Mark 15:36 and Luke 23:36 recorded chronologically near the end of how before Jesus died the Roman soldiers offered vinegar/sour wine to Jesus. How do we know that?
  1. Luke 23:36 parallel Mark 15:36.
  2. Mark 15:36 which mentioned Jesus being offered vinegar/sour wine is obviously 13 verses after Mark 15:23. So after Jesus was first offered with wine they offered Him vinegar/sour wine.
  3. Note also Jesus died in the next verse from crucifixion in Mark 15:37.
  4. Why would they offer Jesus vinegar/sour wine instead of wine and myrrh towards the end? Very likely the better wine ran out. Don’t forget there were two other men being crucified next to Jesus that day and there’s also the possibility that the Roman soldiers themselves helped themselves to drink the wine. This observation fit with the biblical timeline.
3. The two different offer[s] by Roman soldiers to Jesus of something to drink along with the order of first the wine and then the vinegar/sour wine is also confirmed in Matthew 27 (see Matthew 27:33-34 and Matthew 27:48).
4. Thus it is not a contradiction with Jesus being offered on the one hand wine mixed with myrrh while also being offered vinegar/sour wine on the other hand, since these different offering[s] from the Roman soldiers occurred [at] during different time[s]. . . .

3. The skeptic rightly noted Matthew 27:34 teaches that the Roman soldiers offered vinegar and gall. That is what the text says. However this added detail of “gall” does not contradict with the passages that mentioned Jesus was offered vinegar. None of those passages said the Roman soldiers offered Jesus only vinegar, with nothing else added.

4. As a side note it is important to note that the Greek word for “gall” doesn’t necessarily have to refer to literal liquid from the liver; it can refer to anything that is bitter and the meaning of bitter can be seen in Acts 8:23 and the verbal form in John 7:23. Matthew 27:34 indicates that Jesus fulfilled the Messianic prophecy in Psalm 69:21 with what the Roman soldiers offered to Jesus: “They also gave me gall for my food And for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.“ (“Bible Contradiction? What did the soldiers give Jesus to drink?”, 8-7-19; the numbers are 3-4, 6-7 in the original)

105. Jesus refused the drink offered him. Mk.15:23.
Jesus tasted the drink offered and then refused. Mt.27:34.
Jesus accepted the drink offered him. Jn.19:30.

In Mark and Matthew, this was before Jesus was crucified, as indicated by the preceding and following verses in both cases. In John 19:30, it occurred while He was on the cross, just before He died. Since this is two different times, it isn’t a contradiction. One justifiably wonders what the skeptic was drinking when he/she came up with this silly one.

106. Both “thieves” mocked Jesus on the cross. Mt. 27:44; Mk.15:32.
One “thief” sided with Jesus on the cross. Lu.23:39-41.

It could have been that the two reviled Him initially, and in the course of doing that, one of them thought the other was too harsh on Jesus, and reconsidered and started defending Him (and/or what Jesus may have said — unrecorded — persuaded him otherwise). Such a thing not infrequently happens in arguments and debates. Human beings can change their minds. Matthew and Mark don’t say they reviled Him “the entire time” or never ceased doing so, etc. So the possibility for change of heart and mind exists, and seems to be a perfectly plausible explanation.

107) Joseph of Arimathaea boldly asked for the body of Jesus. Mk.15:43.
Joseph of Arimathaea secretly asked for the body of Jesus. Jn.19:38.

The two attributes aren’t mutually exclusive. One can be both bold and operating in secret. Every special forces raid is of such a nature, as is every clandestine espionage assignment. It was “bold” to ask Pilate (not the nicest guy) this, whether it was in secret or not.

108) Jesus was laid in a nearby tomb. Mk.15:46; Lu.23:53; Jn.19:41.
Jesus was laid in Joseph’s new tomb. Mt.27:59,60.

Again, these things aren’t mutually exclusive. Matthew merely adds the information that it was Joseph’s own planned tomb. Someone not saying something doesn’t contradict another saying something. If these logic-challenged skeptics would ever grasp this elementary logical principle and fallacy, half of their objections would instantaneously vanish. But let them keep doing it and making themselves look silly and foolish. That is to the Christian’s (and Bible’s) advantage and the skeptic’s / atheist’s disadvantage, in a “PR” and “strength of argument” sense.

109) A great stone was rolled in front of the tomb. Mt.27:60; Mk.15:46.
There was nothing in front of the tomb. Lu.23:55; Jn.19:41.

There was no stone yet in Luke 23:55 because this referred to the time when Jesus was placed in the tomb (see 23:53-54). When women went back two days later, they found the stone rolled away (24:1-2). John 19:41 simply doesn’t mention the stone, but in John 20:1 we learn that there was one, which was rolled away. Therefore all four Gospels — taken together — note that the tomb had a stone in front of it, which was rolled away. No contradiction; rather, it is complete harmony. 0 for 109 . . .

110) Nicodemus prepared the body with spices. Jn.19:39,40.
Failing to notice this, the women bought spices to prepare the body later. Mk. 16:1; Lu.23:55,56.

What happened is explained right in the challenge! The women likely didn’t see that Jesus’ body was prepared with spices, and the Sabbath was quickly approaching (Jn 19:42) — where this work would be disallowed –, so that they probably concluded that there hadn’t been enough time for such preparation. The women saw that Jesus was laid out with a linen shroud (Lk 23:53-55), but wouldn’t necessarily know if He had been anointed with spices. Therefore, they prepared the spices and ointments (23:56) and returned after the Sabbath to apply them (24:1).

111) The body was anointed. Jn.19:39,40.
The body was not anointed. Mk.15:46 to 16:1; Lk.23:55 to 24:1.

Mark and Luke don’t deny that Jesus’ body was anointed. If they don’t, there is no necessary contradiction. I submit that the women simply weren’t aware that at least some spices had been applied (as indicated in John 19:39-40). In any event, no contradiction has been proven.

112) The women bought materials before the sabbath. Lu.23:56.
The women bought materials after the sabbath. Mk.16:1.

Luke 23:56 doesn’t assert this. It says they “returned [back home], and prepared spices and ointments.” Then they brought them on Sunday (Lk 24:1; Mk 16:1). At this point (after 112 examples), with such absolutely lousy, clueless alleged “contradictions” like this sterling example, one wonders whether the skeptic even reads the passages that he/she lists. Certainly even a basic understanding of what they mean is absent in the majority of cases: in the zealous rush to find a “gotcha!” contradiction to embarrass Christians with. The embarrassment is (or should be) all on their end.

113) Jesus was first seen by Cephas, then the twelve. 1 Cor.15:5.
Jesus was first seen by the two Marys. Mt.28:1,8,9.
Jesus was first seen by Mary Magdalene. Mk.16:9; Jn.20:1,14,15.
Jesus was first seen by Cleopas and others. Lu.24:17,18.
Jesus was first seen by the disciples. Acts 10:40,41.

1 Corinthians doesn’t say that he “first” appeared to Cephas (Peter). Peter is singled out as a witness not because he was the absolutely first person to see the risen Jesus, but rather, because he was the leader of the disciples and the early church (see the first half of the book of Acts).

Mark 16:9 actually does say that Mary Magdalene was the “first.” And so she was. John’s account is consistent with that notion. Does Matthew contradict this because of the second Mary? Not necessarily. Many scenarios can be easily imagined that instantly harmonize the passages. For example, maybe “the other Mary” happened to be looking away when the risen Jesus suddenly “met them”, so that Mary Magdalene was, technically, the first to see Him. Or Jesus met Mary Magdalene with no other women around, and then Matthew 28:9 records a second instance of His appearing to her, except with another woman, too.

Luke 24 has the story of the two men on the road to Emmaus. Nothing definitely indicates they were the first; indeed, they could not have been because various Gospels record Mary Magdalene and the other Mary seeing Jesus early in the morning on the first Easter Sunday, whereas in this account it is said that the time was “toward evening” with the day being “far spent” (24:29).

Acts says that the disciples were in the select group to whom Jesus appeared, as opposed to “all the people.” But it doesn’t say they were absolutely the first, and doesn’t therefore rule out Mary Magdalene being the first person, which is expressly stated in Mark. Conclusion?: all of these passages are perfectly harmonious and pose no problem for biblical infallibility.

114) The two Marys went to the tomb. Mt.28:1.
The two Marys and Salome went to the tomb. Mk.16:1.
Several women went to the tomb. Lu.24:10.
Only Mary Magdalene went to the tomb. Jn.20:1.

So Matthew didn’t mention Salome. So what? That’s of no relevance. In light of Luke, we can conclude that several women (more than the two Marys) saw the empty tomb (though not necessarily the risen Jesus). Mary Magdalene could have told these other women about the tomb and also the fact that she had seen the risen Jesus. This implies repeated trips to witness the empty tomb, which was easy because it was right outside of town.

As for John, this may have been an earlier, initial visit by Mary Magdalene alone: perhaps indicated by “while it was still dark.” Then she went again with others. The text never states that “only Mary” went to the tomb, or that “Mary alone and no other woman” did so. Those are the sorts of words that would be required for an actual contradiction to be present. As it is, no contradiction has been established: not even to the slightest degree. The text simply records an instance with Mary Magdalene alone, without denying that other women saw the risen Jesus, too.

115) It was dawn when Mary went to the tomb. Mt.28:1; Mk.16:2.
It was dark when Mary went to the tomb. Jn.20:1.

Exactly! This confirms my hypothesis that Mary Magdalene made an earlier pre-dawn visit (see #114). Is there any law against that? No. Is it inconceivable? No. Is it possible? Yes. The skeptic acts as if no one could have possibly visited Jesus’ tomb (where the greatest miracle in history had just occurred) more than once.

116) An angel sat on the stone at the door of the tomb. Mt.28:2.
A man was sitting inside the tomb. Mk.16:5.

There could have simply been two angels. Or Matthew was referring to the time when the stone was actually rolled away, per my reasoning in my paper, Resurrection #14: When Was the Stone Rolled Away? [4-27-21].

117) Two men were standing inside the tomb. Lk.24:3,4.
Two angels were sitting inside the tomb. Jn.20:12.

Angels are often called “men” in Scripture. Luke indicates they were angels by describing them as having “dazzling apparel”, while John uses the description, “angels in white.”

118) Peter did not go into the tomb but stooped and looked inside. Lk.24:12.
Peter did go into the tomb, and another disciple stooped and looked inside. Jn.20:3-6.

Luke 24:12 is a disputed verse, not found in the earliest manuscripts, which is why RSV doesn’t even include it. So it’s irrelevant to the discussion.

119) After the resurrection, the disciples held Jesus by the feet. Mt.28:9.
After the resurrection, Jesus told Thomas to touch his side. John 20:27.
After the resurrection, Jesus said that he was not to be touched. Jn.20:17.

See my paper, Resurrection #18: “Touch Me Not” & Mary Magdalene [4-29-21].

120) Mary first saw Jesus at the tomb. Jn.20:11-15.
Mary first saw Jesus on her way home. Mt.28:8-10.

I proposed that John records a pre-dawn Sunday visit by Mary Magdalene (see #114 and it’s alluded to by objection #115), which was the first recorded post-Resurrection appearance of Jesus to anyone.

121) The women entered the tomb. Mk.16:5; Lk.24:3.
The women stayed outside the tomb. Jn.20:11.

This again refers to Mary’s pre-dawn visit alone (see my reply #114 and #120). It’s different things happening at different times and hence, no contradiction. I know it must be frustrating for the skeptic, but logic is what it is. I didn’t make it up.

122) The disciples were frightened when they saw Jesus. Lk.24:36,37.
The disciples were glad when they first saw Jesus. Jn.20:20.

In Luke it was because they (just two of them) “supposed that they saw a spirit”: an event which almost always causes fear in recorded instances in Scripture. Then Jesus showed them His hands and feet (24:39) and they settled down. In John (a different incident) they were glad for the same reason: because He “showed them his hands and his side”: quickly proving that He was Jesus, so they wouldn’t be afraid.

123) Twelve disciples saw Jesus. 1 Cor.15:5.
Eleven disciples saw Jesus. Thomas was not there. Mt.28:16,17; Jn.20:19-25.

In 1 Corinthians, either it was after Judas’ replacement with Matthias (Acts 1:20-26), so there were again twelve, or the title “twelve” was being used as a description of the group (see my paper, Resurrection #26: “Twelve” or Eleven Disciples? [5-4-21]). Matthew 28 was a time right before Jesus’ Ascension, before Judas had been replaced. Hence, “eleven.” John uses “twelve” as the group title, even though Judas had by then departed. No problem here . . .

124) The disciples doubted that Jesus had risen from the dead. Mt.28:17.
The Pharisees and chief priests believed it possible. Mt.27:62-66.

“Some” did, for a time, yes. It was the typical human skepticism regarding miracles. The enemies of Jesus believed no such thing. In the passage from Matthew above, they thought the disciples would steal Jesus’ body and fake a resurrection, which is why they asked for a guard in front of the tomb. I search in vain for any “contradiction” here.

125) Jesus ascended on the third day after the resurrection. Lk.24:21,50,51.
Jesus ascended the same day as the crucifixion. Lk.23:42 43.
Jesus ascended forty days after the resurrection. Acts 1:3,9.

See my paper, Seidensticker Folly #15: Jesus’ Ascension: One or 40 Days? [9-10-18].

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Photo credit: mohamed hassan (2-22-21) [public domain / Pxhere.com]

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Summary: A Bible skeptic has come up with 194 alleged biblical “contradictions” (usually recycled from old lists). I am systematically going through the list and refuting each one.

Carrier Critique #4: Bible & Disease & Medicine

March 31, 2022 By Dave Armstrong

+ Medical Advances Made in the Christian-Dominated Middle Ages

Richard Carrier (born in 1969), a former Protestant atheist, is, according to Wikipedia, “an American historian, author, and activist, whose work focuses on empiricism, atheism, and the historicity of Jesus [he’s a “mythicist”]. A long-time contributor to self-published skeptical web sites, including The Secular Web and Freethought Blogs, Carrier has published a number of books and articles on philosophy and religion in classical antiquity, discussing the development of early Christianity from a skeptical viewpoint, and concerning religion and morality in the modern world. He has publicly debated a number of scholars on the historical basis of the Bible and Christianity. . . . In 2008, Carrier received a doctorate in ancient history from Columbia University, where he studied the history of science in antiquity.”

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I’m responding to a portion of Carrier’s article, “Science Then: The Bible vs. The Greeks Edition” (11-30-15). His words will be in blue.

For a general explanation of the Bible in relation to science (a topic endlessly distorted by atheists and other Bible skeptics), see the statements from Baptist theologian Bernard Ramm, in his classic, The Christian View of Science and Scripture, by the Baptist Bernard Ramm (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1954). I collected them in my previous reply to Richard Carrier: Carrier Critique #3: Bible Teaches a Flat Earth?

Carrier has a section on germs and the biblical discussions of various practices of cleanliness, etc. Of course he mocks the Bible and has a field day with that.

[I]t would be impressive if the text actually explained the germ theory of disease, . . . Not one word is said in that chapter of Leviticus about disease in general (much less wound care, where this would be especially important). The Jewish idea of uncleanness is about spiritual infection, not biological. . . .

All absurdities. This is massively ignorant of any science of disease.

Here is my reply regarding these matters, before I get to my main topic. The Bible Ask site has an article, “Did the Bible teach the germs theory?” (5-30-16):

The Bible writers did not write a medical textbook. However, there are numerous rules for sanitation, quarantine, and other medical procedures (found in the first 5 book of the OT) . . . Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis (1818 –1865), who was a Hungarian physician, . . . proposed the practice of washing hands with chlorinated lime solutions in 1847 . . . He published a book of his findings in Etiology, Concept and Prophylaxis of Childbed Fever. Despite various publications of his successful results, Semmelweis’s suggestions were not accepted by the medical community of his time.

Why was Semmelweis research rejected? Because germs were virtually a foreign concept for the Europeans in the middle-19th-century. . . .

Had the medical community paid attention to God’s instructions that were given 3000 years before, many lives would have been saved. The Lord gave the Israelites hygienic principles against the contamination of germs and taught the necessity to quarantine the sick (Numbers 19:11-12). And the book of Leviticus lists a host of diseases and ways where a person would come in contact with germs (Leviticus 13:46).

Germs were no new discovery in 1847. And for this fact, Roderick McGrew testified in the Encyclopedia of Medical History: “The idea of contagion was foreign to the classic medical tradition and found no place in the voluminous Hippocratic writings. The Old Testament, however, is a rich source for contagionist sentiment, especially in regard to leprosy and venereal disease” (1985, pp. 77-78).

Some other interesting facts regarding the Bible and germ theory:

1. The Bible contained instructions for the Israelites to wash their bodies and clothes in running water if they had a discharge, came in contact with someone else’s discharge, or had touched a dead body. They were also instructed about objects that had come into contact with dead things, and about purifying items with an unknown history with either fire or running water. They were also taught to bury human waste outside the camp, and to burn animal waste (Num 19:3-22; Lev. 11:1-47; 15:1-33; Deut 23:12).

2. Leviticus 13 and 14 mention leprosy on walls and on garments. Leprosy is a bacterial disease, and can survive for three weeks or longer apart from the human body. Thus, God commanded that the garments of leprosy victims should be burned (Lev 13:52).

3. It was not until 1873 that leprosy was shown to be an infectious disease rather than hereditary. Of course, the laws of Moses already were aware of that (Lev 13, 14, 22; Num 19:20). It contains instructions about quarantine and about quarantined persons needing to thoroughly shave and wash. Priests who cared for them also were instructed to change their clothes and wash thoroughly. The Israelites were the only culture to practice quarantine until the 19th century, when medical advances discovered the biblical medical principles and practices.

4. Hippocrates, the “father of medicine” (born 460 BC), thought “bad air” from swampy areas was the cause of disease.

[T]he only actual disease ever mentioned in the Bible is leprosy. The Bible has no other knowledge of distinct diseases. . . . And nowhere does the Bible express any awareness that nearly every disease it records symptoms of has a cure. . . .

For wound care, even pre-Biblical Egyptians and Sumerians (and then the Greeks and Romans who inherited this knowledge) knew how to reduce infection with antibiotic agents (honey) and sealants (grease) and disinfectants (vinegar and turpentine, as well as premixed wine, which had a high alcohol content). You don’t find this knowledge in the Bible. And the Egyptians didn’t learn it from ghosts or space aliens. They just figured it out—by luck, trial and error, and rudimentary observation.

The entry on “Health” in Baker’s Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology reveals that ordinary medicinal remedies were widely practiced in Bible times. There wasn’t solely a belief that sin or demons caused all disease. There was also a natural cause-and-effect understanding:

Ordinary means of healing were of most diverse kinds. Balm ( Gen 37:25 ) is thought to have been an aromatic resin (or juice) with healing properties; oil was the universal emollient ( Isa 1:6 ), and was sometimes used for wounds with cleansing wine ( Luke 10:34 ). Isaiah recommended a fig poultice for a boil ( 38:21 ); healing springs and saliva were thought effectual ( Mark 8:23 ; John 5 ; 9:6-7 ). Medicine is mentioned ( Prov 17:22 ) and defended as “sensible” ( Sirach 38:4). Wine mixed with myrrh was considered sedative ( Mark 15:23 ); mint, dill, and cummin assisted digestion ( Matt 23:23 ); other herbs were recommended for particular disorders. Most food rules had both ritual and dietary purposes, while raisins, pomegranates, milk, and honey were believed to assist restoration. . . .

Luke’s constant care of Paul reminds us that nonmiraculous means of healing were not neglected in that apostolic circle. Wine is recommended for Timothy’s weak stomach, eye-salve for the Thyatiran church’s blindness (metaphorical, but significant).

Doctors today often note how the patient’s disposition and attitude has a strong effect on his health or recovery. The mind definitely influences the body. Solomon understood this in several of his Proverbs: written around 950 BC (Prov 14:30; 15:30; 16:24; 17:22).

The Apostle Paul in 1 Timothy 5:23 (RSV) says: “No longer drink only water, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments.”

The 1915 International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (“Disease; Diseases”) stated:

The types of disease which are referred to in the Bible are those that still prevail. Fevers of several kinds, dysentery, leprosy, intestinal worms, plague, nervous diseases such as paralysis and epilepsy, insanity, ophthalmia and skin diseases are among the commonest and will be described under their several names.

“Medicine” from the same work:

“Balm of Gilead” is said to be an anodyne (Jeremiah 8:22; compare Jeremiah 51:8). The love-fruits, “mandrakes” (Genesis 30:14) and “caperberry” (Ecclesiastes 12:5 margin), myrrh, anise, rue, cummin, the “oil and wine” of the Good Samaritan, soap and sodic carbonate (“natron,” called by mistake “nitre”) as cleansers, and Hezekiah’s “fig poultice” . . .

The Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature (James Strong and John McClintock; Harper and Brothers; New York; 1880), in its article “Medicine” (a huge article I only partially cite) details all sorts of maladies and possible remedies that Carrier claims the Bible knows nothing about:

Diseases are also mentioned as ordinary calamities; e.g. the sickness of old age, headache (perhaps by sunstroke), as that of the Shunammite’s son, that of Elisha, and that of Benhadad, and that of Joram (Ge 48:1; 1Sa 30:13; 2Ki 4:20; 2Ki 8:29,29; 2Ki 13:14; 2Ch 22:6).

2. Among special diseases mentioned in the Old Test. are, ophthalmia (Ge 29:17, מכִלּוֹת עֵנִיַם)., . . . It may occasion partial or total blindness (2Ki 6:18). The eye-salve (κολλύριον, Re 3:18; Hor. Sat. i) was a remedy common to Orientals, Greeks, and Romans . . . Other diseases are- barrenness of women, which mandrakes were supposed to have the power of correcting (Ge 20:18; comp. 12:17; 30:1, 2, 14-16); “consumption,” and several, the names of which are derived from various words, signifying to burn or to be hot (Le 26:16; De 28:22) SEE FEVER; . . .

The diseases rendered “scab” and “scurvy” in Le 21:20; Le 22:22; De 28:27, may be almost any skin-disease, such as those known under the names of lepra, psoriaris, pityriasis, icthyosis, favus, or common itch. . . . The “running of the reins” (Le 15:2, :3 ; 22:4, marg.) may perhaps mean gonorrhoea, or more probably blennorrhcea (mucous discharge). If we compare Nu 25:1; Nu 31:7, with Jos 22:17, there is ground for thinking that some disease of this class ‘derived from polluting sexual intercourse, remained among the people . . .

In De 28:65 it is possible that a palpitation of the heart is intended to be spoken of (comp. Ge 45:26). In Mr 9:17: (comp. Lu 9:38) we have an apparent case of epilepsy, shown especially in the foaming, falling, wallowing, and similar violent symptoms mentioned; this might easily be a form of demoniacal manifestation. The case of extreme hunger recorded in 1 Samuel 14 was merely the result of exhaustive fatigue; but it is remarkable that the bulimia of which Xenophon speaks (Anab. iv 5, 7); was remedied by an application in which “honey” (compr.; 1Sa 14:27) was the chief ingredient.

Besides the common injuries of wounding, bruising, striking out eye, tooth, etc., we have in Ex 21:22 the case of miscarriage produced by a blow, push, etc., damaging the foetus. . . .

The “withered hand” of Jeroboam (1Ki 13:4-6), and of the man (Mt 12:10-13; comp. Lu 6:10), is such an effect as is known to follow from the obliteration of the main artery of any member, or from paralysis of the principal nerve, either through disease or through injury. . . . The case of the widow’s son restored by Elisha (2Ki 4:19), was probably one of sunstroke. The disease of Asa” in his feet” (Schmidt, Biblischer Med. 3:5, 2), which attacked him in his old age (1Ki 15:23; 2Ch 16:12), and became exceeding great, may have been either adema, dropsy, or podagra, gout. . . .

In I Macc. 6:8, occurs a mention of “sickness of grief;” in Ecclus. 37:30, of sickness caused by excess, which require only a passing mention. The disease of Nebuchadnezzar has been viewed by Jahn as a mental and purely subjective malady. It is not easy to see how this satisfies the plain, emphatic statement of Da 4:33, which seems to include, it is true, mental derangement, but to assert a degraded bodily state to some extent, and a corresponding change of habits. . . .

The palsy meets us in the New Test. only, and in features too familiar to need special remark. The words “grievously tormented” (Mt 8:6) have been commented on by Baier (De Paral. p. 32), to the effect that examples of acutely painful paralysis are not wanting in modern pathology, e.g. when paralysis is complicated with neuralgia. But if this statement be viewed with doubt, we might understand the Greek expression (βασανιζόμενος) as used of paralysis agitans, or even of chorea (StVitus’s dance), in both of which the patient, being never still for a moment save when asleep, might well be so described. The woman’s case who was “bowed together” by ” a spirit of infirmity” may probably have. been paralytic (Lu 13:11). If the dorsal muscles were affected, those of the chest and abdomen, from want of resistance, would undergo contraction, and thus cause the patient to suffer as described. . . .

For the use of salt to a new-born infant, Eze 16:4; comp. Galen, De Sanit. lib. i, cap. 7. . . .

The’ “roller to bind” of Eze 30:21 was for a broken limb, as still used. . . .

Ex 30:5-23 is a prescription in form. It may be worth while also to enumerate the leading substances which, according to Wunderbar, composed the pharmacopeia of the Talmudists-a much more limited one which will afford some insight into the distance which separates them from the leaders of Greek medicine. Besides such ordinary appliances as water, wine (Lu 10:34), beer, vinegar, honey, and milk, various oils are found; as opobalsamim (” balm of Gilead”), the oil of olive, myrrh, rose, palma christi, walnut, sesamum, colocynth, and fish; figs (2Ki 20:7), dates, apples (Song 2:5), pomegranates, pistachio-nuts, and almonds (a produce of Syria, but not of Egypt, Ge 43:11); wheat, barley, and various other grains; garlic, leeks, onions, and some other common herbs; mustard, pepper, coriander seed, ginger, preparations of beet, fish, etc., steeped in wine or vinegar, whey, eggs, salt, wax, and suet (in plasters), gall of fish (Tob. 6:8; 11:11), ashes, cow dung, etc.; fasting- saliva, urine, bat’s blood, and the following rarer herbs, etc.; ammesision, menta gentilis, saffron, mandragora, Lawsonia spinosa (Arab. alhenna), juniper, broom, poppy, acacia, pine, lavender or rosemary, cloverroot, jujub, hyssop, fern, sampsuchum, milk-thistle, laurel, Eruca muralis, absynth,jasmine, narcissus, madder, curled mint, fennel, endive, oil of cotton, myrtle, myrrh, aloes, sweet cane (acorus calamus), cinnamon, canella alba, cassia, ladanum, galbanum, frankincense, storax nard, gum of various trees, musk, blatta byzantina; and these minerals-bitumen, natrum, borax, alum, clay. aetites, quicksilver, litharge, yellow arsenic. The following preparations were also well known: Theriacas, an antidote prepared from serpents; various medicinal drinks, e.g. from the fruit- bearing rosemary; decoction of wine. with vegetables; mixture of wine, holiey, and pepper; of oil, wine, and water; of asparagus and other roots steeped in wine; emetics, purging draughts, soporifics, potions to produce abortion or fruitfulness; and various salves, some used cosmetically, e.g. to remove hair; some for wounds and other injuries. The forms of medicaments were cataplasm, electuary, liniment. plaster (Isa 1:6; Jer 8:22; Jer 46:11; Jer 51:8; Josephus, War, 1:33,5), powder, infusion, decoction, essence, syrup, mixture.

An occasional trace occurs of some chemical knowledge, e.g. the calcination of the gold by Moses; the effect of “vinegar upon nitre” (Ex 32:20; Pr 25:20; comp. Jer 2:22). The mention of ” the apothecary” (Ex 30:35; Ec 10:1), and of the merchant in “powders” (Song 3:6), shows that a distinct and important branch of trade was set up in these wares, in which, as at a modern druggist’s, articles of luxury, etc., are combined with the remedies of sickness . . .

See also my article: Demonic Possession or Epilepsy? (Bible & Science) (7-9-20).

The Bible’s account of a bizarre malady suffered by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon is confirmed by modern science:

Daniel 4:33 . . . Nebuchadnez’zar . . . was driven from among men, and ate grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair grew as long as eagles’ feathers, and his nails were like birds’ claws.

Oddly enough, doctors and psychiatrists have identified an odd malady called boanthropy that likely describes Nebuchadnez’zar’s bizarre condition. The website, Online Psychology Degree Guide has an article, “15 Scariest Mental Disorders of All Time”, including a section on this disorder, which reads:

Those who suffer from the very rare — but very scary — mental disorder Boanthropy believe they are cows, often going as far as to behave as such. Sometimes those with Boanthropy are even found in fields with cows, walking on all fours and chewing grass as if they were a true member of the herd. Those with Boanthropy do not seem to realize what they’re doing when they act like a cow, leading researchers to believe that this odd mental disorder is brought on by dreams or even hypnotism. Interestingly, it is believed that Boanthropy is even referred to in the Bible, as King Nebuchadnezzar is described as being “driven from men and did eat grass as oxen.”

One word. Soap. The idea that modern science “teaches us” that we must wash our hands under running water is not true. Still water will be fine if you use a sterilizer. Soap is just the most common such. We have a whole array of sterilizing agents now, just as I noted ancient doctors had, and we have even better ones now. None of which are ever mentioned in the Bible. No angels or aliens ever thought to tell the Biblical authors about sterilizing agents.

Carrier claimed that the Bible never mentions soap. Wrong:

Job 9:30 (RSV) If I wash myself with snow, and cleanse my hands with lye, [also translated as “soap” or “bleach” or “cleansing powder”]

Isaiah 1:25 I will turn my hand against you and will smelt away your dross as with lye and remove all your alloy.

Jeremiah 2:22 Though you wash yourself with lye and use much soap, the stain of your guilt is still before me, says the Lord GOD. [KJV: “nitre . . . soap”]

“Lye” in this verse is Strong’s Hebrew word #5427: neṯer: translated as nitre in the KJV (here and at Proverbs 25:20: “as vinegar upon nitre”). According to the Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon, it meant “natron, or carbonate of soda, a mineral alkali.” Strong’s Concordance defines it as “mineral potash (so called from effervescing with acid):—nitre.” Likewise, Gesenius’ Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon: “nitre, prop. natron of the moderns, fossil alkali, potash . . . which, when mixed with oil, is used even now for soap . . . when water is poured upon it, it effervesces or ferments.

“Soap” here is Strong’s Hebrew word #1287: bōrîṯ. It means, according to Brown-Driver-Briggs: “lye, alkali, potash, soap, (used in washing).” Gesenius’ Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon adds: “something which cleanses, something which has a cleansing property . . . specially salt of lixivium, alkali, especially vegetable . . . made from the ashes of various salt and soapy plants.” It also appears in Malachi 3:2 below.

Malachi 3:2 But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? “For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; [KJV: “fuller’s soap”]

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[L]et’s compare this feeble wizardry-passing-for-science in the Bible with the actual height of ancient science: the best knowledge and theories they accomplished before modern times (because basically no medical knowledge was acquired in the “Middle Ages” in between—in fact, most of it was then forgotten and had to be rediscovered before it could be advanced upon).

Here are excerpts from my book, Science and Christianity: Close Partners or Mortal Enemies? (Oct. 2010); I won’t bother to indent all of this material:

[T]he vast majority of Christian leaders looked favorably on the Greco-Roman medical tradition, viewing it as a divine gift, an aspect of divine providence, the use of which was legitimate and perhaps even obligatory. Basil of Caesarea (ca. 330-79) spoke for many of the church fathers when he wrote that “we must take great care to employ this medical art, if it should be necessary . . .”

[H]ow did the presence and influence of the Christian church affect knowledge of, and attitudes toward, nature? The standard answer, developed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and widely propagated in the twentieth, maintains that Christianity presented serious obstacles to the advancement of science and, indeed, sent the scientific enterprise into a tailspin from which it did not recover for more than a thousand years. The truth, as we shall see, is dramatically different, far more complicated, and a great deal more interesting. . .

Naturally enough, the kind and level of education and intellectual effort favored by the church fathers was that which supported the mission of the church as they perceived it. But this mission, interestingly, did not include the suppression of scientific investigations and ideas.

If we compare the early church with a modern research university or the National Science Foundation, the church will prove to have failed abysmally as a supporter of science and natural philosophy. But such a comparison is obviously unfair. If, instead, we compare the support given to the study of nature by the early church with the support available from any other contemporary social institution, it will become apparent that the church was the major patron of scientific learning. Its patronage may have been limited and selective, but limited and selective patronage is a far cry from opposition.

The contribution of the religious culture of the early Middle Ages to the scientific movement was thus primarily one of preservation and transmission. The monasteries served as the transmitters of literacy and a thin version of the classical tradition (including science or natural philosophy) through a period when literacy and scholarship were severely threatened. Without them, Western Europe would not have had more science, but less. (David Lindberg, The Beginnings of Western Science [Univ. of Chicago Press, 2nd ed., 2008], pp. 325 and 148-150, 156-157)

St. Basil the Great (c. 330-379; bishop and Doctor of the Church)

If you observe carefully the members even of the animals, you will find that the Creator has added nothing superfluous, and that He has not omitted anything necessary.” He drew lessons from the migration of fish, the stealth of the octopus, the function of the elephant’s trunk, the behavior of dogs tracking wild animals, and the existence of both poisonous and edible plants. All play their designated role in nature, even poisonous plants, for as Basil argued, “there is no one plant without worth, not one without use. Either it provides food for some animal, or has been sought out for us by the medical profession for the relief of certain diseases.

Thus did Basil respond to those who wondered why God would create poisonous plants capable of killing humans. (See: Edward Grant, The Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages: Their Religious, Institutional and Intellectual Contexts [Cambridge, 1996], p. 6; primary sources unable to be accessed in Google Books)

Paul of Aegina (c. 625-c. 690) He is considered by some to be the greatest Byzantine surgeon, developed many novel surgical techniques and authored the medical encyclopedia Medical Compendium in Seven Books. The book on surgery in particular was the definitive treatise in Europe and the Islamic world for hundreds of years, contained the sum of all Western medical knowledge and was unrivaled in its accuracy and completeness. The sixth book on surgery in particular was referenced in Europe and the Arab world throughout the Middle Ages and is of special interest for surgical history. The whole work in the original Greek was published in Venice in 1528, and another edition appeared in Basel in 1538. [sources: Wikipedia: ”Paul of Aegena” and ”Science in the Middle Ages”]

Charlemagne (c. 742-814; Roman emperor)

Charlemagne . . . and his great minister, Alcuin [c. 740-804], not only promoted medical studies in the schools they founded, but also made provision for the establishment of botanic gardens in which those herbs were especially cultivated which were supposed to have healing virtues. (from Andrew D. White, A History of the Warfare of Science With Theology in Christendom [New York: George Braziller, 1955; originally 1895], vol. II, 34)

Hunayn ibn Ishaq (also Hunain or Hunein; 809-873) [Nestorian] His monumental developments on the eye can be traced back to his innovative book, Ten Treatises on Ophthalmology: the first systematic book in this field. He explained in minute details about the eye, its diseases and their symptoms and treatments, and its anatomy – all possible by his extensive research and observations. For example, ibn Ishaq taught what cysts and tumors are and the swelling they cause, how to treat various corneal ulcers through surgery, and the therapy involved in repairing cataracts. [source: Wikipedia bio]

St. Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179; Benedictine abbess; Doctor of the Church) . . . She wrote botanical and medicinal texts: Physica, on the natural sciences, and Causae et Curae. In both texts Hildegard describes the natural world around her, including the cosmos, animals, plants, stones, and minerals. She combined these elements with a theological notion ultimately derived from Genesis: all things put on earth are for the use of humans. [source: Wikipedia bio]

Rogerius (c. 1140-c. 1195) He wrote a work on medicine entitled Practica Chirurgiae (“The Practice of Surgery”): the first medieval text on surgery to dominate its field in Europe. It laid the foundation for the species of the occidental surgical manuals, influencing them up to modern times. The work, arranged anatomically and presented according to a pathologic–traumatological systematization, includes a brief recommended treatment for each affliction. Rogerius was an independent observer and was the first to use the term lupus to describe the classic malar rash. He recommended a dressing of egg-albumen for wounds of the neck, and did not believe that nerves, when severed, could be regenerated. [source: Wikipedia bio]

Bartholomew of England (c. 1203-1272; Franciscan friar and bishop) He studied under Robert Grosseteste and was the author of On the Properties of Things (De proprietatibus rerum), an early forerunner of the encyclopedia. It has sections on physiology, medicine, the universe and celestial bodies, time, form and matter (elements), air and its forms, water and its forms, earth and its forms including geography, gems, minerals and metals, animals, and color, odor, taste and liquids. It was the first to make readily available the views of Greek, Jewish, and Arabic scholars on medical and scientific subjects. [source: Wikipedia bio]

Theodoric Borgognoni (1205-1298; Dominican friar and bishop) His major medical work is the Cyrurgia, a systematic four-volume treatise covering all aspects of surgery. He insisted that the practice of encouraging the development of pus in wounds, handed down from Galen and from Arabic medicine be replaced by a more antiseptic approach, with the wound being cleaned and then sutured to promote healing. Bandages were to be pre-soaked in wine as a form of disinfectant. He also promoted the use of anesthetics in surgery. A sponge soaked in a dissolved solution of opium, mandrake, hemlock, mulberry juice, ivy and other substances was held beneath the patients nose to induce unconsciousness. Borgognoni’s test for the diagnosis of shoulder dislocation, namely the ability to touch the opposite ear or shoulder with the hand of the affected arm, has remained in use into modern times. [source: Wikipedia bio]

Arnaldus de Villa Nova (1235-1311) He is credited with translating a number of medical texts from Arabic, including works by Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Qusta ibn Luqa (Costa ben Luca), and Galen. He is also the reputed author of various medical works, including Breviarium Practicae. He discovered carbon monoxide and pure alcohol. [source: Wikipedia bio]

Mondino de Luzzi (c. 1270-1326) He is often credited as the “restorer of anatomy” because he made seminal contributions to the field by reintroducing the practice of public dissection of human cadavers and writing the first modern anatomical text: Anathomia corporis humani. He describes the closure of an incised intestinal wound by having large ants bite on its edges and then cutting off their heads, which one scholar interprets as an anticipation of the use of staples in surgery. For three centuries, the statutes of many medical schools required lecturers on anatomy to use Anathomia as their textbook. [source: Wikipedia bio]

Gentile da Foligno (d. 1348) Gentile wrote several widely copied and read texts and commentaries, notably his massive commentary covering all five books of the Canon of Medicine by the 11th-century Persian polymath Avicenna, the comprehensive encyclopedia that, in Latin translation, was fundamental to medieval medicine. Gentile’s commentary de urinarum iudiciis made the first attempt to comprehend the physiology of urine formation: asserting that urine associated with the blood passes “through the porous tubules” of the kidney and is then delivered to the bladder. He connected the relationship between fast pulse rate and urine output and correlated the color of urine with the condition of the heart. For the originality of his thought it has been suggested that he was the first cardionephrologist. [source: Wikipedia bio]

Guy de Chauliac (c. 1300-1368) He was among the most important physicians of his time, and his ideas dominated surgical thought for over 200 years. He is most famous for his work on surgery, Chirurgia magna. In seven volumes, it covers anatomy, bloodletting, cauterization, drugs, anesthetics, wounds, and fractures, ulcers, special diseases, and antidotes. His treatments included the use of plasters. He also wrote De ruptura, which describes different types of hernias; and De subtilianti diaeta, explaining cataracts and possible treatments for them. [source: Wikipedia bio]

Girolamo Fracastoro (1478-1553) In 1546 he proposed that epidemic diseases are caused by transferable tiny particles or “spores” that could transmit infection by direct or indirect contact or even without contact over long distances. In his writing, the “spores” of disease may refer to chemicals rather than to any living entities.

I call fomites [from the Latin fomes, meaning “tinder”] such things as clothes, linen, etc., which although not themselves corrupt, can nevertheless foster the essential seeds of the contagion and thus cause infection.

His theory remained influential for nearly three centuries, before being displaced by germ theory. [source: Wikipedia bio] The British medical journal Lancet called Girolamo Fracastoro “the physician who did most to spread knowledge of the origin, clinical details and available treatments of [the sexually-transmitted disease syphilis] throughout a troubled Europe.” His poem, Syphilis sive morbus gallicus, 1530, gave name to the disease. Fracastoro excelled in the arts and sciences and engaged in a lifelong study of literature, music, geography, geology, philosophy, mathematics, and astronomy, as well as medicine. [source: Holding, Scientists of the Christian Faith bio]

Ambroise Paré (c. 1510-1590) He is considered as one of the fathers of surgery. He was a leader in surgical techniques and battlefield medicine, especially the treatment of wounds. He was also an anatomist and the inventor of several surgical instruments. Paré also introduced the ligature of arteries instead of cauterization during amputation. To do this he designed the “Bec de Corbin” (“crow’s beak”), a predecessor to modern hemostats. Although ligatures often spread infection, it still was an important breakthrough in surgical practice. Paré was also an important figure in the progress of obstetrics in the middle of the 16th century. He revived the practice of the podalic version of delivery. He contributed both to the practice of surgical amputation and to the design of limb prostheses. He also invented some ocular prostheses, making artificial eyes from enameled gold, silver, porcelain and glass. [source: Wikipedia bio]

Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564) He authored one of the most influential books on human anatomy, De humani corporis fabrica (On the Workings of the Human Body) and is often referred to as the founder of modern human anatomy. Vesalius’ work on the vascular and circulatory systems was his greatest contribution to modern medicine. He defined a nerve as the mode of transmitting sensation and motion and believed that they didn’t originate from the heart, but that nerves stemmed from the brain. His most significant contribution to the study of the brain was his trademark illustrations in which he depicts the corpus callosum, the thalamus, the caudate nucleus, the lenticular nucleus, the globus pallidus, the putamen, the pulvinar, and the cerebral peduncles for the first time. Due to his impressive study of the human skull and the variations of its features he is said to have been responsible for the launch of the study of physical anthropology. [source: Wikipedia bio]

Gabriele Falloppio (1523-1562; canon) He added much to what was known before about the internal ear and described in detail the tympanum and its relations to the osseous ring in which it is situated. He also described minutely the circular and oval windows (fenestræ) and their communication with the vestibule and cochlea. He was the first to point out the connection between the mastoid cells and the middle ear. His description of the lacrimal ducts in the eye was a marked advance on those of his predecessors and he also gave a detailed account of the ethmoid bone and its cells in the nose. His contributions to the anatomy of the bones and muscles were very valuable. It was in myology particularly that he corrected Vesalius. He studied the reproductive organs in both sexes, and described the Fallopian tube, which leads from the ovary to the uterus and now bears his name. He was the first to use an aural speculum for the diagnosis and treatment of diseases of the ear, and his writings on surgical subjects are still of interest. [source: Wikipedia bio]

Jose de Acosta (1540-1600; Jesuit priest) For his work on altitude sickness in the Andes he is listed as one of the pioneers of modern aeronautical medicine. He was one of the earliest geophysicists, having been among the first to observe, record and analyze earthquakes, volcanoes, tides, currents, magnetic declinations and meteorological phenomena. He denied the commonly held opinion that earthquakes and volcanoes originated from the same cause, and offered the earliest scientific explanation of the tropical trade winds. [source: Adventures of Early Jesuit Scientists bio]

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Here’s more similar observations (not in my book):

One cannot overestimate the importance of medicinal plants in the Middle Ages. Although the original text of Dioscorides is lost, there are many surviving copies. His texts formed the basis of much of the herbal medicine practiced until 1500. Some plants were used for specific disorders, while others were credited with curing multiple diseases. In many cases, draughts were made up of many different herbs. No monastic garden would have been complete without medicinal plants, and it was to monasteries that the sick went to obtain such herbs. Additionally, people might have gone to the local witch or to the apothecary for healing potions.

By the twelfth century, there were medical schools throughout Europe. The most famous was the school of Salerno in southern Italy, reputedly founded by a Christian, an Arab, and a Jew. A health spa as early as the second century, Salerno was surprisingly free of clerical control, even though it was very close to the famous and very powerful monastery of Monte Cassino. The medical faculty at Salerno permitted women to study there.

The medical school at Montpellier traces its roots back to the tenth century, though the university was not founded until 1289. Count Guilhem VIII of Montpellier (1157–1202) permitted anyone who had a medical license to teach there, regardless of religion or background. By 1340, the university at Montpellier included a school of anatomy.

In 1140, Roger of Sicily forbade anyone from practicing medicine without a license, indicating that doctors were clearly under some form of regulation. In the late Middle Ages, apothecary shops opened in important towns. Interestingly, these shops also sold artists’ paints and supplies, and apothecaries and artists shared a guild—the Guild of Saint Luke.

Physicians were trained in the art of diagnosis—often shown in manuscripts holding a urine flask up for inspection (54.1.2, Hours of Jeanne d’Evreux, marginal illustration, fol. 143), or feeling a pulse. In fact, in the sixth century, Cassiodorus wrote that “for a skilled physician the pulsing of the veins reveals [to his fingers] the patient’s ailment just as the appearance of urine indicates it to his eyes.” Observation, palpation, feeling the pulse, and urine examination would be the tools of the doctor throughout the Middle Ages.

Surgery such as amputations, cauterization, removal of cataracts, dental extractions, and even trepanning (perforating the skull to relieve pressure on the brain) were practiced. Surgeons would have relied on opiates for anesthesia and doused wounds with wine as a form of antiseptic.

Many people would have sought out the local healer for care, or might have gone to the barber to be bled or even leeched. Midwives took care of childbirth (21.168) and childhood ailments. For the sick and dying, there were hospitals. Although many large monasteries did have hospitals attached to them—for example, Saint Bartholemew’s in London and the Hotel Dieu in Paris—and all would have had at least a small infirmary where sick and dying monks could be cared for, it is unclear just how much time the monks dedicated to care of the sick. The medicus in a monastery would have devoted himself to prayer, the laying on of hands, exorcizing of demons, and of course the dispensing of herbal medicine. The hospital of Santa Maria della Scala in Siena was initially administered by the canons of the cathedral (23.166; 16.154.5). It was renowned for its efficient administration and, supported by wealthy patrons, was richly endowed with works of art (1975.1.2488; 32.100.95). Many communities had hospitals to care for the sick that were independent of monasteries. (Sigrid Goldiner, “Medicine in the Middle Ages”, The Met, Jan. 2012)

See also related materials:

“Medieval medicine of Western Europe” (Wikipedia)

“Forget folk remedies, Medieval Europe spawned a golden age of medical theory” (Winston Black (professor of medieval history], The Conversation, 5-14-14)

“Medicine or Magic? Physicians in the Middle Ages” (William Gries, The Histories, Vol. 15, Issue 1, 2019)

“Top 10 Medical Advances from the Middle Ages” (Medievalists.Net, Nov. 2015). The ten advances are the following:

Hospitals / Pharmacies / Eyeglasses / Anatomy and Dissection / Medial Education in Universities / Ophthalmology and Optics / Cleaning Wounds / Caesarean sections / Quarantine / Dental amalgams

Philosophy, Science & Christianity (my web page)

Christianity: Crucial to the Origin of Science [8-1-10]

Scientific & Empiricist Church Fathers: To Augustine (d. 430) [2010]

Christian Influence on Science: Master List of Scores of Bibliographical and Internet Resources (Links) [8-4-10]

33 Empiricist Christian Thinkers Before 1000 AD [8-5-10]

23 Catholic Medieval Proto-Scientists: 12th-13th Centuries [2010]

Christians or Theists Founded 115 Scientific Fields [8-20-10]

St. Augustine: Astrology is Absurd [9-4-15]

Catholics & Science #1: Hermann of Reichenau [10-21-15]

Catholics & Science #2: Adelard of Bath [10-21-15]

Science and Christianity (Copious Resources) [11-3-15]

Loftus Atheist Error #7: Christian Influence on Science [9-9-19]

The Bible is Not “Anti-Scientific,” as Skeptics Claim [National Catholic Register, 10-23-19]

Seidensticker Folly #59: Medieval Hospitals & Medicine [11-3-20]

Seidensticker Folly #60: Anti-Intellectual Medieval Christians? [11-4-20]

Medieval Christian Medicine Was the Forerunner of Modern Medicine [National Catholic Register, 11-13-20]

A List of 244 Priest-Scientists [Angelo Stagnaro, National Catholic Register, 11-29-16]

A Short List of [152] Lay Catholic Scientists [Angelo Stagnaro, National Catholic Register, 12-30-16]

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Photo credit: Thigh Cauterisation [Wellcome Images; refer to Wellcome blog post (archive) / Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license / Wikimedia Commons]

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Summary: Atheist Richard Carrier trots out the usual ignorant accusations about the Bible & disease & medicine, & the supposed lack of medical science in the Middle Ages.