August 14, 2019

August 14, 2019 By

Why Did Mark Omit Jesus’ Baptism? / Why Was Jesus Baptized? / “Suffering Servant” & Messiah in Isaiah / Spiritual “Kingdom of God” / Archaeological Support

This is an installment of my replies to a series of articles on Mark by Dr. David Madison: an atheist who was a Methodist minister for nine years: with a Ph.D. in Biblical Studies from Boston University. His summary article is called, “Not-Your-Pastor’s Tour of Mark’s Gospel: The falsification of Christianity made easy” (Debunking Christianity, 7-17-19). His words will be in blue below.

Dr. Madison has utterly ignored my twelve refutations of his “dirty dozen” podcasts against Jesus, and I fully expect that stony silence to continue. If he wants to be repeatedly critiqued and make no response, that’s his choice (which would challenge Bob Seidensticker as the most intellectually cowardly atheist I know). I will continue on, whatever he decides to do (no skin off my back).

Dr. Madison believes we are not at all sure whether Jesus in fact said anything recorded in the Gospels. The atheist always has a convenient “out” (when refuted in argument about some biblical text) that Jesus never said it anyway and that the text in question was simply made up and added later by unscrupulous and “cultish” Christian propagandists.

I always refuse to play this silly and ultimately intellectually dishonest game, because there is no way to “win” with such a stacked, subjective deck. I start with the assumption (based on many historical evidences) that the manuscripts we have are quite sufficient for us to know what is in the Bible (believe it or not). 

Dr. Madison himself — in his anti-Jesus project noted above, granted my outlook, strictly in terms of practical “x vs. y” debate purposes: “For the sake of argument, I’m willing to say, okay, Jesus was real and, yes, we have gospels that tell the story.” And in the combox: “So, we can go along with their insistence that he did exist. We’ll play on their field, i.e., the gospels.” Excellent! Otherwise, there would be no possible discussion at all.

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Dr. Madison called this installment: Did Jesus Graduate from Hogwarts?: The problems pile on, right from the start (2-16-18).

Problem Number 1: A Big Omission

It has been a source of some anxiety among theologians that Mark begins his story with Jesus as an adult: There is no mention whatever of a virgin birth. Why would Mark leave that out? For starters, of course, he may never have heard this story associated with Jesus. The apostle Paul, who had written a couple of decades earlier, hadn’t heard of it either—at least, he never mentions it.

Apologist J. Warner Wallace deals with this:

While it is true that Mark does not include a birth narrative, this does not mean that he was either unaware of the truth about Jesus or denied the virgin conception. Eyewitnesses often omit important details because they either (1) have other concerns they want to highlight with greater priority, or (2) presume that the issue under question is already well understood. The gospel of Mark exhibits great influence from the Apostle Peter. In fact, the outline of Mark’s Gospel is very similar to the outline of Peter’s first sermon at Pentecost. According to the Papias, Mark was Peter’s scribe; his gospel is brief and focused. Like Peter’s sermon in Chapter 2 of the Book of Act’s, Mark is focused only on the public life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus. But Mark is not alone in omitting the birth narrative. John’s gospel is considered by scholars to be the last Gospel written. The prior three “synoptic Gospels” were already in circulation and the issue of the virgin conception had already been described in two of them. Yet John also omitted the birth narrative. Why? John clearly wanted to cover material that the other Gospel writers did not address; over 90% of the material in the Gospel of John is unique to the text. If John did not agree with the virgin conception as described in the Gospels of Matthew or Luke, he certainly had the opportunity to correct the matter in his own work. But John never does this; his silence serves as a presumption that the “virgin conception” has been accurately described by prior authors. . . .

At the same time, Mark does not appear to be ignorant of the “virgin conception”. Note, for example, that Mark uses an unusual expression related to Jesus’ parentage:

Mark 6:1-3 Jesus went out from there and came into His hometown ; and His disciples followed Him. When the Sabbath came, He began to teach in the synagogue ; and the many listeners were astonished, saying, “Where did this man get these things, and what is this wisdom given to Him, and such miracles as these performed by His hands ? “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon ? Are not His sisters here with us?” And they took offense at Him.

It is highly unusual for the “many listeners” in this first century Jewish culture to describe Jesus as the “son of Mary” rather than the “son of Joseph”. These first century eyewitnesses of Jesus apparently knew something about Jesus’ birth narrative and chose to trace Jesus’ lineage back through His mother rather than through His father (as would customarily have been the case). This early reference in the Gospel of Mark may expose the fact that Mark was aware of the “virgin conception” . . . (“Why Doesn’t Mark Say Anything About Jesus’ Birth?”, Cold-Case Christianity, 12-11-15)

Problem Number 2: Baptism for the Forgiveness of Sins

We read in vv. 4-5: “John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.”

Just what Jesus should do, right? Well, no. Why would the perfect, sinless son of God show up to be baptized? Mark’s naiveté has bothered theologians—starting with Matthew, who maneuvered to avoid this embarrassment. He adds extra script, i.e., that John the Baptist objected (3:14): “John would have prevented him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” Jesus seems to say, “True, but let’s do it for appearances.” “But Jesus answered him, ‘Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness’” (v. 3:15). In John’s gospel Jesus doesn’t even set foot in the water. John says that he saw the spirit descend on Jesus “as a dove from heaven,” and declares, “Here is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

Catholic writer Kirsten Andersen explains:

Since Jesus didn’t have any sins that needed forgiving (original or otherwise), was already fully himself and fully God’s son and had no need of salvation, baptism would seem redundant . . .

So what’s the deal? Why did Jesus insist on receiving baptism from John, even though John himself flat-out objected, arguing that it was Jesus who should baptize him?

The easy answer is that Jesus was simply setting the example for his followers. “WWJD” bracelets may be out-of-fashion and clichéd, but they do express the rather profound truth that as long as we keep our eyes on Jesus, and do what he showed us how to do in both word and deed, salvation can be ours. . . .

[T]he baptism Jesus received from John wasn’t the same sacrament we celebrate today. How could it have been? Jesus had not yet established his Church, so the sacraments didn’t exist yet. The “baptisms” John performed were actually ritual washings (mikveh/pl. mikvaot) given to converting and reverting Jews, symbolizing the death of one’s old, sinful self, and rebirth as a ritually clean Jew.

Mikvaot were commonly performed to cleanse Jews of any sins and ritual impurities before presenting themselves at the temple, . . . (“If Jesus Was Sinless, Why Did He Need to Be Baptized?,” Aleteia, 1-8-16)

Catholic writer Cale Clark cites Pope Benedict XVI (writing before he was pope), explaining another symbolic aspect of Jesus’ baptism:

Pope Benedict XVI (writing as Joseph Ratzinger), in his Jesus of Nazareth [2004] offers some illuminating insights on all this. There’s a whole chapter in the book on Jesus’ baptism, but here are a few of his key thoughts.

First, in antiquity water conjured up two distinct images: death and life. Benedict notes:

On the one hand, immersion into the waters is a symbol of death, which recalls the death symbolism of the annihilating, destructive power of the ocean flood. The ancient mind perceived the ocean as a permanent threat to the cosmos, to the earth; it was the primeval flood that might submerge all life . . . But the flowing waters of the river are above all a symbol of life (15-16).

Even the physical act of baptism, especially baptism by immersion, represents death and new life: the descent into the waters is a form of death and burial; the rising to a new life is an icon of resurrection.

Looking at the events (of Christ’s baptism) in light of the Cross and Resurrection, the Christian people realized what happened: Jesus loaded the burden of all mankind’s guilt upon his shoulders; he bore it down into the depths of the Jordan. He inaugurated his public activity by stepping into the place of sinners. His inaugural gesture is an anticipation of the Cross. He is, as it were, the true Jonah who said to the crew of the ship, ”Take me and throw me into the sea” (Jon. 1:12) . . . The baptism is an acceptance of death for the sins of humanity, and the voice that calls out “This is my beloved Son” over the baptismal waters is an anticipatory reference to the Resurrection. This also explains why, in his own discourses, Jesus uses the word “baptism” to refer to his death (18).

The Eastern traditions of iconography pick up on many of these themes, as the current pope emeritus elucidates:

The icon of Jesus’ baptism depicts the water as a liquid tomb having the form of a dark cavern, which is in turn the iconographic sign of Hades, the underworld, or hell. Jesus’ descent into this watery tomb, into this inferno that envelops him from every side, is thus an anticipation of his act of descending into the underworld . . . John Chrysostom writes: “Going down into the water and emerging again are the image of the descent into hell and the Resurrection” (19). (“Why Jesus Was Baptized,” Catholic Answers, 1-9-18)

Problem Number 3: The Powerful Savior Myth

John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness to “prepare the way of the Lord”—“the one who is more powerful than I is coming after me” (v.7). These texts—and many others like them—usher us into the world of delusional thinking that seeks to bend history to fit theology. The Chosen People had been oppressed for centuries—which was inexplicable. What was the way out of this? It’ll be magic: There is a hero on the way, a messiah, one specially anointed by God, who will set things right. Thus one of the main themes of Mark is the proclamation of Jesus that the “the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near” (v. 15).

But that didn’t happen. God has not intervened in human history to make everything better. When hope faded that the Son of Man would descend to Earth to establish the kingdom of God, Christian theologians made the adjustment: it became a “spiritual” reality. But we’re still dealing with a form of hero worship: “Here is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

What? Someone can actually do that? Whether it’s intervening in history to rescue the Chosen People, or “taking away the sins of the world,” it’s wishful thinking, theology denying reality. This is the Superman fantasy, and outside of the ‘messiah’ version of it, nobody takes it seriously. Of course, in our own time, there have been so many spin-off super-heroes; this is fun fantasy, nothing more.

The Jews for centuries had had a dual notion of the Messiah: that of the Suffering Servant and of the conquering king. So this was nothing new. Educated Christians knew the Old Testament. It included Isaiah 53, which is the famous passage of the Messiah suffering. There was no huge [implied, dishonest] “adjustment” made by the time the Gospels were written. Whereas during the time of Jesus it was understandable that some thought that the messianic kingdom was to be established, and the end of the age was near, after He died, of course it was understood that He was the suffering servant, and that the “triumphant” messianism had to await His second Coming. In the meantime, Jesus made salvation possible by His redemptive death; and that is quite enough itself.

Dr. Madison acts as if John the Baptist was proclaiming a superhero and the messianic earthy kingdom: fulfilled in Jesus. If so, how odd that he referred to Him as follows: “”Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (Jn 1:29, RSV). That’s the suffering Messiah of Isaiah 53. The Jews at the time couldn’t misinterpret the analogy of the Passover Lamb that was sacrificed. Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross was also at the time of Passover.

Mark cites Isaiah 40:3: “A voice cries: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.'” Isaiah 40:1-26 is a triumphant passage of hope. God was going to deliver the Israelites. But as always in the Old Testament, such deliverance was conditional upon obedience. And once again, as so often, God didn’t receive that, as the grand narrative of the magnificent book of Isaiah continues. Thus, we see the beginning of this discontent in the same chapter:

Isaiah 40:27 Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, “My way is hid from the LORD, and my right is disregarded by my God”? (cf. 49:14: “. . . “The LORD has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me.”)

God in effect responds to this rebellion and rejection in Isaiah chapters 41-47. Isaiah 42 describes what could have been, had Israel been obedient. But it was not, and Israel’s exile came about as a result (43:22-28). Then Babylon is judged for opposing Israel (chapters 46-47). Isaiah 48 is God’s response to Israel’s rebellion. God declares:

Isaiah 48:6 . . . From this time forth I make you hear new things, hidden things which you have not known.

The text then highlights the “Servant” (chapters 49-55) which represents both the Messiah and the nation of Israel (prophecies often have multiple applications in Scripture). The Servant’s mission is to Israel first, then “as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth” (49:6). But the “Servant” is also rejected:

Isaiah 49:7 . . . one deeply despised, abhorred by the nations . . .

Isaiah 50:6 I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I hid not my face from shame and spitting.

Nevertheless the Servant continues to proclaim a message of good news (chapters 51-52). But what happens next is that the full suffering of the Servant is revealed: and its purpose:

Isaiah 52:13-53:12 Behold, my servant shall prosper, he shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall be very high. [14] As many were astonished at him — his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the sons of men — [15] so shall he startle many nations; kings shall shut their mouths because of him; for that which has not been told them they shall see, and that which they have not heard they shall understand. [1] Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? [2] For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or comeliness that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. [3] He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. [4] Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. [5] But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed. [6] All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. [7] He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. [8] By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? [9] And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. [10] Yet it was the will of the LORD to bruise him; he has put him to grief; when he makes himself an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring, he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand; [11] he shall see the fruit of the travail of his soul and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous; and he shall bear their iniquities. [12] Therefore I will divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he poured out his soul to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

All of this, of course, is a prophecy of exactly what would happen with Jesus Christ: God the Son / Son of God. He came as the expected Messiah, but was rejected and killed on the cross. But this was God’s plan to save mankind. Many missed that (included all those who rejected Jesus Christ), but it was there in plain view, in Isaiah (written many centuries before). And this is the backdrop of the Gospel presentation of the life and mission of Jesus. Precisely for this reason, Jesus cited Isaiah in public, in a synagogue, at the beginning of His public ministry, in his own hometown of Nazareth:

Luke 4:16-21 And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up; and he went to the synagogue, as his custom was, on the sabbath day. And he stood up to read; [17] and there was given to him the book of the prophet Isaiah. He opened the book and found the place where it was written, [18] “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, [19] to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” [20] And he closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant, and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. [21] And he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

After He said a bit more, here was the response:

Luke 4:28-29 When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. [29] And they rose up and put him out of the city, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw him down headlong.

Jesus was citing Isaiah 61:1-2 and also 58:6. He was thus claiming to be the Old Testament Servant, who was the Messiah. It was all foretold in the Old Testament before any Gospel writer was born. So to make out that they “invented” the whole story because Jesus disappointed their expectations and failed to reign triumphant over all mankind, and was instead tortured and killed, is ludicrous. Mark’s Gospel recounts the same incident, but only in bare outline: Jesus was “in his own country” (6:1), taught in the synagogue (6:2), the people “took offense” (6:3), and Jesus noted that a prophet is not honored in his home town (6:4; cf. Lk 4:24). Matthew’s account (13:54-58) is similar to Mark’s.

[I pass over Dr. Madison’s stock atheist objections to Satan, demons (getting also a bit into the problem of evil), and supernatural healing. These are discussions that are very involved, entailing in-depth philosophy and theology, and go far beyond the “textual” arguments that I am concentrating on in my critiques.]

Problem Number 7: The Message Without Substance 

We’ll be searching for the substance of Jesus’s message as we make our way through Mark, but we don’t get many clues in the first chapter. . . . But what “astounded and amazed” them—other than roughing up the demons? What was the message that he taught with authority? Mark neglects to give us the details.

So what? It’s only the first chapter of sixteen. He’ll get to it. Mark chose in this chapter to highlight his baptism and early healings and casting out of demons. But of course, chapters were only added to the Bible in the 13th century: by Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury. They first appeared in a Bible with Wycliffe’s English version of 1382. The Old Testament was first divided into verses in 1448, and the New Testament in 1555 (surprisingly, after Martin Luther’s death!).

We observe that Jesus starts revealing more of His mission and message in what we now call chapter 2.

We will see that Jesus talks a lot about the anticipated kingdom of God—which never showed up, by the way.

As with many words and phrases in the Bible, it has more than one meaning. It’s obvious in many passages that “kingdom of God” (and the equivalent “kingdom of heaven”: used only by Matthew) in the New Testament referred to a spiritual reality, as opposed to the physical and “institutional” messianic kingdom to come. Again, this was no cynical “evolution” or rationalization after the fact of an alleged massive disenchantment of early Christians (one of Dr. Madison’s recurring false assertions). It was foreshadowed in the Old Testament in the motif of changed “hearts” that served and followed God: especially in Jeremiah:

Jeremiah 31:33 But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Jeremiah 32:40 I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them; and I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me.

Also, being inhabited by God’s “spirit” in the Old Testament was a precursor to Pentecost and all Christians being indwelt by the Holy Spirit (essentially, being in the kingdom of God; regenerated, justified, sanctified, etc.):

Numbers 11:29 But Moses said to him, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the LORD’s people were prophets, that the LORD would put his spirit upon them!”

Psalm 51:11 Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy holy Spirit from me.

Isaiah 42:1 Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him, he will bring forth justice to the nations.

Isaiah 44:3 I will pour my Spirit upon your descendants, and my blessing on your offspring.

Isaiah 59:21 “And as for me, this is my covenant with them, says the LORD: my spirit which is upon you, and my words which I have put in your mouth, . . .” (cf. 63:11)

Ezekiel 36:27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances. (cf. 37:14; 39:29)

Joel 2:28 “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; . . .” (cf. 2:29; Hag 2:5)

Zechariah 7:12 . . . the words which the LORD of hosts had sent by his Spirit through the former prophets. . . . (cf. 4:6)

Here are some of Jesus’ many uses of these phrases in a strictly spiritual sense:

Matthew 5:3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (cf. Lk 6:20)

Matthew 11:12 “From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and men of violence take it by force.”

Matthew 12:28 “But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.”

Matthew 19:12 “For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. . . .”

Matthew 19:24 “Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” [this is the famous “rich young ruler” incident. Jesus appears to define the term as “eternal life” (19:16, 29), or spiritual “life” (19:17), or “treasure in heaven” (19:21), or being “saved” (19:25) ]

Mark 12:34 And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” . . .

Luke 7:28 “I tell you, among those born of women none is greater than John; yet he who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.”

Luke 10:9 “heal the sick in it and say to them, `The kingdom of God has come near to you.'”

Luke 11:20 “But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.”

No matter how confident the faithful are that Mark is telling the “true story of Jesus,” this is not biography. Mark fails to qualify as a historian; we have no way—none at all—to determine if there is any history at all in his narratives. Mark was a theologian who had a talent for the creation of religious fantasy literature.

Why are we not impressed, let alone convinced? [my bolding added, to highlight the sweeping absurdity of the false claim]

Well, I say it’s because he has apparently not read about any of the abundant New Testament archaeological evidences of its accuracy. The following article alone has six archaeological confirmations (i.e., scientific findings, completely separate from religious faith) of the Gospel of Mark (a word-search can locate them):

“Archaeology and the Historical Reliability of the New Testament” (Peter S. Williams)

As a second example, archaeologists in 2013 believed that they found the town of Dalmanutha, along the sea of Galilee, mentioned in Mark 8:10. I ran across three articles about it (one / two / three).

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Photo credit: 22Kartika (3-28-14). Located inside Maria Kerep Cave, Ambarawa, Indonesia [Wikimedia Commons / Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license]

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August 3, 2019

August 3, 2019 By

This is an installment of my series of replies to an article by Dr. David Madison: a pastor in the Methodist Church for nine years, who has a PhD in Biblical Studies from Boston University. It’s called, “Things We Wish Jesus Hadn’t Said” (Debunking Christianity, 7-21-19). His words will be in blue below. Dr. Madison makes several “generic” digs at Jesus and Christianity, in the written portion (it details a series of 12 podcasts):

A challenge for Christians: If you’re so sure Jesus existed, then you have some explaining to do. A major frustration is that, while believers are indignant at all the talk about Jesus not existing, they don’t know the issues that fuel the skepticism—and are unwilling to inform themselves.

Yes, I’m up to the “challenge.” No problem at all. I’m not threatened or “scared” by this in the slightest. It’s what I do, as an apologist. The question is whether Dr. Madison is up to interacting with counter-critiques? Or will he act like the voluminous anti-theist atheist polemicist Bob Seidensticker?: who directly challenged me in one of his own comboxes to respond to his innumerable attack-pieces against Christianity and the Bible, and then courageously proceeded to utterly ignore my 35 specific critiques of his claims as of this writing. We shall soon see which course Dr. Madison will decide to take. Anyway, he also states in his post and combox:

[S]o many of the words of Jesus are genuinely shocking. These words aren’t proclaimed much from the pulpit, . . . Hence the folks in the pews have absorbed and adored an idealized Jesus. Christian apologists make their livings refiguring so many of the things Jesus supposedly said.

The gospels are riddled with contradictions and bad theology, and Jesus is so frequently depicted as a cult fanatic—because cult fanatics wrote the gospels. We see Jesus only through their theological filters. I just want to grab hold of Christian heads (standing behind them, with a hand on each ear) and force them to look straight ahead, unflinchingly, at the gospels, and then ask “Tell me what you see!” uncoached by apologist specialists, i.e., priests and pastors, who’ve had a lot of practice making bad texts look good. . . . I DO say, “Deal with the really bad stuff in the gospels.” Are you SURE you’ve not make a big mistake endorsing this particular Lord and Savior? That’s the whole point of this series of Flash Podcasts, because a helluva lot of Christians would agree, right away, that these quotes are bad news—if no one told then that they’ve been attributed to Jesus.

Of course, Dr. Madison — good anti-theist atheist that he is — takes the view that we are not at all sure whether Jesus in fact said anything recorded in the Gospels in the first place. I don’t play that game, because there is no end to it. It’s like trying to pin jello to the wall. The atheist always has their convenient out (when refuted in argument about some biblical text) that Jesus never said it anyway [wink wink and sly patronizing grin], and/or that the biblical text in question was simply added later by dishonest ultra-biased Christian partisans and propagandists. It’s a silly and ultimately intellectually dishonest game, and so I always refuse to play it with atheists or anyone else, because there is no way to “win” with such an absurdly stacked, purely subjective deck.

In my defense of biblical texts, I start with the assumption that the manuscripts we have are quite sufficient for us to know what is in the Bible (believe it or not). Going on from there, I simply defend particular [supposedly “difficult”] texts, and note with appropriate argumentation, that “here, the Bible teaches so-and-so,” etc. I deal with the texts as they exist. I don’t get into the endlessly arbitrary, subjective games that atheists and theologically liberal biblical skeptics play with the texts, in their self-serving textual criticism.

Dr. Madison himself (fortunately) grants my outlook in terms of practical “x vs. y” debate purposes: “For the sake of argument, I’m willing to say, okay, Jesus was real and, yes, we have gospels that tell the story.” And in the combox: “So, we can go along with their insistence that he did exist. We’ll play on their field, i.e., the gospels.”

Good! So we shall examine his cherry-picked texts and see whether his interpretations of them can stand up to scrutiny. He is issuing challenges, and I as an apologist will be dishing a bunch of my own right back to him. Two can play this game. I will be dealing honestly with his challenges. Will he return the favor, and engage in serious and substantive dialogue? Again, we’ll soon know what his reaction will be. A true dialogue is of a confident, inquisitive, “nothing to fear and everything to gain” back-and-forth and interactive nature, not merely “ships passing in the night” or what I call “mutual monologue.”

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Dr. Madison’s third podcast is entitled, “On Matthew 24:37-39, on Jesus’ prediction of suffering—as at the time of Noah—when the Son of Man comes.” Here is the text:

Matthew 24:37-39 (RSV) As were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of man. [38] For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, [39] and they did not know until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of man.

Eating and drinking, marrying, and giving in marriage, are all that bad?

Of course they’re not bad at all. Dr. Madison completely misses the point. No one is judged for doing those things. Jesus is simply saying that people were going about their daily business and doing all the usual things of life, not expecting judgment, and yet all of a sudden it swept upon them. Hence, Barnes’ Notes on the Bible:

The things mentioned here denote attention to the affairs of this life rather than to what was coming on them. It does not mean that these things were wrong, but only that such was their actual employment, and that they were regardless of what was coming upon them.

And, Expositor’s Greek Testament: “The idea rather seems to be that all things went on as usual, as if nothing were going to happen.’

Jesus may have had the somewhat sarcastic and cynical Ecclesiastes 8:15 in mind:

And I commend enjoyment, for man has no good thing under the sun but to eat and drink, and enjoy himself, for this will go with him in his toil through the days of life which God gives him under the sun.

The notion of the Second Coming being sudden and unexpected is repeatedly reinforced in context:

Matthew 24:36 . . . of that day and hour no one knows . . .

Matthew 24:42 Watch therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.

Matthew 24:44 Therefore you also must be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

Matthew 24:50  the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know,

The Bible never teaches that eating and drinking and marrying per se are bad. Its ridiculous to believe otherwise, and to think these words imply the contrary. They do not.

This is comic book religion. A hero flying from the sky, to make everything better? Really? . . . But this is silly theology. It’s bad theology.

Why would the very notion of a Second Coming, where the wicked are judged and the righteous rewarded be either “comic book” or “silly” or “bad”? Atheists always say they want God to appear and make things right (since they seem to blame Him for anything bad in the world). Dr. Madison complains in the podcast that God should have done this before now and mocks him ads a “procrastinator.”

It’s rather inconsistent and unfair to state on the one hand that God ought to have tangibly appeared in the past, and then turn around and say that if indeed God appears in the future, that it is, on the other hand, “comic book” or “silly” or “bad”. If it was right thing to do in the past, likewise, it is in the future. He can’t have it both ways. His beef is simply with God’s timing.

This thoroughly undermines the concept of the good Jesus, doesn’t it? In Matthew, Jesus has promised that most of the human race will be killed off when he arrives. He compares it to the time of Noah. Noah is the story of genocide.

What Dr. Madison calls “genocide” Christians call judgment. God is the judge of the world and will judge every human being, based on what they have believed and done. If — again — the very notion of righteous judgment and justice is such a terrible thing, then why doesn’t Dr. Madison endorse anarchy? For, after all, we have human judges and laws, which, if broken, cause penalties to be given to human beings. If one human being can do that to another, and we proclaim it “just” and “good” why is it so incomprehensible that God, the Creator of all men, would judge them? It’s not.

This is what Jesus will do? Have everyone but the folks in the Jesus cult be killed off?

But that’s not what He said. He didn’t say, “As were the days of Noah, everyone but eight people will be killed [or damned].” This is a figment of Dr. Madison’s imagination. Jesus wasn’t comparing the extent of judgment, but rather, the unexpected suddenness of it in both cases. This is quite clear in context, as I showed above. Jesus said, “As were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of man”: as opposed to “so will be the judgment of the Son of man.”

In the next chapter we have the great scene of the separation of the sheep and goats at the last judgment (Matthew 25:31-46). Jesus never says that the sheep are just eight people out of the entire earth (or any similar such small number). No indication in this text is given of relative numbers of the saved and the damned. In two of His parables nearby, however, He does give indication. And it is assuredly not as Dr. Madison foolishly asserts.

In the parable of the ten maidens with lamps (Matthew 25:1-13), five were foolish and were damned (“the door was shut . . . I do not know you”: 25:10, 12) and five were wise and received eternal life (“went in with him to the marriage feast”: 25:10). That’s hardly a 99.99999999% damned scenario, is it? It’s a 50-50 proposition.

The parable of the talents follows (25:14-30). Here, there are three servants, who are given five talents, two talents, and one talent [a form of money], respectively. The ones who are saved are the first two (“enter into the joy of your master”: 25:21, 23), while the servant with one talent, who did nothing with it, was damned (“cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness”: 25:30).

So this parable suggests a 67% rate of final salvation and a 33% rate of damnation. That’s even further away from a 99.99999999% damned scenario. Thus, the very thing that Dr. Madison brings to the table in an effort to condemn Jesus as a cruel taskmaster, wanting to send virtually everyone to hell, blows up in his face. Could he not read the next chapter, to see the fuller context? Would that have put him out?

Both Paul and Jesus were wrong. They were dead wrong. These predictions were not fulfilled. . . . Paul was quite confident he was gonna be among those who would meet Jesus in the sky.

1 Thessalonians 4:14-17 For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. [15] For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep. [16] For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first; [17] then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord.

Paul was referring to the people alive when the Second Coming occurred. He did not teach when it would occur, since Jesus had instructed His disciples in a post-Resurrection appearance that they can’t and shouldn’t know when this momentous event would happen:

Acts 1:6-7 [written by Luke] So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” [7] He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority.

The Apostle Paul reflects this “eschatological agnosticism” in his next chapter:

1 Thessalonians 5:1-3 But as to the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need to have anything written to you. [2] For you yourselves know well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. [3] When people say, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as travail comes upon a woman with child, and there will be no escape.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges thus comments on 1 Thessalonians 4:15:

that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord] This should be: we that are alive, that remain (or survive) unto the coming of the Lord. The second designation qualifies the first,—“those (I mean) who survive till the Lord comes.” St Paul did not count on any very near approach of the second Advent: comp. 2 Thessalonians 2:1-2. At the same time, his language implies the possibility of the great event taking place within his lifetime, or that of the present generation. This remained an open question, or rather a matter on which questioning was forbidden (see Acts 1:7; Matthew 24:36). “Concerning the times and seasons” nothing was definitely known (ch. 1 Thessalonians 5:1, see note). The Apostles “knew in part” and “prophesied in part” (1 Corinthians 13:12); and until further light came, it was natural for the Church, ever sighing “Come Lord Jesus, come quickly!” to speak as St Paul does here. The same “we” occurs in this connection in 1 Corinthians 15:51-52.

Matthew 24:34 Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away till all these things take place.

Mark 13:1-4 And as he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!” [2] And Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another, that will not be thrown down.” [3] And as he sat on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately, [4] “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign when these things are all to be accomplished?”

Jesus said it would happen “before this generation passes away.”

This is an old chestnut of anti-theist atheist polemics. A plausible explanation (where Jesus would be referring both to His hearers’ generation and the end times) is explicated by Glenn Miller at the wonderful Christian Thinktank site:

[W]hen we notice the structure of the ending in Matthew and Mark, we see how some of the items lay out.

The ending has four points:

    1. The lesson of the fig tree (Mt 24.32-33; Mk 13.28-29; Lk 21.29-31) [e.g. “Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that it is near, right at the door.”]
    2. The “this generation” saying (Mt 24.34; Mk 13.30; Lk 21.32)
    3. The “heaven and earth will pass away” saying (Mt 24.35; Mk 13.31; Lk 21.33)
    4. The “no one knows the hour” saying (Mt 24.36; Mk 13.31; not in Luke)

Now, the Lesson of the fig tree (Point 1) can only be a reference to the destruction of the Temple/City. It draws a distinction between “all these things” and “it is near”–all these things cannot logically then contain the 2nd Advent [which is the “it” in “it is near”-cf. D.A.Carson, EBC, in. loc.; and William Lane in NICNT (Mark):478: “They (all these things) cannot refer to the celestial upheavals described in verses 24-25 which are inseparable from the parousia (verse 26) and the gathering of the elect (verse 27). These events represent the end and cannot constitute a preliminary sign of something else.”]

With this “end” of the end-time continuum being identified in Point 1 (as the “these things” question of the disciples), Jesus then solemnly announces WHEN this ‘beginning of the end-times’ will occur–within that generation (Point 2). With this, He has answered the initial question of the ‘these things’–the immediate historical context of the question of the destruction of the temple.

He then turns (in point 3 above) to describe the “other end” of the end-times continuum–the destruction of the universe (cf. 2 Peter 2.10: But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.). Here Jesus is pointing back to those descriptions of the very end, as in Mt 24.29: “Immediately after the distress of those days “`the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’ and Lk 21.25f: On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. 26 Men will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken. He points out that the Great End will be certain, as the continuance of His word is certain (yes!).

And then we have Point 4–the comment that no one but the Father knows the time of the Very-End. [The subsequent parables by Matt in 24.42ff and Luke in 12.39ff, which use the ‘thief’ image, connect this piece–via the 2 Peter quote above–with the Great-End, and NOT with the destruction of the Temple.]

So we have a reasonable structure for the ending sequence-(Point 1) pay attention to the beginning of signs; (Point 2) some of you will definitely see these beginnings; (Point 3) the Big-End pointed to by these signs will surely come; and (Point 4) but none of you can know when (with the implications that are immediately drawn in several of the texts to watchfulness, faithfulness, and industry.)

Thus, [F.F.] Bruce summarizes the same conclusion reached here . . .:

Jesus, as in Mark, foretells how not one stone of the temple will be left standing on another, and the disciples say, ‘Tell us, (a) when will these things be, and (b) what will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age?’ (Matt. 24:3). Then, at the end of the following discourse, Jesus answers their twofold question by saying that (a) ‘this generation will not pass away till all these things take place (Mtt 24.34) while, (b) with regard to his coming and ‘the close of the age’, he tells them that ‘of that day and hour no one knows…’ [Hard Sayings of Jesus, IVP, 1983, 229-230]

This would yield a very nice Hebraic parallelism:

 (A) Pay attention to my words–they come before (pre-announce) these things–the beginning of the end-times (destruction of Temple)
(B) When will it occur?–You know when, within your generation
(A’) Pay attention to my words–they outlast that day–the ending of the end-times
(B’) When will it occur?–No one knows when (except the Father)

(“On…was Jesus mistaken about this 2nd Coming?”: 10-22-96)

For related in-depth analysis of this general subject matter, see my papers:

Debate with an Agnostic on the Meaning of “Last Days” and Whether the Author of Hebrews Was a False Prophet.

“The Last Days”: Meaning in Hebrew, Biblical Thought

***

Photo credit: geralt (9-3-17) [Pixabay / Pixabay License]

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August 3, 2019

August 3, 2019 By

This is an installment of my series of replies to an article by Dr. David Madison: a pastor in the Methodist Church for nine years, who has a PhD in Biblical Studies from Boston University. It’s called, “Things We Wish Jesus Hadn’t Said” (Debunking Christianity, 7-21-19). His words will be in blue below. Dr. Madison makes several “generic” digs at Jesus and Christianity, in the written portion (it details a series of 12 podcasts):

A challenge for Christians: If you’re so sure Jesus existed, then you have some explaining to do. A major frustration is that, while believers are indignant at all the talk about Jesus not existing, they don’t know the issues that fuel the skepticism—and are unwilling to inform themselves.

Yes, I’m up to the “challenge.” No problem at all. I’m not threatened or “scared” by this in the slightest. It’s what I do, as an apologist. The question is whether Dr. Madison is up to interacting with counter-critiques? Or will he act like the voluminous anti-theist atheist polemicist Bob Seidensticker?: who directly challenged me in one of his own comboxes to respond to his innumerable attack-pieces against Christianity and the Bible, and then courageously proceeded to utterly ignore my 35 specific critiques of his claims as of this writing. We shall soon see which course Dr. Madison will decide to take. Anyway, he also states in his post and combox:

[S]o many of the words of Jesus are genuinely shocking. These words aren’t proclaimed much from the pulpit, . . . Hence the folks in the pews have absorbed and adored an idealized Jesus. Christian apologists make their livings refiguring so many of the things Jesus supposedly said.

The gospels are riddled with contradictions and bad theology, and Jesus is so frequently depicted as a cult fanatic—because cult fanatics wrote the gospels. We see Jesus only through their theological filters. I just want to grab hold of Christian heads (standing behind them, with a hand on each ear) and force them to look straight ahead, unflinchingly, at the gospels, and then ask “Tell me what you see!” uncoached by apologist specialists, i.e., priests and pastors, who’ve had a lot of practice making bad texts look good. . . . I DO say, “Deal with the really bad stuff in the gospels.” Are you SURE you’ve not make a big mistake endorsing this particular Lord and Savior? That’s the whole point of this series of Flash Podcasts, because a helluva lot of Christians would agree, right away, that these quotes are bad news—if no one told then that they’ve been attributed to Jesus.

Of course, Dr. Madison — good anti-theist atheist that he is — takes the view that we are not at all sure whether Jesus in fact said anything recorded in the Gospels in the first place. I don’t play that game, because there is no end to it. It’s like trying to pin jello to the wall. The atheist always has their convenient out (when refuted in argument about some biblical text) that Jesus never said it anyway [wink wink and sly patronizing grin], and/or that the biblical text in question was simply added later by dishonest ultra-biased Christian partisans and propagandists. It’s a silly and ultimately intellectually dishonest game, and so I always refuse to play it with atheists or anyone else, because there is no way to “win” with such an absurdly stacked, purely subjective deck.

In my defense of biblical texts, I start with the assumption that the manuscripts we have are quite sufficient for us to know what is in the Bible (believe it or not). Going on from there, I simply defend particular [supposedly “difficult”] texts, and note with appropriate argumentation, that “here, the Bible teaches so-and-so,” etc. I deal with the texts as they exist. I don’t get into the endlessly arbitrary, subjective games that atheists and theologically liberal biblical skeptics play with the texts, in their self-serving textual criticism.

Dr. Madison himself (fortunately) grants my outlook in terms of practical “x vs. y” debate purposes: “For the sake of argument, I’m willing to say, okay, Jesus was real and, yes, we have gospels that tell the story.” And in the combox: “So, we can go along with their insistence that he did exist. We’ll play on their field, i.e., the gospels.”

Good! So we shall examine his cherry-picked texts and see whether his interpretations of them can stand up to scrutiny. He is issuing challenges, and I as an apologist will be dishing a bunch of my own right back to him. Two can play this game. I will be dealing honestly with his challenges. Will he return the favor, and engage in serious and substantive dialogue? Again, we’ll soon know what his reaction will be. A true dialogue is of a confident, inquisitive, “nothing to fear and everything to gain” back-and-forth and interactive nature, not merely “ships passing in the night” or what I call “mutual monologue.”

*****

Dr. Madison calls his second podcast, “On Mark 16:16-18, on the five things baptized Christians ought to be able to do”. Here is the passage:

Mark 16:16-18 (RSV) “He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. [17] And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; [18] they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.” 

He starts off by making the textual argument that Mark 16:9-20 is a disputed text. And indeed it is, among many Christians. That discussion is too complex and involved to delve into here, for my purposes of rebuttal. Catholics accept the “long ending”, and the many reasons we do are explained in the Catholic Encyclopedia: “Gospel of St. Mark” (section: “State of text and integrity”).

Protestants are divided on the issue, as they are on many issues. But (for what it’s worth) a solid and extensive case for inclusion of 16:9-20 was made by Protestant Dave Miller (“Is Mark 16:9-20 Inspired?,” Apologetics Press, 2005 [link] ).

That said, the gist of this podcast is to contend that the long ending of Mark 16 is strange and “weird” and “bizarre” (especially the bit about serpents) and doesn’t sound like what Jesus would say. He says “someone invented verses 19-20” [I’m pretty sure he meant “9-20”] as a result of “creative imagination”: a piece of “religious fantasy literature.”

The five things Christians are supposed to be able to do are not “good religion”: so we are told. Dr. Madison suggests things like “love your enemies, love your neighbors . . . forgive 70 x 70” as more appropriate utterances for Jesus to express right before His ascension (as “much better religion”). Well, I suppose atheists would have all sorts of advice to Jesus as to what He ought to teach, and how and when. That’s neither here nor there. But Dr. Madison makes this argument as part of his skepticism regarding whether these things were said by Jesus at all. And we shall consider them each in turn.

Dr. Madison opines that “there was a heavy cult flavor to early Christianity, especially that line about, ‘if you do not believe, you will be condemned’: that’s typical cult playbook stuff.” If he is trying to insinuate that Jesus wouldn’t have said that, and it was simply added by overzealous, fanatical, “cultlike” adherents, he’s wrong:

John 5:24 Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes him who sent me, has eternal life; he does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. 

John 6:40 For this is the will of my Father, that every one who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.

John 10:28 and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand.

Jesus taught more about hell (see Gospel passages on “fire” and “hell”) than He did about heaven. Hell and condemnation was not invented as fantasy by some wild-eyed scribe who made up Mark 16:9-20.

Dave Miller (see his cited article above) contends that there is nothing in the long ending that is unique and not found elsewhere in Scripture:

Most, if not all, scholars who have examined the subject concede that the truths presented in the verses are historically authentic—even if they reject the genuineness of the verses as being originally part of Mark’s account. The verses contain no teaching of significance that is not taught elsewhere. Christ’s post-resurrection appearance to Mary is verified elsewhere (Luke 8:2; John 20:1-18), as is His appearance to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:35), and His appearance to the eleven apostles (Luke 24:36-43; John 20:19-23). The “Great Commission” is presented by two of the other three gospel writers (Matthew 28:18-20; Luke 24:46-48), and Luke verifies the ascension twice (Luke 24:51; Acts 1:9). The promise of the signs that were to accompany the apostles’ activities is hinted at by Matthew (28:20), noted by the Hebrews writer (2:3-4), explained in greater detail by John (chapters 14-16; cf. 14:12), and demonstrated by the events of the book of Acts . . . 

Here are the five things “baptized Christians ought to be able to do” (right from the passage):

1) they will cast out demons;

2) they will speak in new tongues;

3) they will pick up serpents,

4) and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them;

5) they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.

First of all, note that this is a proverbial-type statement, meaning that it doesn’t follow that every Christian believer “ought” to be able to do any of these things at any time, at will. Proverbs are generalized statements, that allow many exceptions. So Jesus is saying, “these signs will accompany those who believe”; that is, “among Christians [not every single one, for all time] you will see all of this sort of phenomena, or signs.” I’ve written at length about the biblical view of healing, and to some extent, also about the related issue of how not all prayers are answered.

But (this is what many — including the snake-handling fools — don’t get): signs were never to be considered normative among Christians. In fact, Jesus was scathingly critical of those who sought signs for their own sake (e.g., “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign”: Mt 12:39; “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe”: Jn 20:29).

That understood, the writer of Hebrews proclaims: “God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles” (2:4). And Jesus said: “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father” (Jn 14:12). Thus, Jesus told His disciples: “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons” (Mt 10:8). Thus, we can find examples of all of the five things above among Christians:

1) casting out demons (Mk 3:15; 6:13; Lk 9:1; 10:17, 20; Acts 5:16; 8:7; 16:16-18; 19:12)

2) speaking in tongues (Acts 2:4-11)

3) contact with serpents, unharmed (Lk 10:19; Acts 28:1-6)

4) unharmed by poison (Lk 10:19)

5) healing the sick, including raising the dead (Mk 6:13; Lk 9:1-2; Acts 3:6-9; 5:15-16; 8:7; 9:34-40; 19:12; 28:8)

Conclusion: there is nothing novel or new in Mark 16 that cannot be found elsewhere. It’s completely consistent with Jesus’ teachings and actions, and those of His disciples. That’s why even those Bible scholars who think it is not an authentic biblical text concede that it preserved a portion of authentic tradition, from Jesus. In other words, it was the very opposite of “creative imagination” and “religious fantasy literature.”

Hence, Dr. Madison’s second claim fails.

***

Photo credit: Saint Paul Shipwrecked on Malta (1630) [note the snake on his hand], by Laurent de La Hyre (1606-1656) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

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August 1, 2019

August 1, 2019 By

This is an installment of my series of replies to an article by Dr. David Madison: a pastor in the Methodist Church for nine years, who has a PhD in Biblical Studies from Boston University. It’s called, “Things We Wish Jesus Hadn’t Said” (Debunking Christianity, 7-21-19). His words will be in blue below. Dr. Madison makes several “generic” digs at Jesus and Christianity, in the written portion (it details a series of 12 podcasts):

A challenge for Christians: If you’re so sure Jesus existed, then you have some explaining to do. A major frustration is that, while believers are indignant at all the talk about Jesus not existing, they don’t know the issues that fuel the skepticism—and are unwilling to inform themselves.

Yes, I’m up to the “challenge.” No problem at all. I’m not threatened or “scared” by this in the slightest. It’s what I do, as an apologist. The question is whether Dr. Madison is up to interacting with counter-critiques? Or will he act like the voluminous anti-theist atheist polemicist Bob Seidensticker?: who directly challenged me in one of his own comboxes to respond to his innumerable attack-pieces against Christianity and the Bible, and then courageously proceeded to utterly ignore my 35 specific critiques of his claims as of this writing. We shall soon see which course Dr. Madison will decide to take. Anyway, he also states in his post and combox:

[S]o many of the words of Jesus are genuinely shocking. These words aren’t proclaimed much from the pulpit, . . . Hence the folks in the pews have absorbed and adored an idealized Jesus. Christian apologists make their livings refiguring so many of the things Jesus supposedly said.

The gospels are riddled with contradictions and bad theology, and Jesus is so frequently depicted as a cult fanatic—because cult fanatics wrote the gospels. We see Jesus only through their theological filters. I just want to grab hold of Christian heads (standing behind them, with a hand on each ear) and force them to look straight ahead, unflinchingly, at the gospels, and then ask “Tell me what you see!” uncoached by apologist specialists, i.e., priests and pastors, who’ve had a lot of practice making bad texts look good. . . . I DO say, “Deal with the really bad stuff in the gospels.” Are you SURE you’ve not make a big mistake endorsing this particular Lord and Savior? That’s the whole point of this series of Flash Podcasts, because a helluva lot of Christians would agree, right away, that these quotes are bad news—if no one told then that they’ve been attributed to Jesus.

Of course, Dr. Madison — good anti-theist atheist that he is — takes the view that we are not at all sure whether Jesus in fact said anything recorded in the Gospels in the first place. I don’t play that game, because there is no end to it. It’s like trying to pin jello to the wall. The atheist always has their convenient out (when refuted in argument about some biblical text) that Jesus never said it anyway [wink wink and sly patronizing grin], and/or that the biblical text in question was simply added later by dishonest ultra-biased Christian partisans and propagandists. It’s a silly and ultimately intellectually dishonest game, and so I always refuse to play it with atheists or anyone else, because there is no way to “win” with such an absurdly stacked, purely subjective deck.

In my defense of biblical texts, I start with the assumption that the manuscripts we have are quite sufficient for us to know what is in the Bible (believe it or not). Going on from there, I simply defend particular [supposedly “difficult”] texts, and note with appropriate argumentation, that “here, the Bible teaches so-and-so,” etc. I deal with the texts as they exist. I don’t get into the endlessly arbitrary, subjective games that atheists and theologically liberal biblical skeptics play with the texts, in their self-serving textual criticism.

Dr. Madison himself (fortunately) grants my outlook in terms of practical “x vs. y” debate purposes: “For the sake of argument, I’m willing to say, okay, Jesus was real and, yes, we have gospels that tell the story.” And in the combox: “So, we can go along with their insistence that he did exist. We’ll play on their field, i.e., the gospels.”

Good! So we shall examine his cherry-picked texts and see whether his interpretations of them can stand up to scrutiny. He is issuing challenges, and I as an apologist will be dishing a bunch of my own right back to him. Two can play this game. I will be dealing honestly with his challenges. Will he return the favor, and engage in serious and substantive dialogue? Again, we’ll soon know what his reaction will be. A true dialogue is of a confident, inquisitive, “nothing to fear and everything to gain” back-and-forth and interactive nature, not merely “ships passing in the night” or what I call “mutual monologue.”

*****

Luke 14:26 (RSV) If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.

Dr. Madison, in his podcast, calls the text in question a “full body blow” and “embarrassing.” He adds (for no extra charge): “cult leaders . . . have not wanted people who would be swayed by family . . . that was part of his [Luke’s] agenda . . . for him it was standard operating procedure.”

Is that so? How very odd, then, that the same writer, eyes allegedly ablaze with propagandizing purposes and a cultish hatred of normal familial relations, records Jesus healing Peter’s mother-in-law:

Luke 4:38-39 And he arose and left the synagogue, and entered Simon’s house. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was ill with a high fever, and they besought him for her. [39] And he stood over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her; and immediately she rose and served them.

What sense does that make? None . . . If we interpret everything with a stultified, wooden literalism (utterly ignoring the richness of literary forms and genres that every language has: including Hebrew and Greek), then we have the absurdity of Jesus supposedly advocating literal hatred of family members, yet turning around and healing one of same. And Luke the wild-eyed “true believer” — inexplicably, if we accept Dr. Madison’s take — records this! So do Matthew (8:14-15) and Mark (1:29-31).

“Hate” . . . means exactly what it seems to mean . . . This verse has to be at the top of the list of things we wish Jesus hadn’t said. . . . 

One would have to know Greek or Aramaic . . . if not, so Dr. Madison opines, it is a “knee jerk reaction” to not interpret literally.

I’m delighted that he actually brought up the question of language and [implied] literary genres. It’s the only indication we have in his podcast, that he is aware of such factors that are crucial in interpretation. But one would fully expect this in one who has a PhD in Biblical Studies. This is what makes it all the more odd and strange that Dr. Madison can’t figure out what is going on in this passage. It’s really not all that complicated.

Bible scholar E. W. Bullinger catalogued “over 200 distinct figures [in the Bible], several of them with from 30 to 40 varieties.” That is a  statement from the Introduction to his 1104-page tome, Figures of Speech Used in the Bible (London: 1898). I have this work in my own library (hardcover). It’s also available for free, online. Bullinger continues, in the Introduction:

All language is governed by law; but, in order to increase the power of a word, or the force of an expression, these laws are designedly departed from, and words and sentences are thrown into, and used in, new forms, or figures.

The ancient Greeks reduced these new and peculiar forms to science, and gave names to more than two hundred of them.

The Romans carried forward this science . . .

These manifold forms which words and sentences assume were called by the Greeks Schema and by the Romans, Figura. Both words have the same meaning, viz., a shape or figure. . . .

Applied to words, a figure denotes some form which a word or sentence takes, different from its ordinary and natural form. This is always for the purpose of giving additional force, more life, intensified feeling, and greater emphasis.

Bullinger devotes six pages (423-428) to “Hyperbole; or, Exaggeration”: which he defines as follows:

The figure is so called because the expression adds to the sense so much that it exaggerates it, and enlarges or diminishes it more than is really meant in fact. Or, when more is said than is meant to be literally understood, in order to heighten the sense.

It is the superlative degree applied to verbs and sentences and expressions or descriptions, rather than to mere adjectives. . . .

It was called by the Latins superlatio, a carrying beyond, an exaggerating.

I shall cite some of his more notable and obvious examples (omitting ellipses: “. . .” ):

Gen. ii. 24. — “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife.” This does not mean that he is to forsake and no longer to love or care for his parents. So Matt. xix. 5.

Ex. viii. 17. — “All the dust of the land became lice throughout all the land of Egypt”: i.e., wherever in all the land there was dust, it became lice.

I Sam. xxv. 37. — Nabal’s “heart died within him, and he became as a stone”: i.e., he was terribly frightened and collapsed or fainted away.

I Kings i. 40. — “So that the earth rent with the sound of them.” A hyperbolical description of their jumping and leaping for joy.Job xxix. 6. — “The rock poured me out rivers of oil”: i.e., I had abundance of all good things. So chap. xx. 17 and Micah vi. 7.

Isa. xiv. 13, — “I will ascend into heaven”: to express the pride of Lucifer.

Lam. ii. 11.— “My liver is poured upon the earth, etc”: to express the depth of the Prophet’s grief and sorrow at the desolations of Zion.

Luke xiv. 26. — “If any man come to me and hate not his father and mother”: i.e., does not esteem them less than me. So the verb to hate is used (Gen. xxix. 31. Rom. ix. 13). [my bolding]

John iii. 26. — “All men come to him.” Thus his disciples said to John, to show their sense of the many people who followed the Lord.

John xii. 19. — “Behold, the world is gone after him.” The enemies of the Lord thus expressed their indignation at the vast multitudes which followed Him.

Gary Amirault highlights more biblical examples in a similar article:

[T]is verse is a hyperbole, an exaggeration for effect:

“You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.” (Matt. 23:24, NIV)

It is not too difficult to determine that this is a hyperbole, an exaggeration. Because the English language is full of Bible terms and phraseology, this Hebrew idiom has become part of the English language. Therefore most English speaking people know the real meaning of that phrase: “You pay close attention to little things but neglect the important things.” [Dave: or, “you can’t see the forest for the trees”]

However, here is a hyperbole that the average Bible reader may miss and formulate doctrine from which may end up being harmful to themselves and others.

“Everything is possible for him who believes.” (Mark 9:23b, NIV)

The Bible is full of exaggerations like the one above which are not to be taken literally. Careful attention, comparing scripture with scripture, knowing the Bible and its author thoroughly, making certain not to necessary apply things to ourselves which weren’t meant for us individually and some basics about the original languages are needed to prevent us from misinterpreting various scripture verses like this one. . . .

“If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out…” Matt. 5:29 (I met a Christian who actually tried to pluck out his right eye because he had a lust problem. This is an example the kind of problem a Bible translation can cause if one is not informed of the various figures of speech found in the Bible.)

The literary device of antithesis, or contrast also seems more specifically applicable to the verse we are considering. Bullinger writes about this in his pages 715-718:

A setting of one Phrase in Contrast with another.

. . .   It is a figure by which two thoughts, ideas, or phrases, are set over one against the other, in order to make the contrast more striking, and thus to emphasize it. [footnote: “When this consists of words rather than of sentences, it is called Epanodos, and Antimetabole (q.v.).”]

The two parts so placed are hence called in Greek antitheta, and in Latin opposita and contraposita. . . .

It is called also contentio: i.e., comparison, or contrast. When this contrast is made by affirmatives and negatives, it is called Enantiosis, see below. The Book of Proverbs so abounds in such Antitheses that we have not given any examples from it.

Hence (understanding all this, which Dr. Madison obviously does not), when Jesus says “does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters” He is expressing Hebrew hyperbole and/or antithesis to express with extreme exaggeration what He literally means: “does not esteem them less than me.” Thus, the thought of “loving Jesus more than one’s own family” is expressed by the non-literal “hate [one’s family, in order to] be my disciple.”

In fact, Jesus did express what we contend He was stating non-literally in Luke 14:26, in a literal fashion elsewhere (and here we see the important hermeneutical principle of “interpret less clear or obvious passages by more clear related passages”):

Matthew 10:37  He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;

We see precisely the same parallelism (“hate” = “love relatively more than”) in the poetic literary expression of Genesis:

Genesis 29:30-33 So Jacob went in to Rachel also, and he loved Rachel more than Leah, and served Laban for another seven years. [31] When the LORD saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb; but Rachel was barren. [32] And Leah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name Reuben; for she said, “Because the LORD has looked upon my affliction; surely now my husband will love me.” [33] She conceived again and bore a son, and said, “Because the LORD has heard that I am hated, he has given me this son also”; and she called his name Simeon.

The apostle Paul expresses largely the same sort of thing in the same way:

Philippians 3:7-8 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. [8] Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ

Paul also seemed blissfully unaware of Luke and other early Christian “cultist” supposed fanatical anti-family views, since he casually alluded to apostles like himself and Peter (“Cephas”) having “the right to be accompanied by a wife” (1 Cor 9:5).

I submit that Jesus commented on his own statement in another related sense in this passage:

Matthew 12:47-50 While he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him. [48] But he replied to the man who told him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” [49] And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! [50] For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother, and sister, and mother.”

He’s not rejecting His family. He is enlarging the concept of family to include people like His disciples and indeed, anyone who “does the will of my Father in heaven.” It’s another very typical instance of Hebrew hyperbole or a type of antithesis. But it’s inclusive, not exclusive.

Jesus taught that we are to love (not hate) even our enemies:

Matthew 5:43-44  You have heard that it was said, `You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ [44] But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, (cf. Lk 6:27-35)

Obviously, then, He would not (and did not) teach that we ought to hate our own families. Jesus taught that we should love all people, and that includes families:

Matthew 19:19 Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Matthew 22:37-40 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. [38] This is the great and first commandment. [39] And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. [40] On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.”

Mark 12:30-31 and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ [31] The second is this, `You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Luke 10:27 And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.

John 13:34-35  A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.[35] By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

John 15:17 This I command you, to love one another.

I rest my case. This poses no problem whatsoever for either Christians, or a consistent interpretation of these Bible passages. It’s simply a function of non-literal forms of speaking that were common in Hebrew culture (just as in every other culture and language, to more or less degrees). But Hebrew language was especially rich in figures and non-literal techniques.

And this leads to innumerable misguided readings of Scripture from atheists and other biblical skeptics (even including those with doctorates in biblical studies) who — oddly — don’t grasp this rather elementary consideration, and appear to make no effort to try to understand it. They’re too busy tearing down Holy Scripture and approaching it like how a butcher views a hog.

***

Photo credit: The Sermon on the Mount (1877, portion), by Carl Bloch (1834-1890) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

April 10, 2021

April 10, 2021 By

Dr. David Madison is an atheist who was a Methodist minister for nine years: with a Ph.D. in Biblical Studies from Boston University.  I have replied to his videos or articles 45 times as of this writing. Thus far, I haven’t heard one peep back from him  (from 8-1-19 to 4-10-21). This certainly doesn’t suggest to me that he is very confident in his opinions. All I’ve seen is expressions of contempt from Dr. Madison and from his buddy, the atheist author, polemicist, and extraordinarily volatile John Loftus, who runs the ultra-insulting Debunking Christianity blog. Dr. Madison made his cramped, insulated mentality clear in a comment from 9-6-19:

[T]he burden of the apologist has become heavy indeed, and some don’t handle the anguish well. They vent and rage at critics, like toddlers throwing tantrums when a threadbare security blanket gets tossed out. We can smell their panic. Engaging with the ranters serves no purpose—any more than it does to engage with Flat-Earthers, Chemtrail conspiracy theorists, and those who argue that the moon landings were faked. . . . I prefer to engage with NON-obsessive-compulsive-hysterical Christians, those who have spotted rubbish in the Bible, and might already have one foot out the door.

Only preaching to the choir from Dr. Madison! One can’t be too careful in avoiding any criticism or challenge. John “you are an idiot!” Loftus even went to the length of changing his blog’s rules of engagement, so that he and Dr. Madison could avoid replying to yours truly, or even see notices of my substantive replies (er, sorry, rants, rather). He wrote in part:

Some angry Catholic apologist has been tagging our posts with his angry long-winded responses. . . . If any respectful person has a counter-argument or some counter-evidence then bring it. State your case in as few words as possible and then engage our commenters in a discussion. . . . I talked with David Madison who has been the target of these links and he’s in agreement with this decision. He’s planning to write something about one or more of these links in the near future.

Needless to say, I still await these long-promised replies to any of my critiques from good ol’ Dr. Madison. His words will be in blue.

Presently, I am replying to his article, “Bible Blunders & Bad Theology, Part 6″ (11-27-20).

*****

Question Two: How Would Anyone Acquire Knowledge of a Miraculous Conception?

“Well, God told the authors, didn’t he?” This works for those who believe the Bible is God’s inspired word. But they react with proper skepticism when other religions claim the same thing for the Qur’an and Book of Mormon—which they don’t accept for a moment. Historians know very well that “God told them” doesn’t work; it’s faith-bias out of control, claiming far more than can be objectively known. John Loftus pointed this out in his Christmas day post in 2016: 

How might anonymous gospel writers, 90 plus years later, objectively know Jesus was born of a virgin? Who told them? The Holy Spirit? Why is it God speaks to individuals in private, subjective, unevidenced whispers? Those claims are a penny a dozen.

You may fervently believe within your heart, but there are no data by which virgin birth can be confirmed; it is a feature of ancient folklore. . . . 

How many Catholics have paused their adoration of Mary long enough to ask: How do theologians know what was happening in the womb of a first century Galilean teenager? . . . 

This theology thrives among those who never ask—who have been taught not to ask—How do you know all this? All this is fueled by theological imagination, and a fair amount of craftiness too, that is, digging for texts that can be construed to support flights of fantasy. Why do people take it seriously? 

I doubt that theology can be grounded in reality; objective evidence for god(s) has never been found. . . . superstitious folklore that gods use virgins to beget human children.  

Wow. Really? Is Dr. Madison truly this fantastically clueless and, well, stupid? Just a moment’s thought (no more) will provide any sentient being with an IQ higher than a rusty nail enough time to figure this one out. It’s not rocket science, but it is science of a rather obvious, straightforward type: the science of biology and specifically reproduction, to be exact.

How would anyone know that they were the carriers of a baby who was not conceived by man, but by God? Here’s how it works (perhaps Dr. Madison — i.e., if he ever read any opposing opinions ever — and his equally zealous buddy John Loftus will have to read this three times to grasp it):

1) Mary is visited by an angel (the Annunciation: recorded in Luke 1:26-38).

2) This angel (Gabriel) informs her that “you will conceive in your womb and bear a son” (Lk 1:31).

3) Mary asks the logical and reasonable question: “How shall this be, since I have no husband?” (Lk 1:34). She was a farm girl. She knew how babies came about in both animals and human beings.

4) The angel explained to her that she would bear the Messiah and the Son of God / God the Son (Lk 1:32-33, 35) by means of a miraculous virgin birth: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you” (Lk 1:35).

Now, how could anyone possibly find out about such a miracle? Well, we can by listening to Mary’s own testimony about it, which got to Luke either directly, or through oral tradition.

How can we possibly verify such a miracle? How can we “know”? After all, Dr. Madison in his infinite wisdom, has informed us that “there are no data by which virgin birth can be confirmed” and that it’s mere “folklore” and is simply “imagination” and “craftiness” and “flights of fantasy.” Why (Dr. Madison passionately inquires), would anyone “take it seriously”? It’s not “grounded in reality.”

Now, we all realize that we’re dealing with an atheist (and apostate) who rejects all biblical texts as inaccurate and untrustworthy: especially if they express a supernatural event that the atheist redefines out of existence before even fairly examining it. But that’s rather beside the point. Here, as in all his innumerable bashings of the Bible and Christianity, Dr. Madison is making the point that it is internally incoherent, and ought not be believed by any rational and “scientific” person.

He’s not asking the question: “why should we believe the account of Luke 1 as historical?” He’s asking a much more philosophically fundamental question and an epistemological one: how could such a thing as a virgin birth be known at all, by anyone? That’s why he frames it as “how would anyone acquire” such knowledge? In other words, how it is possible even in a theoretical or hypothetical sense, to know this and to pass it on to another chronicler like Luke? He thinks the entire thing (believe it or not believe it) is impossible and absurd from A to Z: totally ridiculous and nothing but. And so he taunts us Christians to explain this event that to him is utterly inexplicable.

With that runaround introduction, let’s get back to the second question: How can we possibly verify such a miracle? Well, again, it’s very simple:

1) In due course, it will be physically evident that she is indeed pregnant, and in nine months she delivers the baby Jesus.

2) She knows for a fact that she has not been intimate with a man at any time before Jesus was born, nor (most Christians through history have believed) at any time in her life.

3) Therefore, she has rather compelling proof that a miracle did indeed occur. She was impregnated by the Holy Spirit and not a man, precisely as the angel told her.

She not only “knows” this for sure, but she knows it with a certainly perhaps as compelling as that for any miracle ever, since babies can only come about by one natural process, which did not occur in her case. 

So how can we “know”? How can anyone “confirm” or “take” the virgin birth “seriously”? I just explained it. It happened to a human being, and the most reasonable explanation is to accept that what the angel told Mary was absolutely true: since the obvious miracle has to be explained somehow.

Once Jesus was born and lived His life, performed many extraordinary miracles, claimed in many ways to be God in the flesh, and ultimately rose from the dead, even visited His followers after His death, then it was also confirmed beyond all reasonable doubt that He was God.

The entire process is verifiable and empirical at all stages: the virgin birth is a physical event that’s proven by a pregnancy occurring without intercourse. Jesus proves Who He is by performing verifiable miracles (a lame man walks, a blind man sees, a demon-possessed man is liberated; dead people are raised; Jesus Himself rises from the dead. He meets with His disciples after death and shows that He has a resurrected body, by eating fish and having Thomas feel the wound in His side. 500 people see Him after death. They go out and transform the world with His gospel message of salvation: many of them dying for their faith.

What more does one need? Nothing except faith. The atheist lacks that and immediately shrugs off all such evidence (usually with accompanying smirks and mockery). There are many possible causes for why they might do so: but none of them derive from a fair, objective examination of Christian claims, or a rational, logical analysis. We see how utterly irrational and laughable this objection was.

***

Photo credit: The Annunciation (1644), by Philippe de Champaigne (1602-1674) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

***

Summary: Atheist anti-theist sophist Dr. Madison asks how Jesus’ virgin birth could possibly be “confirmed”? How can anyone “know” it happened? Very simple: listen to Mary’s own report. This ain’t rocket science. But it is biological science.

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Tags: alleged biblical contradictions, anti-Christian bigotry, anti-theism, anti-theists, Atheism, atheist exegesis, atheist hermeneutics, atheists, Bible “contradictions”, contradictions in the Bible, critiques of Christianity, David Madison, Debunking Christianity, Madison Malarkey, virgin birth, Mariology, Annunciation, Blessed Virgin Mary, John Loftus 

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April 10, 2021

April 10, 2021 By

Mark 16:17-18 and the Various Sign Miracles

Dr. David Madison is an atheist who was a Methodist minister for nine years: with a Ph.D. in Biblical Studies from Boston University.  I have replied to his videos or articles 44 times as of this writing. Thus far, I haven’t heard one peep back from him  (from 8-1-19 to 4-9-21). This certainly doesn’t suggest to me that he is very confident in his opinions. All I’ve seen is expressions of contempt from Dr. Madison and from his buddy, the atheist author, polemicist, and extraordinarily volatile John Loftus, who runs the ultra-insulting Debunking Christianity blog. Dr. Madison made his cramped, insulated mentality clear in a comment from 9-6-19:

[T]he burden of the apologist has become heavy indeed, and some don’t handle the anguish well. They vent and rage at critics, like toddlers throwing tantrums when a threadbare security blanket gets tossed out. We can smell their panic. Engaging with the ranters serves no purpose—any more than it does to engage with Flat-Earthers, Chemtrail conspiracy theorists, and those who argue that the moon landings were faked. . . . I prefer to engage with NON-obsessive-compulsive-hysterical Christians, those who have spotted rubbish in the Bible, and might already have one foot out the door.

Only preaching to the choir from Dr. Madison! One can’t be too careful in avoiding any criticism or challenge. John “you are an idiot!” Loftus even went to the length of changing his blog’s rules of engagement, so that he and Dr. Madison could avoid replying to yours truly, or even see notices of my substantive replies (er, sorry, rants, rather). He wrote in part:

Some angry Catholic apologist has been tagging our posts with his angry long-winded responses. . . . If any respectful person has a counter-argument or some counter-evidence then bring it. State your case in as few words as possible and then engage our commenters in a discussion. . . . I talked with David Madison who has been the target of these links and he’s in agreement with this decision. He’s planning to write something about one or more of these links in the near future.

Needless to say, I still await these long-promised replies to any of my critiques from good ol’ Dr. Madison. His words will be in blue.

Presently, I am replying to his article, “Remarkable Resistance to Rational Inquiry” (2-19-21).

*****

Many of the faithful . . . sense that religion has claimed too much. They know that the famous promise of the risen Jesus in Mark 16 just isn’t true, i.e., that baptized Christians—using Jesus’ name—will be able to “…cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.” (vv. 17-18)

These verses quality as Bible silliness (not really excused because they’re in the fake ending of Mark) and are disconfirmed by Christians in their daily lives. But there are still great expectations of God the Great Healer, with little more than faith to go on.

The only silly and dumbfounded person here is Dr. Madison: who should know much better than to make such a clueless argument. As so often, this involves non-literal genre of the Bible: a not uncommon occurrence. For example, hyperbole (exaggeration) is often used by Jesus. But in this instance it’s proverbial language: general statements that are often true, but which admit of many exceptions. In other words, this is not some hyper-literal statement that any and every Christian will be able to do any of these things anytime, at will.

No; rather, it’s a proverbial statement that among Christians as a whole, one will be able to observe all of these phenomena: demons being cast out (mostly the domain of the exorcist today), speaking in new tongues, not being hurt by poisonous snakes or poison in a drink, and healing the sick by touch.  We can easily show in several ways that this saying was not meant literally; that is, wasn’t intended to describe universal application.

I’ve already educated Dr. Madison three times (one / two / three) with regard to the true biblical teaching on healing, which is not universal or on command. I dealt with the topic of healing in the Bible early on in my apologetics apostolate (1982). But he never learns anything because he refuses to engage any criticism, let alone to be corrected; so he repeats the same hogwash over and over (apparently thinking his argument improves by repeating lies). He even buys the same tripe that some of the silliest, most gullible, and scripturally ignorant Christians (that he despises) accept. How ironic, huh? The “smart” atheist who believes the same ridiculous and unbiblical thing that fundamentalist ignoramuses do (i.e., that God supposedly heals all the time, upon command, as if He were a genie in a bottle) . . .

The way Jesus phrases it shows that He is talking generally about the collective of Christians: “these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will . . .” (Mk 16:17, RSV).

It’s like saying, “these things will accompany those who play basketball in the NBA: slam dunks, 55% three-point-shooting, triple-doubles, 20 rebounds a game, scoring of 50 points a game, and averages of 10 or more assists per game.”

We can see examples of individual Christians doing these things in the Bible. Speaking in tongues occurred on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:4-12) and on other occasions of new believers receiving the Holy Spirit (Acts 10:45-46; 19:6). St. Paul talks about “gifts of healing . . . the working of miracles . . . various kinds of tongues” (1 Cor 12:9-10) but specifically states that not everyone has every gift: “All these are inspired by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills” (12:11).

He nails down this point of diversity and not unanimity of every gift by comparing the spiritual gifts and the Church itself to different parts of the body (12:12-27). Then he reiterates the notion of different gifts for different Christians: “Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? [30] Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret?” (12:29-30). This is a literal explanation of what Jesus expressed in a proverbial fashion. St. Paul is described as not being hurt by a snake:

Acts 28:3, 5-6 Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and put them on the fire, when a viper came out because of the heat and fastened on his hand. . . . [5] He, however, shook off the creature into the fire and suffered no harm. [6] They waited, expecting him to swell up or suddenly fall down dead; but when they had waited a long time and saw no misfortune come to him, they changed their minds and said that he was a god.

Acts 8:7 states: “For unclean spirits came out of many who were possessed . . .” References to healing can be found in Acts 5:16 and 8:7.  The first says “all” were healed; the second says “many.” So it’s not true that all are supposed to be healed all the time. See my healing paper above for much more along those lines. Acts 28:8 refers specifically to Paul healing a man by laying his hands on him.

***

Photo credit: St. Paul, shipwrecked on Malta, is attacked by a snake which he shakes off into a fire; it does not harm him and the onlookers take him for a god. Etching after J. Thornhill. This file comes from Wellcome Images, a website operated by Wellcome Trust, a global charitable foundation based in the United Kingdom. Refer to Wellcome blog post (archive). [Wikimedia Commons / Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license]

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Summary: Atheist Dr. David Madison appears to take everything in the Bible literally: leading him to the same silly conclusions as uneducated fundamentalists. I explain biblical proverbial language, so he (and many atheists like him) can get up to speed.

*

Tags: alleged biblical contradictions, anti-Christian bigotry, anti-theism, anti-theists, atheism, atheist exegesis,  atheist hermeneutics, atheists, Bible “contradictions”,  contradictions in the Bible, critiques of Christianity, David Madison, Debunking Christianity, Madison Malarkey, biblical proverbial language

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December 30, 2020

December 30, 2020 By

Dr. David Madison is an atheist who was a Methodist minister for nine years: with a Ph.D. in Biblical Studies from Boston University.  I have replied to his videos or articles 43 times as of this writing. Thus far, I haven’t heard one peep back from him  (from 8-1-19 to 12-29-20). This certainly doesn’t suggest to me that he is very confident in his opinions. All I’ve seen is expressions of contempt from Dr. Madison and from his buddy, the atheist author, polemicist, and extraordinarily volatile John Loftus, who runs the ultra-insulting Debunking Christianity blog. Dr. Madison made his cramped, insulated mentality clear in a comment from 9-6-19:

[T]he burden of the apologist has become heavy indeed, and some don’t handle the anguish well. They vent and rage at critics, like toddlers throwing tantrums when a threadbare security blanket gets tossed out. We can smell their panic. Engaging with the ranters serves no purpose—any more than it does to engage with Flat-Earthers, Chemtrail conspiracy theorists, and those who argue that the moon landings were faked. . . . I prefer to engage with NON-obsessive-compulsive-hysterical Christians, those who have spotted rubbish in the Bible, and might already have one foot out the door.

John “you are an idiot!” Loftus even went to the length of changing his blog’s rules of engagement, so that he and Dr. Madison could avoid replying to yours truly, or even see notices of my replies (er, sorry, rants, rather). Dr. Madison’s words will be in blue.

Presently, I am replying to his article, “Bible Blunders & Bad Theology, Part 4: The perils of comparing the gospels” (10-16-20).

*****

The Gish gallop is a term for an eristic technique in which a debater attempts to overwhelm an opponent by excessive number of arguments, without regard for the accuracy or strength of those arguments. The term was coined by Eugenie Scott; . . . It is similar to a methodology used in formal debate called spreading. During a Gish gallop, a debater confronts an opponent with a rapid series of many specious arguments, half-truths, and misrepresentations in a short space of time, which makes it impossible for the opponent to refute all of them within the format of a formal debate. In practice, each point raised by the “Gish galloper” takes considerably more time to refute or fact-check than it did to state in the first place. The technique wastes an opponent’s time and may cast doubt on the opponent’s debating ability for an audience unfamiliar with the technique, especially if no independent fact-checking is involved or if the audience has limited knowledge of the topics. (Wikipedia, “Gish gallop”)

In Mark’s gospel, Jesus comes out of nowhere to be baptized in the Jordan River, . . . 

Mark simply chose to start the story from the vantage-point of the average Jew at that time, observing that this man named Jesus had appeared on the scene after being unknown. Dr. Madison wants to make an issue of this: as if it is a supposed contradiction with other Gospels. It’s not. The four evangelists offer stories and accounts of the same overall events from different perspectives: emphasizing selected things as they choose and please.

Many atheists seem to possess this goofy, silly notion that all four of them must be exactly the same, or else (if not!) they are allegedly endlessly “contradictory.” Well, that’s a dumb and groundless presupposition in the first place, and in fact the Gospels do not contradict, as I have demonstrated innumerable times, as have many other Christian apologists and theologians. And in fact, almost all of the alleged “contradictions” brought up by anti-theist atheist polemicists are simply not contradictions, from the criteria of logic itself.

Here Jesus is portrayed as an apocalyptic prophet . . .

Yes; as He is in all four Gospels. But there are, as I said, different emphases, so this is a relatively minor point.

he promises those at his trial that they will see him coming on the clouds of heaven.

Yep, just as He does in Matthew 24:30 and 26:64 and, in effect, Luke 22:69, where the clause, “Son of man shall be seated at the right hand of the power of God” (RSV) is obviously the same reference as Mt 26:64: “Son of man seated at the right hand of Power”: just without the added mention of the “clouds.” All three passages clearly allude to Daniel 9:12-14: one of the most famous messianic passages. There is no rule or requirement that every Gospel writer must cite complete prophecies and can never cite part of them.

And (need I mention it?), such selective citation does not mean there is logical contradiction, merely as a result of differential citation. It’s like people citing different portions of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. They don’t contradict. Anyone even slightly familiar with American history knows what’s being cited. That’s how it was with messianic prophecies.  Jesus in the Gospel of John expresses the same notion (both the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and His Second Coming) but in a different, more personal way (expressed to His twelve disciples only, at the Last Supper): 

John 16:5, 10  But now I am going to him who sent me . . . [10] . . . I go to the Father . . . [i.e., “at the right hand of the power of God”] (cf. Jn 7:33; 8:21; 14:2-4, 12, 28; 16:7, 17; 17:11, 13)

John 14:18, 28 I will not leave you desolate; I will come to you. . . . [28]. . . I will come to you . . . 

Mark also portrays Jesus as an exorcist.

So do the other two Synoptic Gospels. Mark mentions (in RSV) “demon[s]” or “demoniac” etc. 17 times, but Matthew mentions these words 19 times, and Luke, 24 times.  But there is also the description of “unclean spirit”: which Mark references 13 times, Luke 5 times, and Matthew twice. Luke also uses “evil spirit” twice (and four more times in Acts 19, but we won’t count those). So the grand total, including all three terms are:

Luke: 31

Mark: 30

Matthew: 21

Thus, we can say that Mark emphasizes this element a bit more — being much shorter than Luke (which is fine and dandy), but it’s certainly no “contradiction” compared to Matthew and Luke.

Moreover, he puts far less emphasis on Jesus’ teaching role; Mark says that people were astounded by his message, but little of the content is provided.

This is untrue, and it’s amazing that Dr. Madison could claim that it is. We can observe the term “astounded” used once in Mark (6:51), “astonished” (five times), and “amazed” (eight  times). In all but three of the 14 cases, or 79% of the time in Mark, preceding context makes it clear what they were amazed / astonished / astounded at. Jesus taught them either by word or by deed (miracles send quite a “message” too!):

Mark 1:22: unspecified

Mark 1:27: Jesus had cast out a demon (1:23-26)

Mark 2:12: Jesus had forgiven the sins of a paralytic and healed him (2:3-11)

Mark 6:2: unspecified

Mark 6:51: Jesus has just walked on the water and stilled the wind (6:48-51)

Mark 7:37: Jesus had just healed a deaf man with a speech impediment (7:32-36)

Mark 9:15: unspecified

Mark 10:24: Jesus had just taught about the relation of riches to serving God, in his encounter with the rich young ruler (10:17-23)

Mark 10:26: this is the same reaction as in 10:24, for the same reason. He had added: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” (10:24-25)

Mark 10:32: Jesus had said to them specifically that they would “receive a hundredfold . . . and in the age to come eternal life” as a reward for their great sacrifices in being His disciples (10:27-31)

Mark 11:18: Jesus had just cleared the temple of the moneychangers and explained that the temple was for “prayer” rather than “robbers” (11:15-17)

Mark 12:17: Jesus had just taught about paying taxes and “rendering unto Caesar” (12:13-17)

Mark 16:5: the dead Jesus was no longer in His tomb (16:5), then the angels says, “do not be amazed” (16:6) 

How odd, then, that Dr. Madison thinks “little of the content is provided.” Granted, it’s another fairly minor point, but it does illustrate Dr. Madison’s relentless quest to find supposed “contradictions” where there are none, and how he is consistently wrong, even on smaller issues. No one (except an apologist like myself) would have neither time nor desire to “check” him on this matter (which is precisely the desired result of the unsavory Gish gallop method of “argumentation”). But this is why I do what I do. I have both time and desire to deal with all of these things, so that others, reading, can get on with far more important matters, and not let Dr. Madison’s nonsense be a stumbling-block to them.

By some estimates, its story of Jesus could have taken place in just two or three weeks . . . 

By comparing it to the other Gospels, it becomes clear that this isn’t the case.

Matthew, indeed, proved to be a master of invention. Other cults felt that virgin-birth was an appropriate credential for their sons of god, so Matthew decided to add that to Jesus; he goofed when he used a mistranslation of Isaiah 7:14 to slip virgin birth into his story.

I dealt with and disposed of this objection:

Reply to Atheist Jonathan MS Pearce: “Mistranslation” of “Virgin”? (Isaiah 7:14) (with Glenn Miller) [7-26-17]

Dual Fulfillment of Prophecy & the Virgin Birth (vs. JMS Pearce) [12-18-20]

But Matthew added troubling Jesus-script (10: 37), unknown to Mark; how does this rank on any scale of moral teaching? “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” We can infer from this that, by Matthew’s time, cult fanaticism was trending in the Jesus sect. As we shall see, Luke made this text worse. . . .  Moreover, he [Luke] felt that Matthew 10:37, was too mild, i.e., “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me…” He changed Jesus’ words to: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” (14:26) You have to hate your own life. 

This is classic cult fanaticism; today we recommend deprogramming for people who get suckered in.  The devout are rightly shocked by Luke 14:26 and assume that surely it’s a misquote. But this verse provides insight into Luke’s agenda: he didn’t want people in the Jesus cult who had divided loyalties. Of course, this text has been a challenge to professional defenders of the faith: How to tone it down? The editors of the English Standard Version use the heading, “The Cost of Discipleship,” for this section, instead of, say, “Jesus the Cult Fanatic.” Most decent Christians would reject hatred of family as a “cost” of discipleship. 

Dealt with already:

Dr. David Madison vs. Jesus #1: Hating One’s Family? [8-1-19]

Madison vs. Jesus #5: Cultlike Forsaking of Family? [8-5-19]

When Luke got to work on his gospel, he knew that Matthew had to be corrected as much as Mark did. 

Right. Now, I dare to ask (sorry for being rational and logical): how could anyone possibly “know” such a thing, unless Luke expressly stated it? This is, of course, the fallacy of the argument from silence.

What a dumb idea—he must have thought—having Mary and Joseph take Jesus to Egypt, so he deleted that from his birth narrative.

See my previous paragraph. This is the “dumb idea” here: not what the Bible describes about Jesus’ infancy.

But he had the even dumber idea of an empire-wide census that required people to travel to the home of their ancestors to sign up. No other historian of the time mentions any such thing; major chaos would have resulted from such a decree. 

Dealt with here:

The Census, Jesus’ Birth in Bethlehem, & History: Reply to Atheist John W. Loftus’ Irrational Criticisms of the Biblical Accounts [2-3-11]

Reply to Atheist Jonathan MS Pearce: Herod’s Death & Alleged “Contradictions” (with Jimmy Akin) [7-25-17]

Luke did include the Sermon on the Mount, but he shortened it, broke it up, altered the wording—and said it took place on a plain.

Dealt with:

Sermon on the Mount: Striking Topographical Facts (9-16-15)

His Jesus had been present at Creation, so he [John] left out the virgin birth; . . . 

This is beyond idiotic. All four Gospels teach the divinity / Godhood of Jesus (the incarnation). They all teach that He is eternal, and the Creator. The virgin birth doesn’t contradict the deity of Jesus. It’s simply the way that God became man. See:

Jesus is God: Hundreds of Biblical Proofs (RSV edition) [1982; rev. 2012]

Holy Trinity: Hundreds of Biblical Proofs (RSV edition) [1982; rev. 2012]

Deity of Jesus: Called Lord/Kurios & God/Theos [10-24-11]

Seidensticker Folly #55: Godhood of Jesus in the Synoptics [9-12-20]

Mark had claimed that Jesus taught only in parables (4:34), but John has no parables.

But Jesus does talk (as recorded in the Gospel of John) in many metaphorical or proverbial (non-literal) ways that bear resemblance to the synoptic parables. For example:

John 2:19-21 (RSV) Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” [20] The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” [21] But he spoke of the temple of his body.

John 3:8 The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with every one who is born of the Spirit.

John 4:13-14 Jesus said to her, “Every one who drinks of this water will thirst again, [14] but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

John 6:35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst.

John 10:11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. (see also 10:1-10, 12-18, including Jesus calling Himself “the door” three times)

John 11:12-14 But if any one walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.” [11] Thus he spoke, and then he said to them, “Our friend Laz’arus has fallen asleep, but I go to awake him out of sleep.” [12] The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.” [13] Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he meant taking rest in sleep. [14] Then Jesus told them plainly, “Laz’arus is dead;”

But before we even get to that, one must properly understand Mark 4:34: “he did not speak to them without a parable, but privately to his own disciples he explained everything.” This does not teach “that Jesus [all the time] taught only in parables.” And it doesn’t because we have to understand whether the statement was referring only to the immediate context or to all of Jesus’ teachings whatever. It’s patently obvious by reading the Gospels, that Jesus did not always teach in parables. So that isn’t even in question. Only a totally biased skeptic and apostate like Dr. Madison could even think that it is. He must twist his mind into a pretzel to believe such a ridiculous thing.

Secondly, even when Jesus used parables a lot, it doesn’t follow that He could never use other teaching methods (it’s not a mutually exclusive situation). Mark 4:34 could simply mean, “Jesus often included a parable when He taught.” The Bible uses a lot of hyperbole as well. Even in this passage, it says, “privately to his own disciples he explained everything.” But that’s not literally true, either. It’s only broadly true. So, for example, Jesus said to His disciples: “I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now” (Jn 16:12). In another instance, when Jesus started explaining that He was to be killed, and that this was God’s plan, Peter didn’t understand, and disagreed. Jesus rebuked him, but didn’t further  explain:

Matthew 16:21-23 From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. [22] And Peter took him and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid, Lord! This shall never happen to you.” [23] But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me; for you are not on the side of God, but of men.” (cf. Mk 8:31-33)

Here’s another similar example:

Luke 9:44-45 “Let these words sink into your ears; for the Son of man is to be delivered into the hands of men.” [45] But they did not understand this saying, and it was concealed from them, that they should not perceive it; and they were afraid to ask him about this saying.

This was not a parable, but rather, a literal a prophetic statement about what was to happen, and Jesus did not explain it to His disciples.

There is no Eucharist in John’s; instead he washed the disciples’ feet at the Last Supper. 

It’s not stated, but we know that it took place, because this was the Last Supper, which was the Jewish Passover (a meal), incorporated into the new understanding of the Eucharist, instituted by Jesus. Since the three Synoptic Gospels mentioned the institution of the Eucharist, John didn’t necessarily have to. He concentrates on other things Jesus said during the last Supper. What Dr. Madison seems to think is a “contradiction” and a big concern, is none at all.

John also left out the Sermon on the Mount, . . . 

Technically, he didn’t “leave out” anything. He wrote exactly what he wanted to write in his account. If three accounts of something already exist, why have a fourth? Sometimes John also records events from the Synoptics, but he is under no obligation to do any of that. Only atheists seem to have this ludicrous idea that all four evangelists must always write exactly the same about everything, lest it is one of their endless pseudo-“contradictions.” Because of this warped, illogical, irrational mentality, Dr. Madison can write a ridiculous statement such as this, in conclusion:

With these examples, I’ve just scratched the surface. A careful study of the gospels—especially using a gospel parallels version—shows that, right from the start, the authors of the Jesus story couldn’t get the story straight, and it was a blunder to publish the four conflicting accounts side-by-side. Given this mess—so many different ideas from which to pick and choose—it’s hardly a surprise that Christians are so deeply divided. The bigger blunder, of course, was conferring “Word of God” status on these ancient novels. That’s an added layer of magical thinking.

The Bible truly describes people like Dr. Madison:

Proverbs 15:2 . . . the mouths of fools pour out folly.

Proverbs 15:14 The mind of him who has understanding seeks knowledge, but the mouths of fools feed on folly.

Proverbs 18:7 A fool’s mouth is his ruin, and his lips are a snare to himself.

Ecclesiastes 10:13 The beginning of the words of his mouth is foolishness, and the end of his talk is wicked madness.

***

Photo credit: netkids (3-22-16) [Pixabay / Pixabay License]

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December 29, 2020

December 29, 2020 By

Dr. David Madison is an atheist who was a Methodist minister for nine years: with a Ph.D. in Biblical Studies from Boston University.  I have replied to his videos or articles 42 times as of this writing. Thus far, I haven’t heard one peep back from him  (from 8-1-19 to 12-29-20). This certainly doesn’t suggest to me that he is very confident in his opinions. All I’ve seen is expressions of contempt from Dr. Madison and from his buddy, the atheist author, polemicist, and extraordinarily volatile John Loftus, who runs the ultra-insulting Debunking Christianity blog. Dr. Madison made his cramped, insulated mentality clear in a comment from 9-6-19:

[T]he burden of the apologist has become heavy indeed, and some don’t handle the anguish well. They vent and rage at critics, like toddlers throwing tantrums when a threadbare security blanket gets tossed out. We can smell their panic. Engaging with the ranters serves no purpose—any more than it does to engage with Flat-Earthers, Chemtrail conspiracy theorists, and those who argue that the moon landings were faked. . . . I prefer to engage with NON-obsessive-compulsive-hysterical Christians, those who have spotted rubbish in the Bible, and might already have one foot out the door.

John “you are an idiot!” Loftus even went to the length of changing his blog’s rules of engagement, so that he and Dr. Madison could avoid replying to yours truly, or even see notices of my replies (er, sorry, rants, rather). Dr. Madison’s words will be in blue.

Presently, I am replying to his article, “Bible Blunders & Bad Theology, Part 7″ (12-18-20).

*****

Proverbs 26:11 (RSV) Like a dog that returns to his vomit is a fool that repeats his folly.

2 Peter 2:22 . . . the sow is washed only to wallow in the mire.

Proverbs 1:22 How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge?

Proverbs 9:7-8 He who corrects a scoffer gets himself abuse, and he who reproves a wicked man incurs injury. [8] Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you; reprove a wise man, and he will love you.

*****

The gospel of Mark is a good place to start. Do Christians really want the Jesus depicted here? In an article I posted here in January 2018, “Getting the Gospels Off on the Wrong Foot,” I said this: “If you accept the Jesus of Mark’s gospel, you are well on the way to full-throttle crazy religion. No slick excuses offered by priests and pastors—none of their pious posturing about ‘our Lord and Savior’—can change that fact.” 

In the fifth chapter, for example, Jesus encounters a mentally ill man, and by a magic spell he transfers the guy’s demons into pigs. Most of us today wouldn’t agree that mental illness is caused by demons, or that a holy man could send them into pigs. That’s a sample of the superstition we find in Mark. Yes, we can chalk this up the naiveté of ancient thinking, and it’s too bad the Word of God didn’t rise above that.

But we find something even more troubling in Mark 4, an alarming text that should alert Christians that something is amiss. After Jesus has told the Parable of the Sower, 

“When he was alone, those who were around him along with the twelve asked him about the parables. And he said to them, ‘To you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in parables; in order that ‘they may indeed look, but not perceive, and may indeed listen, but not understand; so that they may not turn again and be forgiven.’” (Mark 4:10-12)

Devout scholars have been wringing their hands about this text for a long time. How can it be that Jesus tells parables to prevent people from repenting and being forgiven? On what level does that make sense?

I thoroughly refuted this pseudo-“objection” (so-called “blunder” and “bad theology”) over a year and four months ago:

Madison vs. Jesus #7: God Prohibits Some Folks’ Repentance? [8-6-19]

But since Dr. Madison deliberately ignores any critique of his contentions that I provide, he simply returned to his vomit and wallowed in the mire yet again.

Sometimes the cult-centric texts sound nice, for example, Mark 12:30, a command from Jesus: “…you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” How can a loving God require this level of devotion and subservience? Divine narcissism is fueled by the certainty that worshippers love at this all, all, all, all level. 

But what’s the point? Indeed most Christians—at least those who don’t choose monastic seclusion—have families, jobs, hobbies and pastimes that require major commitments of their hearts, souls, minds, and strength; they are not as fanatically obsessed with God as Jesus commands in Mark 12:30. Very few take this text seriously.

I thoroughly refuted this pseudo-“objection” (so-called “blunder” and “bad theology”) over a year and four months ago:

Madison vs. Jesus #6: Narcissistic, Love-Starved God? [8-6-19]

But since Dr. Madison deliberately ignores any critique of his contentions that I provide, he simply returned to his vomit and wallowed in the mire yet again.

And it gets worse. Mark 12:30 is a preamble to train wreck verses in Matthew 10; when Christians read these, why don’t they cancel their memberships?

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.  For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.” (verses 34-36)

And then Jesus the cult fanatic—Matthew’s version—puts the frosting on the cake: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me.”  (verses 37-38)

Luke, however, wasn’t satisfied with even this. He added hate to the formula: “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” (14:26) 

Not only hatred of family, but hatred of life itself.

I thoroughly refuted this pseudo-“objection” (so-called “blunder” and “bad theology”) over a year and four months ago:

Dr. David Madison vs. Jesus #1: Hating One’s Family? [8-1-19]

But since Dr. Madison deliberately ignores any critique of his contentions that I provide, he simply returned to his vomit and wallowed in the mire yet again.

For quite a while now I have used the term Ancient Jesus Mystery Cult to describe Christianity. Indeed the early followers of Jesus were in competition with other cults in the first century, others that celebrated resurrected gods and knew secret formulas for achieving eternal life. Sacred meals were sometimes part of the package, and the Jesus cult was not to be outdone, especially in the theology imagined by the author of John’s gospel. 

So we come to the final train wreck verses to examine here—perhaps a highpoint of bad theology. The sacred meal proposed by John included Jesus’ body parts. After all, according to John, Jesus had been present at creation; he was “one with the father,” so how could his body not have magical properties? John invented this Jesus script:

“Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me.”  (John 6:53-57)

This is an extreme—and disgusting—example of magical thinking; making it a “sacrament” adds to the disgrace. When Christians are asked to pretend—to simulate—drinking blood, that’s the time to head for the exit!

I thoroughly refuted this pseudo-“objection” (so-called “blunder” and “bad theology”) over a year and four months ago:

Madison vs. Jesus #8: Holy Eucharist as “Grotesque Magic”? [8-7-19]

But since Dr. Madison deliberately ignores any critique of his contentions that I provide, he simply returned to his vomit and wallowed in the mire yet again.

***

Photo credit: Mark Peters (9-26-10). Yorkshire pigs wallow in mud at the Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary in Poolesville, Maryland [Wikimedia Commons / Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license]

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August 30, 2019

August 30, 2019 By

Atheist apostate John Loftus is an author and webmaster of the website, Debunking Christianity, where Dr. David Madison (another atheist apostate and anti-theist) posts his articles: usually critiques of portions of Scripture or figures like Jesus and Paul. I have responded to now 34 of those articles of his, and simply posted the links underneath each article of Dr. Madison’s, as a courtesy, in case he wants to reply (which he has not done thus far). This was utterly unacceptable to webmaster Loftus, and he spoke with authority on 8-28-19, saying he will not put up with these outrages of courtesy any longer! (his words below will be in blue):

The Rules of Engagement At DC

By John W. Loftus at 8/28/2019
Some angry Catholic apologist has been tagging our posts with his angry long-winded responses. I know of no other blog, Christian or atheist, that allows for arguments by links, especially to plug one’s failing blog or site. I’ve allowed it for about a month with this guy but no more. He’s not banned. He can still come here to comment. It’s just that we don’t allow responses in the comments longer than the blog post itself, or near that. If any respectful person has a counter-argument or some counter-evidence then bring it. State your case in as few words as possible and then engage our commenters in a discussion. But arguments by links or long comments are disallowed. I talked with David Madison who has been the target of these links and he’s in agreement with this decision. He’s planning to write something about one or more of these links in the near future. So here’s how our readers can help. I’ve deleted a few of these arguments by link. There are others I’ve missed. If you see some apologist arguing by link flag it. Then I’ll be alerted where it is to delete it. What’s curious to me are the current posts he’s neglecting, like this one on horrific suffering. If he tackles that one I’ll allow him a link back.
*****
Here was my reply, posted there (if it is allowed to remain):
***
What a surprise. Funny, I was under the impression that it was common courtesy to let someone know that you offered a reply to their writing. I have not seen Dr. Madison’s email address listed, as far as I know (but I may have missed it). But for you, somehow that is “angry” and against your ethics. Duly noted.

*

From now on I’ll refute Dr. Madison’s arguments without letting him know. Hopefully, if Dr. Madison does actually reply to one of my counter-arguments (it’s now 34 with no reply), he will let me know. He’s more than welcome to post such a link on my blog. Thanks.

*

I’ve written on suffering and the problem of evil many times (posted on my atheist and philosophy & science web pages), since I regard it as the most serious objection to Christianity. In fact, my first interaction with you (John Loftus) was on this topic (“Dialogue w Atheist John Loftus on the Problem of Evil” [10-11-06] ).

The “angry” schtick is getting old real fast. Is that all you have in your arsenal anymore: a bald-faced lie? You were much more fun when you called me an “idiot!”

Lastly, few care about my replies to an atheist on my blog or my Facebook page. If my motive were simply to “plug [my supposedly] failing blog or site” this would be one of the last topics that would accomplish that. I get far more page views from writing anything about sex. This is not mere opinion. One can track actual page views at Patheos with Google Analytics.

When I look over the response for August, I indeed find that an article on masturbation received the most views, and more than twice as much as the #2 article, which was about a radical Catholic reactionary book. #3 was a paper about why C. S. Lewis didn’t become a Catholic. #4 and #5 were about holistic health (totally unrelated to apologetics). #6 is about how to receive Communion. #7 is another paper about masturbation, #8 (finally!) a reply to an atheist other than Dr. Madison. #9 is about Mary’s Immaculate Conception. #10 is about her Assumption. So that is one paper in the top ten devoted to atheism.

I have to get to #21 to even find one of the 34 replies to Dr. Madison (all written in August).

So much for your stupid theory. I’m not replying for hits or for money, but because I think it is a great opportunity to refute atheist polemics against Christianity. Period. This is what apologists do. I certainly make far less money than you do: ranting and raving and lying about Christianity and Christians.

*****

More comments that I also posted on Loftus’ site:

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I looked up Loftus’ “Comment Policy.” I saw nothing about not being able to simply post a link to a reply to an article posted at Debunking Christianity. It starts out as follows (all emphases in the original in my citations):

At Debunking Christianity I welcome most anyone to comment on what is written. I like the challenge of educated discussions between educated people. I think educated people can disagree agreeably. Only people not fully exposed to alternative ways of thinking will claim their opponents are stupid merely because they disagree.

I agree 100%. If only Loftus and his cronies would act according to these noble ideals. Here’s another excerpt:
Unoriginality. Your comments should be your own thoughts, in your own words. When quoting relevant material, try to keep the excerpts brief. Don’t say the same thing over and over again.
I haven’t quoted anything (which I am allowed to do), in simply posting links to my replies, underneath the articles I was replying to. It seems to me that Dr. Madison and others (if they actually believed in and practiced the ideal expressed above) would enthusiastically welcome my “alternative ways of thinking” as a golden opportunity to defend the superiority of atheist views and shoot mine down. But no, instead we get this censorship, no interactive replies at all (though now we’re told that one or two are finally coming) and the ever-present double standard and juvenile insulting.
Preaching. Theist commenters are welcome, but bear in mind that atheists do not gather here just so that we can be more conveniently proselytized. Attempts to sermonize or recite apologetics at us are frowned upon. A good rule of thumb is that if you want to have a genuine conversation with us, you’re welcome to stay; if you only want to convert us, you can expect to be shown the door.
I haven’t done this at all. I am replying directly (mostly point-by-point) to posted material on this site. This is “genuine conversation.” But so far, it is entirely a one-way “conversation.” One of the parties ain’t interested in defending his own arguments (nor is — how pathetic — anyone else here). But it’s on the way, I’m told. I eagerly look forward to it!
Soapboxing. Related to both unoriginality and preaching, this occurs when a person has a pet cause which is the only thing they ever want to talk about, regardless of the topic of the thread. If all your comments keep coming back to the same point, you’re soapboxing. Don’t do this.
I’m obviously not doing this either, since I am directly responding to material at Debunking Christianity. Many of the arguments I have offered in so doing, I never even thought about before. They were stimulated by the arguments of Dr. Madison. This is the beauty of argument and interaction. Christian arguments have been encouraged and strengthened by opposing arguments since the beginning. I love it! So I have mostly enjoyed replying to Dr. Madison. He has been gracious enough to provide a steady supply of fallacious or non-factual argumentation that is the perfect stimulus for an apologist who specializes in the Bible.
Imperviousness to reason. I expect that people who debate here will show at least some responsiveness to arguments raised against their position. If your typical response to a counterargument is to repeat your original argument in unchanged form, your presence will soon grow tiresome. Acknowledge the things that other people say to you and respond accordingly.

Again, this is exactly what I am not doing, in replying point-by-point to material on the site. If I received such replies (which happens only rarely), I would be ecstatic at the golden opportunity to clarify and counter-reply, and retract where necessary. But the response of my atheist friends is to flee to the hills, insult, and censor. It’s one of life’s mysteries. But hypocrisy, in any event, is certainly not confined to Christians.

Lastly, it is highly ironic and ludicrous that when I first started responding to Dr. Madison, I came to Debunking Christianity and tried in vain to engage in intelligent discussion. But as almost always in atheist forums, the folks weren’t interested in that. It was 100% insults and mockery and not the slightest interaction with my actual arguments at all, as anyone can see in my paper that documented what happened.

It was a carbon copy of the behavior that occurred in August 2018: a year ago, on Bob Seidensticker’s website (I have refuted 35 of his papers, too). They had no interest in rational discussion, either; only in insults and lying, and I was also banned.

Once that happened, I concluded (as I always have, in despair) that genuine discussion of opposing ideas is impossible on an atheist forum. I was tempted to not even post the links to my replies anymore, and to adopt the attitude of “to hell with ’em.” But my courteous instincts prevailed; only to at length get the above reply from Loftus.
*
Very well, then. If I can’t have an intelligent discussion on his site or any atheist one that I’ve ever seen, then I’ll simply refute atheist materials (including those from Loftus) and not let anyone know that I’m doing it. Atheists whose writings I critique can do what I do: run across critical materials in Google searches (which I do since I am virtually never informed when someone counter-replies to me).
*
In fact, I ran across this very article from Loftus, by accident, as I was looking through Dr. Madison’s writings. John Loftus seemingly had no intention of making me aware of it. Loftus did “reply” to me earlier, when he saw that I was critiquing Dr. Madison, and made these two comments (do they sound like a willingness to interact with opposing ideas?):
What does it say that you have about 46 comments for your last 20 essays? Given your mean spirited attitude, one probable interpretation is that your headlines grab attention from the massive amount of readers attracted to Patheos. But when people see how you treat others they leave you to your anger. And you are angry. That is clear. You hate people who disagree with you, which actually proves Dr. Madison’s point, that Jesus wants you to hate others in deference to him. Readers see this quickly then they go away.
*
Your speech betrays you. I can get a bit angry when purposely misunderstood by self-proclaimed know-it-alls like you. But you enter a debate angry! You write as if Dr. David Madison is a non-entity, a non-being, who is mere fodder for your supposed “superior” debate skills. I cannot convince you of this I’m sure, but that’s what I see, and it’s one good reason I ignore you.
*
What you’re doing is writing a book length response. Go ahead. Do that. We know we can respond. It’s just that we don’t have the time to do so. Plus, it’s pretty clear our time would be better spent doing something else than wrestling in the mud with you.
*
*****
And a third comment posted there:
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As another Christian courtesy, I will go back and delete all my links posted here to replies to Dr. Madison, lest any atheist stumble, experience cognitive dissonance, or be scandalized and depressed by the horrific prospect of an amiable, non-“angry” expression of a different opinion [!!! gasp! shriek!] from a lowly, despised Christian apologist.

The Bible commands us, after all, not to do anything to make less confident folks stumble. I wouldn’t want to burst this blissful “bubble” you have made for yourselves, or to dissent from the groupthink that obviously reigns and dominates this echo chamber.

Thanks for letting me post this! How open-minded of you . . .

Thank you. One thing you should keep in mind is that wasting my time by having to explain my policies will get you banned. So what if I made an addition? Get over it.

I believe I zapped all of the horrifying, threatening links to my replies to Dr. Madison. If I missed one, please let me know and I’ll go delete it pronto. Thanks!

***

ADDENDUM (8-31-19) Without the slightest hint of the extreme and apparent (and pathetic) irony, Loftus put up a post on the same day, entitled, “Cameron Bertuzzi of “Capturing Christianity” Avoids Answering Questions.” Near the end, he states, “Your goal should be to answer their objections.” Man oh man, is this guy in a self-deluded bubble.

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August 13, 2019

August 13, 2019 By

Gospels as “Con Job”? / Parables & Repentance / Old Testament Sacrifices & Jesus / “Weird” Mark 16 / Why Jesus Was Killed

This is an installment of my replies to a series of articles on Mark by Dr. David Madison: an atheist who was a Methodist minister for nine years: with a Ph.D. in Biblical Studies from Boston University. His summary article is called, “Not-Your-Pastor’s Tour of Mark’s Gospel: The falsification of Christianity made easy” (Debunking Christianity, 7-17-19). His words will be in blue below.

Dr. Madison has utterly ignored my twelve refutations of his “dirty dozen” podcasts against Jesus, and I fully expect that stony silence to continue. If he wants to be repeatedly critiqued and make no response, that’s his choice (which would challenge Bob Seidensticker as the most intellectually cowardly atheist I know). I will continue on, whatever he decides to do (no skin off my back).

Dr. Madison believes we are not at all sure whether Jesus in fact said anything recorded in the Gospels. The atheist always has a convenient “out” (when refuted in argument about some biblical text) that Jesus never said it anyway and that the text in question was simply made up and added later by unscrupulous and “cultish” Christian propagandists.

I always refuse to play this silly and ultimately intellectually dishonest game, because there is no way to “win” with such a stacked, subjective deck. I start with the assumption (based on many historical evidences) that the manuscripts we have are quite sufficient for us to know what is in the Bible (believe it or not). 

Dr. Madison himself — in his anti-Jesus project noted above, granted my outlook, strictly in terms of practical “x vs. y” debate purposes: “For the sake of argument, I’m willing to say, okay, Jesus was real and, yes, we have gospels that tell the story.” And in the combox: “So, we can go along with their insistence that he did exist. We’ll play on their field, i.e., the gospels.” Excellent! Otherwise, there would be no possible discussion at all.

*****

Dr. Madison called his Introduction to Mark, “Getting the Gospels Off on the Wrong Foot: The strange Jesus in Mark’s story” (1-19-18).

The Christian church has managed to pull off one of the biggest con jobs in history.

One readily perceives that Dr. Madison is perhaps not the most objective and fair observer of the Christianity that he forsook, doesn’t one? Sun Tzu, a contemporary of the prophet Jeremiah, wrote in The Art of War in the 6th century BC: “If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

The laity trusted their priests that Christ the Redeemer was all that mattered; hence the down-and-dirty details in the gospels went unnoticed. 

Ignorance is always at a premium in any large social / religious [or any type of] group — no argument there. Take a look at, for example, any combox at the Debunking Christianity site where Dr. Madison posts, for ample confirmation. But this is silly as a sweeping generalization, since all Catholics, at least, have heard a great deal of Bible reading from the pulpit (especially the Gospels) at Mass every week. We’re not as stupid and clueless as Dr. Madison would like his readers to believe. And he’s not nearly as “smart”: as I continue to repeatedly demonstrate, if I do say so: insofar as he thinks he has made mincemeat of the Bible. 

If you accept the Jesus of Mark’s gospel, you are well on the way to full-throttle crazy religion.

Well, we’ll see about that, won’t we? Dr. Madison, I submit, exhibits far more fanaticism and distemper in his anti-theist atheism than the average Christian I have known (and I’ve known a million of them these past 42 years).

The other gospel writers, in their spinning of Jesus fiction, carried on the tradition of invention, . . . 

As I stated in the generic introduction above, I will not entertain arbitrary and foolish silliness of this sort (just to make that crystal clear). I’m here to defend the text as we have it and to show that Dr. Madison’s assertions are logically fallacious or factually incorrect.

Gospel experts, of the apologetic Christian variety, won’t hear any of this. . . . they devote their careers to smoothing out rough edges and erasing Jesus blemishes.

And Dr. Madison devotes his Bible-bashing “career” (or prevalent pastime?) to running from every critique of his arguments; or at least that’s how it’s always been with me, thus far, and I am a professional Christian / Catholic apologist, after all. I make arguments that I find plausible and defensible (or else I wouldn’t bother making them), and I can hardly change my mind if there is no counter-reply at all.

In the many instances in my life where I have undergone a major change of mind, it was always through substantive but cordial interaction with critics of a different view. Thinkers engage in back-and-forth dialogue. But demagogues and propagandists split at the first whiff of opposition to their infallible ideas.

(1) Jesus was an exorcist. 

This is most vividly illustrated by the story in Mark 5:1-13, in which Jesus transfers demons from a severely mentally ill man into a herd of pigs. See what I mean by full-throttle crazy? Mark depicts Jesus talking to, bargaining with, the demons. Is this really the worldview that Christians these days want to adopt? Well, maybe so, since many Christians believe in ghosts, angels and dead saints who hear prayers—and demons, apparently.

Yes, this is Christianity. We believe in all those things, including Satan. But of course, this would lead into a huge exterior discussion on Christian ontology / metaphysics and the existence of the supernatural. It’s simply too complex to get into in the middle of textual discussions. Dr. Madison obviously has a virulently anti-supernatural view, and he is on the level of thinking anyone who believes in these things as nuts. There is no discussion with that, and I can’t follow every rabbit trail that he brings up, anyway, or I wouldn’t have enough time in my entire life to reply to his hostile contentions.

(2) Jesus tried to fool people by teaching in parables. 

Of course, this doesn’t make sense. What was Mark thinking? But here it is, Mark 4:10-12, which includes a quotation from Isaiah 6:9-10:

“When he was alone, those who were around him along with the twelve asked him about the parables. And he said to them, ‘To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in parables; in order that they may indeed look, but not perceive, and may indeed listen, but not understand; so that they may not turn again and be forgiven.’”

I thoroughly disposed of this objection in my paper, “Madison vs. Jesus #7: God Prohibits Some Folks’ Repentance?”

It’s odd because—ooops—in John’s gospel, Jesus doesn’t teach in parables.

That’s correct. But Jesus does talk (as recorded in the Gospel of John) in many metaphorical or proverbial (non-literal) ways that bear resemblance to the synoptic parables. For example:

John 2:19-21 (RSV) Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” [20] The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” [21] But he spoke of the temple of his body.

John 3:8 The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with every one who is born of the Spirit.

John 4:13-14 Jesus said to her, “Every one who drinks of this water will thirst again, [14] but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

John 6:35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst.

John 10:11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. (see also 10:1-10, 12-18, including Jesus calling Himself “the door” three times)

John 11:12-14 But if any one walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.” [11] Thus he spoke, and then he said to them, “Our friend Laz’arus has fallen asleep, but I go to awake him out of sleep.” [12] The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.” [13] Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he meant taking rest in sleep. [14] Then Jesus told them plainly, “Laz’arus is dead;”

(3) Jesus believed in human sacrifice to get right with God.

This is a vestige of animal sacrifice superstition, and is a fine specimen of magical thinking: How can killing an animal cancel human sin? Why would a good god set up such a scheme?

I guess in the same way that He set up the animal kingdom, including meat-eating, which also required the killing of animals (which is also a feature of evolution and nature: construed as utterly self-governed [i.e., materialistic evolution], without any supervision by God). Or is Dr. Madison a vegetarian? Something tells me that he is not.

It’s not that animal blood has intrinsic magical or curative properties. It’s simply the symbolism that God ordained: to show human beings the seriousness of sin. The writer of Hebrews expressly denied that the old covenant system of animal sacrifice actually took away sins:

Hebrews 10:1-4, 11 For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices which are continually offered year after year, make perfect those who draw near. [2] Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered? If the worshipers had once been cleansed, they would no longer have any consciousness of sin. [3] But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sin year after year. [4] For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. . . . [11] And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 

Even in the Old Testament, there are many indications that the sacrificial system was to be abolished, and was never the most important thing: righteousness and obedience to God’s commands were that:

Proverbs 15:8 The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD, but the prayer of the upright is his delight.

Amos 5:12, 14, 21-24 For I know how many are your transgressions, and how great are your sins — you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe, and turn aside the needy in the gate. . . . [14] Seek good, and not evil, that you may live; and so the LORD, the God of hosts, will be with you, as you have said . . . [21] I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. [22] Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and cereal offerings, I will not accept them, and the peace offerings of your fatted beasts I will not look upon. [23] Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. [24] But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

Jesus reflected these thoughts in the New Testament:

Matthew 9:13 “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice’. . . .” (cf. 12:7)

He was citing the Hebrew Bible:

Hosea 6:6 For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God, rather than burnt offerings.

In other words, if and when the Israelites were rebellious against God and His laws and wicked, their sacrifices (far from being “magic”) meant absolutely nothing to God, and accomplished nothing. This is a constant motif in the Old Testament. The law, including these animal sacrifices, was never intended from the beginning to save men. Grace and faith in God; Jesus’ redemption accomplished that. Hence, Paul writes:

Galatians 2:16  yet who know that a man is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ, and not by works of the law, because by works of the law shall no one be justified.

Galatians 3:10-12, 19, 21-26 For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be every one who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, and do them.” [11] Now it is evident that no man is justified before God by the law; for “He who through faith is righteous shall live”; [12] but the law does not rest on faith, for “He who does them shall live by them.” . . . [19] Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, . . . [21] Is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not; for if a law had been given which could make alive, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. [22] But the scripture consigned all things to sin, that what was promised to faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. [23] Now before faith came, we were confined under the law, kept under restraint until faith should be revealed. [24] So that the law was our custodian until Christ came, that we might be justified by faith. [25] But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a custodian; [26] for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.

Mark would have us believe that a Galilean peasant got it into his head that he was selected for this mission (10:45): “For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” 

He didn’t get “it into his head”: He always knew this, being God and the Second Person of the Holy Trinity from all eternity. Hence, He expressed in many ways, in the Gospels, that He was God.

How can Christians not notice that a human sacrifice to placate God is bad theology?

It’s not a sacrifice as classically understood: like the Aztecs taking some poor child up one of their pyramids to have his or her heart cut out while they were alive, or the heathen tribes who lived around the ancient Israelites, who sacrificed their babies to Moloch (throwing them into a fire). Those things are barbaric.

But this was an act by God (Jesus) to voluntarily suffer and die on our behalf (Mt 20:28; 26:53; Mk 10:45; Lk 19:10; Jn 6:51; 10:10-18; 19:10-11; Gal 2:20; Eph 5:1-2; Phil 2:5-8; 1 Tim 2:5-6; Titus 2:13-14), just as we (to use an imperfect analogy) honor heroes who sacrificed themselves so that others can live (for example, the two young men recently who lost their lives in two of the horrible shooting massacres). This is what Memorial Day is about.

(4) Jesus preached that the Kingdom of God was immanent—and he was wrong. 

The present world order was about to be wiped out, indeed “before this generation passes away”—and it would not be pretty. There would be massive human suffering to mark the initiation of the Kingdom of God. Please, Christians, read Mark 13 and seriously ponder how this fits in with your view of what would Jesus do. Calamities are a sign that God’s get-even theology will be realized; the tone of Mark 13 is urgency, with the closing words “keep watch.” Of course, no Kingdom arrived. Mark 13 is an example of religion gone off rails and closely matches the demented ramblings of the apostle Paul. John Loftus is right in describing Jesus as a failed apocalyptic prophet.

I already demolished this in my earlier reply: “Dr. David Madison vs. Jesus #3: Nature & Time of 2nd Coming.”

(5) Jesus the great moral teacher fails to show up.

[. . .]

Moreover, there are comments in this gospel for which Jesus deserves demerits; we expect far better from a great moral teacher. His counsel on divorce at 10:9, for example, is inexplicable and irresponsible. Yes, we can understand that God created male and female—and expects a man to leave his parents to get married. But that does not mean that God has been matchmaker for every couple that ever was: “Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” In fact, this is a mindless non sequitur—and has caused so much misery.

I dealt with this in my paper, Madison vs. Jesus #4: Jesus Causes a Bad Marriage?

Jesus gets a very poor grade as well for this bit of cult fanaticism, 10:29-30: “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life.” You will be rewarded for leaving your family? You’ll get a new set of relatives and new houses? How can Christians be comfortable with this?

This is covered in my paper, Madison vs. Jesus #5: Cultlike Forsaking of Family?

(6) [What] did Jesus mean with this list?

What more could you want? It’s the resurrected Jesus who explains that “those who believe” will be able to do these five things (Mark 16:16-18):

1. Cast out demons (yes, we’re back to demons)
2. Speak in new tongues
3. Pick up snakes
4. Drink any deadly thing
5. Lay hands on people to heal them

Those who want to distance themselves from this text can point out that these verses were not in the original gospel: Mark 16:9-20 is a later addition. No one knows where this part of chapter 16 came from. But those want to dismiss these verses are admitting that fake news about Jesus made it into the New Testament. Alas, however, we don’t know where any of Mark’s gospel came from; maybe it’s all fake news. This list may not be from the mouth of Jesus, but whoever thought it up certainly had a goofy take on Christianity.

But, hey, here’s the challenge for apologists who insist that the gospels are based on eyewitness accounts and highly reliable oral tradition. These six items I’ve listed: Do you really want to argue that these reflect authentic Jesus information?

Yes.

Is this strange Jesus the one you want?

It’s not strange if rightly understood. What is strange is an educated man like Dr. Madison routinely getting things dead wrong in his analyses of the Bible and Jesus. I wrote about this topic, too, in this post of mine: Dr. David Madison vs. Jesus #2: Weird & Fictional Mark 16? He obviously recycled a lot of these whoppers in his more recent podcasts that I refuted. But (hate to break the news) simply repeating a lousy argument doesn’t make it any stronger.

Maybe, after all, there’s a glimpse of history at Mark 3:21, where we find that Jesus’s family wasn’t too thrilled about his vocation. “When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, ‘He has gone out of his mind.’”

That sounds about right to me.

Yeah, me, too (but for the opposite reasons). Great human beings are routinely vastly misunderstood. For example, here is the gist of what Plato wrote about the cause of Socrates’ persecution and death, in his Apology:

At his trial, Socrates is accused of two things: impiety (asebeia) against Athens’s gods, by introducing new gods, and corruption of Athenian youth, by teaching them to question the status quo. He is accused of impiety because the Oracle at Delphi said there was no wiser man in Athens then Socrates, and Socrates knew he was not wise. After hearing that, he questioned every man he met to find a wiser man than he.

The corruption charge, said Socrates in his defense, was because by questioning people in public, he embarrassed them, and they, in turn, accused him of corrupting the youth of Athens by the use of sophistry. (“What Was the Charge Against Socrates?,” N. S. Gill, ThoughtCo., 11-28-18)

That sounds very familiar. Jesus’ enemies (mostly the scribes and Pharisees) accused Him of blasphemy and impiety because He claimed to be God, and also the Messiah. This upset the apple cart (to put it extremely mildly), so they sought to kill Him:

John 5:15-18 The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. [16] And this was why the Jews persecuted Jesus, because he did this on the sabbath. [17] But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working still, and I am working.” [18] This was why the Jews sought all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the sabbath but also called God his Father, making himself equal with God.

John 10:30-36 “I and the Father are one.” [31] The Jews took up stones again to stone him. [32] Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of these do you stone me?” [33] The Jews answered him, “It is not for a good work that we stone you but for blasphemy; because you, being a man, make yourself God.” [34] Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your law, `I said, you are gods’? [35] If he called them gods to whom the word of God came (and scripture cannot be broken), [36] do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, `You are blaspheming,’ because I said, `I am the Son of God’

Matthew 26:63-66 . . . And the high priest said to him, “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ [the Messiah], the Son of God.” [64] Jesus said to him, “You have said so. But I tell you, hereafter you will see the Son of man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven.” [65] Then the high priest tore his robes, and said, “He has uttered blasphemy. Why do we still need witnesses? You have now heard his blasphemy. [66] What is your judgment?” They answered, “He deserves death.” [clearly applying to himself the famous messianic passage, Daniel 7:13]

John 7:1 After this Jesus went about in Galilee; he would not go about in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill him.

John 19:7 The Jews answered him, “We have a law, and by that law he ought to die, because he has made himself the Son of God.”

Jesus, like Socrates, went against the established religious orthodoxy and the corrupt status quo (even using Socrates’ own famous questioning “method”), and had to be killed for it. They started saying He was demonically possessed and that He cast out demons by demonic power (Mk 3:22), to which Jesus retorted, “a house divided against itself cannot stand” (Mk 3:25).

And people said “He is beside himself” (Mk 3:21) because Jesus had (heaven forbid!) healed people (Mk 3:1-10). And (also very much like Socrates’ case) people (filled with pride then as now, if they lose an argument or are shown to be wrong) didn’t like how He overcame them with His socratic questioning:

Luke 14:5-6 And he said to them, “Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well, will not immediately pull him out on a sabbath day?” [6] And they could not reply to this.

Mark 3:1-4 Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand. [2] And they watched him, to see whether he would heal him on the sabbath, so that they might accuse him. [3] And he said to the man who had the withered hand, “Come here.” [4] And he said to them, “Is it lawful on the sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent.

Luke 20:19-26 The scribes and the chief priests tried to lay hands on him at that very hour, but they feared the people; for they perceived that he had told this parable against them. [20] So they watched him, and sent spies, who pretended to be sincere, that they might take hold of what he said, so as to deliver him up to the authority and jurisdiction of the governor. [21] They asked him, “Teacher, we know that you speak and teach rightly, and show no partiality, but truly teach the way of God. [22] Is it lawful for us to give tribute to Caesar, or not?” [23] But he perceived their craftiness, and said to them, [24] “Show me a coin. Whose likeness and inscription has it?” They said, “Caesar’s.” [25] He said to them, “Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” [26] And they were not able in the presence of the people to catch him by what he said; but marveling at his answer they were silent.

Matthew 21:23-27 And when he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came up to him as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” [24] Jesus answered them, “I also will ask you a question; and if you tell me the answer, then I also will tell you by what authority I do these things. [25] The baptism of John, whence was it? From heaven or from men?” And they argued with one another, “If we say, `From heaven,’ he will say to us, `Why then did you not believe him?’ [26] But if we say, `From men,’ we are afraid of the multitude; for all hold that John was a prophet.” [27] So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.

Matthew 21:45-46 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them. [46] But when they tried to arrest him, they feared the multitudes, because they held him to be a prophet.

So sure, this is why Jesus was unpopular in some circles (the same ones that had Him killed), and this should not surprise anyone. Great men and women are often persecuted up to and including death. The parallels between Jesus and Socrates are striking, but not shocking at all, with even a rudimentary knowledge of history and the usual prominent flaws of fallen human nature (jealousy, pride, arrogance, lust for power, outmoded and corrupt traditions, excessive desire for fame and adulation, etc.).

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Photo credit: Jesus Healing the Paralytic at the Pool of Bethesda (1592), by Palma il Giovane (1544-1628) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

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