2017-05-17T16:27:33-04:00

Last updated on: May 17, 2017 at 4:27 pm   By

MtStHelens

Mt. St. Helens volcanic eruption (1980) [public domain / Pixabay]

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John W. Loftus runs a large and influential site, Debunking Christianity, and has authored many books of atheist polemics. Previously I had posted my critique of Loftus’ online “Cliff’s Notes” deconversion story, which detailed his odyssey from a Christian pastor to atheism. I also have posted about his ridiculous response to my critique. In that he characterized me as an “idiot . . . joke . . . pompous ass . . . self-assured arrogant idiot . . . ignorant and uneducated . . . self-righteous know-it-all . . .” This was all from nine years ago. After this remarkably petulant display, I had little interest in replying to his writing anymore.

I also had constructed another post on my old blog, from comments, but these were lost (it was the old Haloscan system). Tonight while perusing Debunking Christianity I found a thread that probably contains a lot of what I had formerly posted. It’s entitled, My Deconversion Story — Criticized (10-16-06). Loftus wrote:

Dave Armstrong criticized my deconversion experience here. Please note my comment afterward. Does anyone understand why I don’t bother to respond in detail to such drivel? He wants to fault me. So why bother dialoguing with him about it? No matter what I say, I’ll be wasting my time. Oh, but I wish rather than fault-finding some Christian would seek to understand. But they cannot try, even though on any other issue of disagreement intelligent people will try. It’s called respecting people as people, and Dave’s Christianity does not do that with people who don’t agree with him.

And in comments:

I know there are a few Christians who visit here regularly who knew me when I was a Christian. They could easily dispell [sic] the false assumptions and distortions Dave writes about. Why? Because they know/knew me. But to do so they would have to reveal their names, since an anynomous poster would be dismissed out of hand. And they have reasons for not doing so. Suffice it to say that I was every bit the Christian that Dave now claims to be, except that I was a much better apologist than he. He can dispute this all he wants to, since he doesn’t know me. Fine. I can say no more. . . . 

I’m just tired of pompous asses on the internet who go around claiming they are superior to me in terms of intelligence and faith. Such arrogance makes me vomit. I’m an easy target, because they simply didn’t know me. People like Dave would’ve looked up to me back then, but he has the audacity to go around claiming he is superior to me in both intelligence and with a deeper faith. I seriously doubt that he is, given what I’ve read from him. I was a much better apologist than he is now. And there probably are people smarter and with a deeper faith than I had too, so that doesn’t bother me. It the self-assured arrogant idiots out there, like Dave, who prefer to proclaim off of my personal experience that they are better than I. The fact is they do not know this! I’ll say it again. They do not know this!

I showed up in the comments. I’ll post that below. First, I’d like to cite a few Loftus utterances from posts on his blog that indicate what appears to be a great deal of manifest arrogance on his part (the very thing he accuses me of):

In a post (dated 8-18-15) about his hostility towards atheist Jeff Lowder (who believe that Christians should be approached respectfully), Loftus gives a marvelous display of modesty and self-effacing humility:

. . .  the whole reason my writing gets such wide acclaim is precisely because I do understand Christianity.

. . . someone like myself who, a) has a wide breadth of knowledge, b) has more degrees in the areas Lowder knows something about than he and two of his cheerleaders combined (namely Jim Lippard and Bradley Bowen), and c) has more years thinking and reading about these issues than any of them have been alive.

From all I can see Lowder and his all male white philosophy student cheerleaders lack the breadth I have, and that is more important than having depth. It’s the breadth of knowledge I have that causes me to object to the value they place on the philosophy of religion (and to call for its end in the secular universities). But in fact I have studied it in depth as well. I don’t think the philosophy of religion is that important precisely because I’ve studied it in depth, just as I don’t think the philosophy of science is that important . . . 

It’s the breadth of knowledge I have from years of thinking and reading based on a good solid foundational education that makes the difference. I had more class work with leading evangelical and Jesuit thinkers, theologians, historians, and philosophers to earn my three master’s degrees–including a year and a half of Ph.D. work–than most Ph.D. programs require. [As for the dissertation requirement, just think of my book “Why I Became an Atheist” which is called “a monster of reason and logic” by others]. . . . 

Another divide between us is that Lowder too often disingenuously acts as if he wants an honest dialogue with theists when the real goal is to be respected as more important than he really is (*cough* a self-proclaimed philosopher). With me I don’t need to do this because I have the credentials, the knowledge, and a body of acclaimed work. I can honestly argue for my conclusions without worrying if I’m doing so in a way that will get me respect. [As far as respect goes just look at the authors who wrote chapters for me, and/or wrote blurbs for my books and/or asked me to write blurbs for their books.]

Prominent atheist Richard Carrier wrote a blistering critique (8-21-15) of Loftus’ silly feud with Jeff Lowder. Loftus showed up, offering one of his by-now patented reply-but-not-a-reply evasions:

There is already too much ignorance here for me to respond to, from both you and your commenters. I could respond to everything you and they have said, easily.

Just as he could have responded “easily” to my critique, but somehow never could find the time to do so . . . Carrier made the obvious point at the end of the combox:

And people need to understand if they publish something in public, they get criticized in public. They don’t get to control their critics.

Meanwhile, on his site Loftus blew a gasket and descended to virtual paranoia in this breathtakingly ludicrous reply to Carrier’s article:

Richard Carrier seems upset by my comment above and has said he was going to write a post on it. Who sent it to him? Grimlock? Why do people desire to stir up trouble? Why do others bite? Rather than commenting here to keep this between ourselves, or emailing me about it, Richard decided to escalate it into a blog post with a huge audience, one I don’t have. It must be nice being right about everyone he writes about. Why it’s as if they don’t have brains. Many of his readers may conclude I’m a piece of shit based on just one comment on a blog with over 5000 posts, and about whom I have seven published books. Never mind the damage. Doing so produces drama and drama produces hits, which in turn produces advertiser money which goes into Richard’s pocket. Okay. I guess. . . . 

My dispute is not with him, but with Jeff Lowder, whom I consider to be both dishonest and a hypocrite. . . . 

I knew in advance Richard was writing his post about my “weird” “flameout currently going on” so I emailed him, asking “Do you care to talk?’ No response. So Richard’s problem solving skills are on display. I think he is too smart for his own good. What that means is that Richard is smart enough to justify almost anything, and that’s a recipe for, well, justifying almost anything for personal gain, even though others who are not so smart can see exactly what he’s done, arguing for that which benefits him personally.

I have no ill will toward him. I do toward Jeff Lowder.

I guess anyone who critiques Loftus (even a renowned and credentialed fellow atheist) gets the “you think you’re a know-it-all!” treatment, just as I did nine years ago. In another post (3-6-13), Loftus whines like a six-year-old not picked for a sandlot baseball team, over Dr. William Lane Craig (a philosopher one of the best Protestant apologists and debaters) doesn’t want to debate him. It’s embarrassing to read.  He states:

. . . how many of his debate opponents have written and/or edited the number and quality of books that I have? Reasonable readers can decide for themselves whether I’m a worthy foe.

He goes on and on about how several other people think he is the cat’s meow, and how many blurbs for books he has written (!!!). Then in the comments, after being asked why Dr. Craig won’t debate him, Loftus offers this unbelievably self-important reply:

My best guess is that he really fears me, that is, at a minimum he fears my influence. He does not want to introduce me to a larger audience. He never fears doing that with any of the other atheists he has debated.  Yes, Ray, I’m that good! Have you read any of my works yet? You should!

Wow!

But back to my critique of his deconversion and his hysterical replies.

Ironically, in the combox of Loftus’ post (the one I mentioned at the top), even two atheists came away with a vastly different perception of my critique than Loftus did. Matthew wrote: “the tone of Dave’s critique is a bit pleasant and not really nasty, . . . Dave Armstrong seems a likeable kind of a guy.” Likewise, “whizler” opined:  “I don’t believe Dave Armstrong’s response was directed at you personally. . . . My advice: don’t take it personally. While you may be the putative target, it’s a different audience Dave is speaking to.” Here are my comments in the combox:

I don’t regard faulty premises and thinking as necessarily a character flaw: only if it was deliberate, and I didn’t claim that John’s errors were that.

The apologist’s main audience is the Christian, because they are the ones I am trying to equip to have a rational, defensible, plausible, cogent faith. I don’t expect to persuade any atheist. If it happens, it’s an extra “bonus.” My job is to defeat the “defeaters,” as Alvin Plantinga would say.

If John Loftus must take that personally, when it has nothing to do with that at all, and must do so in every conceivable universe, so be it. His hyper-sensitivity and ultra-thin skin are beyond my control, and I think at least two people here can see that (for which I thank them).

If we want to talk “personal”, just count up all the name-calling, epithets and rank insults John has made towards me. All I’ve done is basically protest against those and called for calm, rational discussion minus those silly distractions.

It occurred to me that if John Loftus is so much sharper than I am, and so much of a better apologist for the faith he later abandoned, then why is it he fundamentally misunderstands the role of the Christian apologist and who it is they primarily write for?

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1) We’re all sinners. No one is any better, at bottom, than anyone else. Whatever good is in us is because of God’s grace, not our inherent superiority to someone else.

2) I simply disagree with your positions and your denigration of Christianity. Your position is not you. If you write about such things publicly, then do you not expect that Christians will respond to them? You actually encouraged me to respond to your deconversion, so I did.

3) Your problem (at least insofar as this version of your story suggests) is intellectual, not a matter of dishonesty. Bad premises lead to bad conclusions. I didn’t see anything that would bring any Christian doctrine into question at all. Sorry, that’s my honest opinion. Or am I dishonest?

4) Well, I know one thing: you are extremely sensitive to Christian critiques, even when done respectfully and not attacking you as a person or immoral scoundrel, etc. I can understand that, but it has the effect of alienating those (such as myself) who simply don’t have the attitudes you are attributing to them.

5) I understand that many Christians have treated you rottenly. I’ve seen some recent things that shocked me and were terrible witnesses to Christianity. That’s contemptible. But I am not among them. I don’t share their attitudes. I never said you were especially evil (more than any other sinner, of whom I am foremost) or damned, etc. Catholics (to their credit, and we have many faults, believe me) generally don’t do that. We leave those judgments up to God.

6) You think I’ve attacked your person? Good grief. You should see the amazing things that are written about me. And the worst comes from fellow Christians (some of them even Catholics).

7) Now get this straight, John (in big capital letters):

I *****DO***** CONSIDER YOU TO BE A SINCERE AND HONEST AND THOUGHTFUL PERSON. 

Got that? Now if you say I am lying, then obviously all discourse is over. But it wasn’t because of me. God is my witness for that, and also (since you think He doesn’t exist) all who have read our exchanges.

8) If I didn’t take you seriously, I would simply ignore you, just like I do (almost always) the anti-Catholics, liberal Catholics, [radical Catholic reactionary] Catholics, flat-earthers, etc. You have it exactly backwards, and it is amazing how often you do that.

9) I was simply replying to the reasoning you gave. Sorry you don’t like that, but this is how intellectual exchange works. It’s astonishing to me that you have such a thin skin, especially since you have an academic past. Are you truly this unable to withstand any critique? If so, then I suggest to you that you don’t encourage a person to analyze your deconversion, if this is how you’re gonna react. It’ll keep your blood pressure down to an acceptable level.

10) If I failed to give you sufficient benefit of the doubt, I apologize. I thought I had done so, but maybe not. One can always be more charitable, no doubt.

11) It has little to do with how “smart” or “stupid” one is. Rather, all Christians must be equipped to deal with objections or they will be in trouble. I’m writing this paper mostly for the benefit of Christians, so I can help them avoid your sad fate.

12) It’s partly intellectual and partly a loss of faith. No Christian can believe apart from God’s grace and his own faith. This is what we believe. I’m sorry if it offends you to state it.

13) Of course there are hundreds of particulars I don’t know about. I’d have to see those to comment.

14) If your brief deconversion is so woefully inadequate, why put it on your blog at all? Of what good is it if it doesn’t explain 1/100th of your journey? Why don’t you take it down? It will actually mislead people, if it is so bad and utterly incomplete. . . . take the Reader’s Digest version down since no one can understand you without reading your book. I find that strange. I don’t require someone to read any of my books before they would have the slightest inkling of the cause of my conversion. They can learn that in about 15 pages. Anyone who has a head on his shoulders should be able to summarize complex reasons into an abridged version. This is the heart of what it means to be a good teacher. In my upcoming book [The One-Minute Apologist] I had to take major Christian doctrines and distill the defense of them into two pages each. This was very difficult! I think you could do similarly with your deconversion: certainly in 20-30 pages folks could get the main reasons for it.

15) I would be happy to read it [John’s book] and reply, provided I get it in html or Word or some computer format, for free. I also would need to see some semblance of open-mindedness and good-natured spirit of dialogue from you before I would even consider spending that much time. I spent four hours last night. To answer your book with another million objections to Christianity would take possibly an entire week or more (if I were to devote myself to a thorough dismantling of the atheology therein). But if all you intend to do is call me a “joke” and spew a bunch of paranoid nonsense, as here, forget it. My time is too valuable for that sort of silliness.

16) I just think it’s very sad that an intelligent person like you can offer nothing but mockery and name-calling when someone gives you a (I think) thoughtful critique of your deconversion. You should welcome the opportunity as a chance to disprove Christianty by disposing of the critique. Instead you take the fool’s way out of epithets and irrational dismissal and false attribution of any number of mythical characteristics to your dialectical opponent.

No one is impressed by that. I don’t think even your fellow atheists (at least the more rational, less emotional ones) would be all that heartened by this pathetic performance (if not downright embarrassed).

I think you can do a whole lot better than this. You have three Masters degrees, for heaven’s sake. If you can’t even respond rationally and calmly to a critique of this nature then all that does is confirm in our minds all the more that the basis of your conversion was not so much rational as it was emotional and non-rational (or that you are so insecure in your atheism that perhaps your conscience is being troubled by criticism of it and you are on your way back to Christianity). You know the old saying: “the drowning man fights the hardest right before he succumbs.”

Is that the impression you wanna give? “Come to atheism, for all the wrong reasons or none at all, or just because of sheer emotionalism! If anyone questions my ‘reasons’ I’ll pretend he thinks I am a dishonest, rascally idiot, call him a ‘joke’ (three times) and dare him to read to read my book so I can ignore his critique and mock him again!”

If atheism is true, my friend, it ain’t gonna be because of this kind of reaction. Nor will these melodramatic histrionics convince anyone.

17) I did no psychology. I never attempted mind-reading. It’d be awful nice if you pointed out where you thought I did this. But something I did is obviously extremely threatening to you. A guy as educated as you becoming literally unhinged over a simple Christian response to your deconversion? Something’s going on. I have no clue what, but I am experienced [enough] to identify an extremely irrational reply when I see one. I realize others are personally attacking you at the present time, but it doesn’t follow that this was my motivation or intention. It was not at all.

18) I responded to the words you wrote. Apparently that is a novelty to you. I think it is rather humdrum and ho-hum: one guy responding to another, after being asked to do so.

19) [John] To think you could pompously proclaim you are better than me is beyond me when you don’t know me.

Where did I do that, pray tell? For the life of me I don’t remember doing so.

20) So let me get this straight. You claim I think I am “better” than you, when I don’t at all. Then you take the false premise and build a castle of sand atop it: now it is supposedly a defensive mechanism I use. And this after you have been bitching about me supposedly doing inappropriate psychoanalysis of you. That’s precious.

21) I can’t comment on something you write? I didn’t exceed any proper bounds. I simply replied to what was there. There is always some speculation with conversion stories. I don’t think they have to necessarily be outrageously presumptuous, as you seem to think.

22) [John] No freebie book for you either (Are you in the habit of asking for handouts? Then take up a collection).

No skin off my back. I’d be glad to give you any of my 11 e-books for free. I wouldn’t even consider it a handout. I would consider it part of my duty as an apologist.

23) For that matter, don’t reviewers of books get them for free? Think of all the free advertising on a Catholic site John could get. What a golden opportunity! But are reviewers’ copies considered “handouts”? 

24) If I ever see John’s book for a quarter at an AAUW book sale, I’ll pick it up. But my budget is too limited to buy atheist books: especially from those currently with an axe to grind against me.

I also responded to another atheist on my blog:

What truly baffles me about all this hysterical response is: how do you atheists expect a Christian apologist to respond to a deconversion story? I defend Christianity (I myself happen to be a professional apologist, in fact). 

This sort of story starts with the assumption that it gives a rational basis for the rejection of Christianity. Obviously, then, my task is to show how the reasons given fail in their purpose. What do you expect? That I’ll say, “well, reasons 4, 12, and 23 are compelling against Christianity. Therefore, I resign my vocation as an apologist immediately and reject Christianity”?

How ridiculous will this become? Of course I will disagree with the reasons offered, as long as I remain a Christian and an apologist. If I didn’t, I would be in the wrong line of work. This is some terrible, unspeakable crime, that an apologist is an apologist, and a Christian a Christian (hence reasons like one)?

What is so scandalous and outrageous about an apologist for position x showing how the reasons person y (former adherent of x) gives for rejecting x are groundless or insufficient as a basis for rejecting x?

What did you expect? I gave my reasons as to why I thought they were insufficient. Atheists do this to Christians all the time. Actually, you do a great deal of non-rational stuff, whereas my reply was strictly within the bounds of reasoned analysis. 

You subject us to endless mockery, assume that we are ignoramuses, make fun of our worship and most deeply-held beliefs, call us “insane” (I’ve seen that more than once at Debunking Christianity), cut down the God we believe in, belittle Jesus by saying He didn’t even exist, attempt to rip the Bible to shreds, make out that Christian biblical ethics are utterly abominable (John did that this very day at Triablogue), and on and on and on. There is no end to it. And don’t try to deny it. Proof is abundant and easily obtained.

Yet if we dare turn the tables and simply disagree with your ideas, then all hell breaks loose. It’s Chicken Little. I don’t buy it. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. You can’t take your own medicine. If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

How does it help your case to shamelessly lie about opponents? Whether I am an arrogant SOB or not is for others to judge. I say I am confident. Admittedly it is a fine line sometimes between that and arrogance. But for John and others to say that I have hatred or think he is an evil person or damned and all this rotgut that I supposedly think, is completely groundless, unethical and uncalled-for. 

As I’ve found in other such conflicts (the bane of the apologist’s life — and often sadly coming from fellow Christians), once the irrational anger sets in, then even conciliatory explanations are disregarded and themselves mocked and assumed to be insincere. 

I’ve stated repeatedly that I bear no ill will against John, that it isn’t personal, that I don’t think he is an especially “bad” person (since we Christians think all men are fallen sinners). I’ve tried to explain how Catholics don’t judge a person (even an atheist or former Christian) as damned. We don’t have the Calvinist view that someone who rejected faith necessarily could never have had it. So I don’t have to deny this in John’s case.

So am I to be believed or not? Why do you want to make something a rotten ugly thing when it is simply an honest disagreement? What is so difficult about this to understand? I wrote about your own deconversion story and you didn’t hit the roof and immediately vomit up gallons of personal attacks and knee-jerk reactions against me. You did nothing. How preferable and dignified compared to John’s hyper-sensitive, hysterical “reply”!!!

I note once again that John asked me to respond to his deconversion after he saw that I did so with you. Man, next time I’ll think twice before fulfilling an atheist’s request to critique some writing of theirs . . . I don’t suffer the folly of groundless attack in place of reasonable discussion very well at all. Only my enjoyment of the absurd, ironic humor of it all saves me from lots of potential sins in reacting to this hogwash . . . 

 

2023-05-01T11:35:59-04:00

Last updated on: May 1, 2023 at 11:35 am   By
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This is a reply to a guest article on Jonathan MS Pearce’s atheist blog, by “Lex Lata”: a sharp and civil atheist commentator (a professor?), with whom I have had some stimulating dialogue now and then. It’s entitled, “Canaan begat Israel: What the Bible gets wrong about Hebrew origins” (4-16-23). His words will be in blue; those of others whom he cites in green.

*****

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Prominent maximalist archaeologist James K. Hoffmeier concurs:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FOOTNOTES

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

2) Ibid., 183.

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

4) Ibid., 43.

5) Ibid., 34.

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

7) Hoffmeier, 42

8) Ibid., 43-44.

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

10) Kitchen, 304-305.

11) Kitchen, 497.

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

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

2022-12-15T13:42:36-04:00

Last updated on: December 15, 2022 at 1:42 pm   By

Atheist and anti-theist Bob Seidensticker runs the influential Cross Examined blog. I have critiqued 80 of his posts, but he hasn’t counter-replied to any of them. Nevertheless, he was gracious enough to send me a free e-book copy of his new volume, 2-Minute Christianity: 50 Big Ideas Every Christian Should Understand (May 2022). He (unsurprisingly) declined to discuss it back-and-forth, but at least we were civil and cordial. Since I have responded to so much of his material, over four-and-a-half years, I decided to see how many of the 50 issues raised by this book have already, in effect, been “resolved” in my existing writings. And I’ll add a few present responses as well. His words will be in blue.

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Bob writes in his Introduction: “Is Christianity true? If it is, it can withstand critique. If you have a religious belief, it should be grounded by evidence and reason.” The blurb on the Amazon book page adds: “If God wanted mindless faith, he wouldn’t have given you a mind.” Yep; I couldn’t agree more. That’s what I have devoted my life’s work to: offering evidence and reason for all aspects of the Christian faith (what is called “apologetics”). And so I’ll apply that goal to this book. It offers critiques; here I offer solid, superior Christian answers to them. Let the reader decide who has made a better, more convincing case. 

1 Map of World Religions

Let’s return to the map of world religions. Religions claim to give answers to life’s big questions, answers that science can’t give. . . . But the map shows that the religious answers to those questions depend on where you are. . . . We ask the most profound questions of all, and the answers are location specific? What kind of truth depends on location?

38 Christianity Without Indoctrination

39 The Monty Hall Problem

48 Religion Reflects Culture

No truth depends on location; I fully agree. I don’t deny that people’s opinions mostly arise from their environment (“we are what we eat”). But I go on to note that atheists are no different. So, for example, in England about 50% of the population is non-religious (which comes down to atheist or “practical atheist” — which I used to be, myself, up until age 18: living one’s life as if God doesn’t exist).

Therefore, by the very same reasoning that Bob offers, I’d bet good money that in twenty years from now, the atheist population will remain at least this high and maybe grow. And why would that be, if so? It’s precisely because most people adopt the religion or other worldview of their parents. So the atheist growing up in an intensely secularized English home will (big shock!) likely turn out to be an atheist, just as ostensibly Christian environments churn out Christians: at least in name only (sadly, often not much more).

Bob’s buddy and fellow Internet anti-theist John Loftus is very big on this argument. He calls it “the outsider test of faith.” I answered his argument over fifteen years ago, and (as usual) he decided not to grapple with my critique. Here is part of what I wrote:

Religion needs to be held with a great deal more rationality and self-conscious analysis for the epistemological basis and various types of evidences for one’s own belief. I believe everyone should study to know why they believe what they believe.

This “one becomes whatever their surroundings dictate” argument can be turned around as a critique of atheism. Many atheists — though usually not born in that worldview — nevertheless have decided to immerse themselves in atheist / skeptical literature and surround themselves with others of like mind. And so they become confirmed in their beliefs. We are what we eat. In other words, one can voluntarily decide to shut off other modes and ways of thinking in order to “convince” themselves of a particular viewpoint. That is almost the same mentality as adopting a religion simply because “everyone else” in a culture does so, or because of an accident of birth. People can create an “accident of one-way reading” too.

My position, in contrast, is for people to read the best advocates of any given debate and see them interact with each other. That’s why I do so many dialogues. John Loftus could write these papers, and they may seem to be wonderfully plausible, until someone like me comes around to point out the fallacies in them and to challenge some of the alleged facts. Read both sides. Exercise your critical faculties. Don’t just read only Christians or only atheists. Look for debates where both sides know their stuff and have the confidence to defend themselves and the courage and honesty to change their opinions if they have been shown that truth and fact demand it.

Another related “turn the tables” argument along these lines is to note that many famous atheists had either no fathers, or terrible ones, with whom they had little relationship (as I have written about). They projected that onto God as the Cosmic Father and rejected Him.

This was true with regard to atheists such as Freud, Marx, Feuerbach, Baron d’Holbach, Bertrand Russell, Nietzsche, Sartre, Camus, Schopenhauer, Hobbes, Samuel Butler, H. G. Wells, Carlyle, Madalyn Murray O’Hair, and Albert Ellis. Theology based on family relations or lack thereof? That’s hardly a rational or objective analysis. That proves nothing. But there you have it: many atheists have this background: a “map of atheist families” so to speak.

2 A Leaky Ark

This is not one sustained argument, but the typical atheist “100 questions at once” routine. No one can possibly answer all these questions at once (which is why this cynical tactic is often used), unless they have made a sustained, in-depth study of the matter, as I have.

To see the many articles I’ve written about it, please visit my Bible & Archaeology / Bible & Science collection, and  word-search “Noah’s Flood” and “Flood & Noah” for all the resources. Here I’ll make brief replies to a sampling of four of Bob’s innumerable rapid-fire “gotcha”” questions.

It would have required tens of thousands of big trees. Where did the wood come from?

We know that wood was available in northern Mesopotamia around 2900 BC (when and where I posit that a local Flood occurred) and could be shipped down the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to the plains where wood was scarce.

How could all the world’s species fit on board?

They didn’t have to, since it was a local Mesopotamian flood.

What did the carnivores eat while on the voyage?

I suggested a possible solution to that in a 2015 article.

A worldwide flood would have buried the bodies of animals from the same ecosystem together. . . . The fossil record doesn’t show this. . . . Geologists tell us there is no evidence for a worldwide flood, . . . 

Again, educated Catholics and Protestants alike have believed that the Flood was local, not worldwide (and that the Bible, rightly interpreted, is fully harmonious with this view), for well over a hundred years now. I addressed this straw man in a reply to atheist Jonathan MS Pearce a few months back.

3 The Bible’s Shortsighted View of the Universe

Here Bob mocks biblical cosmology, which he clearly doesn’t understand very well; and so he presents the usual caricatured, warped view of the biblical skeptic. I’ve written many articles along these lines:

Biblical Flat Earth (?) Cosmology: Dialogue w Atheist (vs. Matthew Green) [9-11-06]

Flat Earth: Biblical Teaching? (vs. Ed Babinski) [9-17-06]

Genesis Contradictory (?) Creation Accounts & Hebrew Time: + Refutation of a Clueless Atheist “Biblical Contradiction” [5-11-17]

Seidensticker Folly #21: Atheist “Bible Science” Absurdities [9-25-18]

Seidensticker Folly #23: Atheist “Bible Science” Inanities, Pt. 2 [10-2-18]

Carrier Critique #3: Bible Teaches a Flat Earth? [3-31-22]

4 Christianity as Society’s Burden

The period when Christianity was in charge in Europe didn’t stand out for the flowering of science and technology. There was innovation during the medieval period (eyeglasses, the water wheel, metal armor and gunpowder weapons, castles, crop rotation, and others), but that was in spite of Christianity, not because of it.

10 The Society that Christianity Gave Us

47 Christianity’s Big Promises

This is sheer nonsense and myth. Eminent physicist Paul Davies (as far as I can tell, a pantheist) stated in his 1995 Templeton Prize Address:

All the early scientists such as Newton were religious in one way or another. … science can proceed only if the scientist adopts an essentially theological world view.

Philosopher Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) expressed the same notion in his book Science and the Modern World (1925):

The inexpugnable belief that every detailed occurrence can be correlated with its antecedents in a perfectly definite manner … must come from the medieval insistence on the rationality of God …

My explanation is that the faith in the possibility of science, generated antecedently to the development of modern scientific theory, is an unconscious derivative from medieval theology.

One of the leading philosophers of science, Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996), elucidated the medieval background in his book, The Copernican Revolution (New York: Vintage Books / Random House, 1959):

After the Dark Ages the Church began to support a learned tradition as abstract, subtle, and rigorous as any the world has known … The Copernican theory evolved within a learned tradition sponsored and supported by the Church … (p. 106)

The centuries of scholasticism are the centuries in which the tradition of ancient science and philosophy was simultaneously reconstituted, assimilated, and tested for adequacy. As weak spots were discovered, they immediately became the foci for the first effective research in the modern world. … And more important than these is the attitude that modern scientists inherited from their medieval predecessors: an unbounded faith in the power of human reason to solve the problems of nature. (p. 123)

Loren Eiseley, an anthropologist, educator, philosopher, and natural science writer, who received more than 36 honorary degrees, and was himself an agnostic in religious matters, observed:

It is the Christian world which finally gave birth in a clear articulated fashion to the experimental method of science itself … It is surely one of the curious paradoxes of history that science, which professionally has little to do with faith, owes its origins to an act of faith that the universe can be rationally interpreted, and that science today is sustained by that assumption. (Darwin’s Centenary: Evolution and the Men who Discovered it, New York: Doubleday: 1961, p. 62)

In my research, I have discovered that Christians or theists were the founders of at least 115 different scientific fields (see the entire list). Here are a select 49 from that list (an asterisk denotes a Catholic priest):

  • Anatomy, Comparative: Georges Cuvier (1769-1832)  Astronomy, Big Bang Cosmology: Georges Lemaître (1894-1966*)
  • Atomic Theory: Roger Boscovich (1711-1787*) John Dalton (1766-1844)
  • Bacteriology: Louis Pasteur (1822-1895)
  • Biochemistry: Franciscus Sylvius (1614-1672) / Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794)
  • Biology / Natural History: John Ray (1627-1705)
  • Calculus: Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
  • Cardiology: William Harvey (1578-1657)
  • Chemistry: Robert Boyle (1627-1691)
  • Dynamics: Isaac Newton (1642-1727)
  • Electrodynamics: André-Marie Ampère (1775-1836) / James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879)
  • Electromagnetics: André-Marie Ampère (1775-1836) / Michael Faraday (1791-1867) / Joseph Henry (1797-1878) /
  • James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879)
  • Electronics: Michael Faraday (1791-1867) / John Ambrose Fleming (1849-1945)
  • Genetics: Gregor Mendel (1822-1884*)
  • Geology: Blessed Nicolas Steno (1638-1686*) / James Hutton (1726-1797)
  • Geophysics: Jose de Acosta (1540-1600*)
  • Hydraulics: Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) / Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
  • Hydrodynamics: Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
  • Mechanics, Celestial: Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)
  • Mechanics, Classical: Isaac Newton (1642-1727)
  • Mechanics, Quantum: Max Planck (1858-1947) / Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976)
  • Mechanics, Wave: Erwin Schrödinger (1887-1961)
  • Meteorology: Evangelista Torricelli (1608-1647) / Lazzaro Spallanzani (1729-1799*)
  • Neurology: Charles Bell (1774-1842)
  • Paleontology: John Woodward (1665-1728)
  • Paleontology, Vertebrate: Georges Cuvier (1769-1832)
  • Pathology: Marie François Xavier Bichat (1771-1802) / Thomas Hodgkin (1798-1866) / Rudolph Virchow (1821-1902)
  • Physics, Atomic: Joseph J. Thomson (1856-1940)
  • Physics, Classical: Isaac Newton (1642-1727)
  • Physics, Experimental: Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
  • Physics, Mathematical: Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) / Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695) / Isaac Newton (1642-1727)
  • Physics, Nuclear: Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937)
  • Physics, Particle: John Dalton (1766-1844)
  • Physiology: William Harvey (1578-1657)
  • Probability Theory: Pierre de Fermat (c. 1607-1665) / Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) / Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695)
  • Scientific Method: Francis Bacon (1561-1626) / Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) / Pierre Gassendi (1592-1655*)
  • Seismology: John Michell (1724-1793)
  • Stellar Spectroscopy: Pietro Angelo Secchi (1818-1878*) / Sir William Huggins (1824-1910)
  • Stratigraphy: Blessed Nicolas Steno (1638-1686*)
  • Surgery: Ambroise Paré (c. 1510-1590)
  • Taxonomy: Carol Linnaeus (1707-1778)
  • Thermochemistry: Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794)  Thermodynamics: James Joule (1818-1889) / Lord Kelvin (1824-1907)
  • Thermodynamics, Chemical: Josiah Willard Gibbs (1839-1903)  Thermodynamics, Statistical: James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879)  Thermokinetics: Humphrey Davy (1778-1829)
  • Transplantology: Alexis Carrel (1873-1944) Joseph Murray (b. 1919)
  • Volcanology: Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680*) / Lazzaro Spallanzani (1729-1799*) / James Dwight Dana (1813-1895)  Zoology: Conrad Gessner (1516-1565)

See also:

Reply to Atheist Scientist Jerry Coyne: Are Science and Religion Utterly Incompatible? [7-13-10]

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

Books by Dave Armstrong: Science and Christianity: Close Partners or Mortal Enemies? [10-20-10]

Albert Einstein’s “Cosmic Religion”: In His Own Words [originally 2-17-03; expanded greatly on 8-26-10]

Atheist French, Soviet, & Chinese Executions of Scientists [10-22-15]

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

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

The ‘Enlightenment’ Inquisition Against Great Scientists [National Catholic Register, 5-13-20]

Embarrassing Errors of Historical Science [National Catholic Register, 5-20-20]

Seidensticker Folly #44: Historic Christianity & Science [8-29-20]

5 Jesus, the Great Physician

15 The Bible Has No Recipe for Soap

In addition to soap, the Bible could have then added the basics of health care—when and how to use this soap, how boiling will purify water, how to build and site latrines, how to avoid polluting the water supply, how to respond to a plague, how germs transmit disease, the basics of nutrition, how to treat wounds, and so on. After health, it could outline other ways to improve society—low-tech ways to pump water, spin fiber, make metal alloys, keep livestock healthy, or improve crop yields.

Bob goes after the Bible as supposedly anti-medicine, because healings took place, and there is no recipe for soap. It’s not. I’ve written about this several times, too.

Demonic Possession or Epilepsy? (Bible & Science) [2015]

The Bible on Germs, Sanitation, & Infectious Diseases [3-16-20]

Bible on Germ Theory: An Atheist Hems & Haws (. . . while I offer a serious answer to his caricature regarding the Bible and genetics) [8-31-21]

6 Argument from Desire

Theistic Argument from Desire: Dialogue w Atheist [12-2-06]

Theistic Argument from Longing or Beauty, & Einstein [3-27-08; rev. 3-14-19]

Dialogue with an Agnostic: God as a “Properly Basic Belief” [10-5-15]

Implicit (Extra-Empirical) Faith, According to John Henry Newman [12-18-15]

Argument for God from Desire: Atheist-Christian Dialogue [8-7-17]

7 Psalm 22 Prophecy

Reply to Atheist on Messianic Prophecies (Zech 13:6, Ps 22) [7-3-10]

8 Ontological Argument

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9 Original Sin
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Trent Horn, “Is Original Sin Stupid?” (Catholic Answers, 7-10-18)
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Fr. Jerry J. Pokorski, “Original Sin, the Decoder of Human Nature” (Catholic Answers, 2-25-22)
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11 Paul’s Famous Creed
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Jesus “raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” is a reference to the book of Jonah (“Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights”), but the resurrection can’t be “according” to this scripture when the author of Jonah wasn’t making a prophecy. And this “prophecy” fails since Jesus was dead for only two nights, from Friday evening to Sunday morning.
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12 Christianity Answers Life’s Big Questions
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19 Kalam Cosmological Argument
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The only “begins to exist” we know of is the rearrangement of existing matter and energy. An oak tree begins with an acorn and builds itself from water, carbon dioxide, and other nutrients, but God supposedly created the universe ex nihilo (“out of nothing”). The apologist must then defend “Whatever begins to exist from nothing has a cause,” but there is no evidence to support this claim.
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16 Christianity Meets its Match [Mormonism]
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17 Euthyphro Dilemma
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Does God have such a fixed, external source of morality that he consults? Then Christians are caught on one horn of the dilemma. Or does the buck have to stop somewhere, and God is it? Then Christians are caught on the other horn. Neither makes God look good.
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18 Morality, Purpose, and Meaning
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Morality, purpose, and meaning don’t come from outside our world but have always been ours to define.
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34 Why Is Christianity Conservative?
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Perhaps most surprising is that Paul taught nothing about the Trinity, . . .
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This is dead-wrong and astonishingly ignorant . . . see his many many statements about the Trinity and deity of Christ in my compilations:
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Jesus is God: Hundreds of Biblical Proofs (RSV edition) [1982; rev. 2012]
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50 Biblical Proofs That Jesus is God [National Catholic Register, 2-12-17]
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21 God Loves the Smell of Burning Flesh
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22 Thought Experiment on Bible Reliability
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The time between when Matthew was written and our best copies, averaging the gap chapter by chapter, is two hundred years. It’s a little less for Luke and John and a little more for Mark. How do we know those books made it through that obscure dark period without significant change?
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31 25,000 New Testament Manuscripts
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I just wrote yesterday, in replying to another atheist:

The oldest extant manuscript for the Histories of the Greek historian Herodotus (c. 484 – c. 425 BC), for example, is Codex Laurentianus LXX, from the 10th century (see more information on his manuscripts). By my math that is 1300-1500 years after it was written. The History of the Peloponnesian War was written at the end of the 5th century BC by Thucydides (c. 460 – c. 400 BC). The earliest manuscript for it dates from the 11th century (1400-1500 years later). The Geography by Strabo (c. 64 BC – c. 24 AD) was composed shortly before the birth of Christ. The best manuscript is from the end of the tenth century (900-1,000 years later).

I think readers get the idea, without need of further examples. The moral of the story is: “don’t try to make out that biblical manuscripts or editorial / linguistic revisions, etc., are something wholly unique, or uniquely problematic.”

The classic example of extraordinary preservation of biblical texts is the complete Isaiah scroll from the Dead Sea Scrolls. One Christian website summarizes:

A significant comparison study was conducted with the Isaiah Scroll written around 100 B.C. that was found among the Dead Sea documents and the book of Isaiah found in the Masoretic text. After much research, scholars found that the two texts were practically identical. Most variants were minor spelling differences, and none affected the meaning of the text.

One of the most respected Old Testament scholars, the late Gleason Archer, examined the two Isaiah scrolls found in Cave 1 and wrote, “Even though the two copies of Isaiah discovered in Qumran Cave 1 near the Dead Sea in 1947 were a thousand years earlier than the oldest dated manuscript previously known (A.D. 980), they proved to be word for word identical with our standard Hebrew Bible in more than 95 percent of the text. The five percent of variation consisted chiefly of obvious slips of the pen and variations in spelling.”

So a measly two hundred years? That’s nothing . . .

23 Isaiah 53 Prophecy
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this suffering servant is likely the nation of Israel, punished through the Babylonian exile. This is also the traditional Jewish interpretation. In addition, any parallels between the Isaiah 53 “suffering servant” and Jesus are easily explained by the gospel authors using the Jewish scripture to embellish the gospels.
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24 Atheists Need the Christian Worldview
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“God did it” is no more useful or informative than “logic and arithmetic are just properties of our reality” or “that’s just the way it is” or even “I don’t know.” An interesting question has been suppressed, not resolved. In fact, by the theologian’s own reasoning, his answer rests in midair because he gives no reason to conclude God exists. His claim is no more believable than that from any other religion—that is, not at all.

The person who stops at “God did it” has stated an opinion only—an opinion with no evidence to support it. It doesn’t advance the cause of truth at all. Mathematics is tested, and it works. God is an unnecessary and unhelpful addition to the mix.

25 Transcendental Argument

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26 Women at the Tomb
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If Bob’s argument here were coherent and clear, I would provide some answer for it. But I read it three times and, for the life of me, I can’t figure out what in the world he is contending (it’s not the usual claim in resurrection disputes, of allegedly contradictory accounts), so I’ll pass. Bob’s writing — wrong though it invariably is  — is usually quite easy to understand. Since Bob won’t dialogue with me, I guess I’ll likely never find out. Not that I will lose any sleep over it or have an existential crisis . . .
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27 When God Lies
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God once lied through a prophet. King Ahab of Israel consulted his 400 prophets about an upcoming battle, and they assured him of success. Only one prophet predicted disaster, but he was correct. God wanted Ahab to die and authorized a spirit to cause the other prophets to lie to lure him into the battle.
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In the Exodus story, God hardened Pharaoh’s heart to prevent him from releasing the Israelites. The New Testament has God doing the same thing. To those destined for hell, “God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.”

The Jewish opponents of Jesus were treated the same way. They saw his miracles. They didn’t believe, but not because the evidence was poor, because they didn’t understand, or because they were stubborn. No, they didn’t believe because God deliberately prevented them from believing. “[God] has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, so they can neither see with their eyes, nor understand with their hearts.” But why harden the hearts of bad people? Were they going to do bad things of their own accord or not?

Perhaps atheists also don’t believe because God hardened their hearts. If so, why do they deserve hell?

God “Hardening Hearts”: How Do We Interpret That? [12-18-08]

28 Fruits of Christianity

Now consider hospitals. Christians might point to medieval hospitals to argue that they were pioneers in giving us the medical system we know today, but without science, a hospital can do nothing but give food and comfort. Church-supported hospitals centuries ago were little more than almshouses or places to die.

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

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

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

Carrier Critique #4: Bible & Disease & Medicine (+ Medical Advances Made in the Christian-Dominated Middle Ages) [3-31-22]

“Medieval medicine of Western Europe” (Wikipedia)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

29 Christianity Looks Invented

historians of religion tell us Yahweh looks like other Canaanite deities of the time. There were other tribes in Canaan, and the Bible mentions these—for example, Ammon, Midian, and Edom, as well as Israel—and each had its own god. This I’ve-got-my-big-brother-and-you-have-yours approach is henotheism, halfway between polytheism (lots of gods, and each affects our world) and monotheism (just one god—any others are imposters). With henotheism, each tribe assigned itself its own god. They acknowledged the existence of the other tribes’ gods but worshipped only one. Moloch was the god of the Ammonites, Chemosh was the god of the Midianites, and Yahweh was the god of the Israelites.

Yahweh looks like nothing but one more invented god.

35 Biblical Polytheism

42 The Combat Myth

46 God’s Kryptonite

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The Bible Teaches That Other “Gods” are Imaginary [National Catholic Register, 7-10-20]
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30 The Ten Commandments

Most Christians know the story of Moses and the Ten Commandments, but few realize that God created two very different versions of the Law.

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Or look at the practice of Christianity today. Why is there a Bible Answer Man radio program, and why does GotQuestions.org boast that it has more than half a million Bible questions answered? Shouldn’t God’s message be so clear that there would be no questions to answer? Why are there 1600-page books on systematic theology—why would the study of a perfect god need this? Why is it so complicated? 

Bible “Difficulties” Are No Disproof of Biblical Inspiration [National Catholic Register, 6-29-19]

“Difficulty” in Understanding the Bible: Hebrew Cultural Factors [2-5-21]

An Omniscient God and a “Clear” Bible [National Catholic Register, 2-28-21]

33 Recreating Christianity

Now imagine that all knowledge of Christianity were lost as well. A new generation might make up something to replace it, since humans seem determined to find the supernatural in our world, but they wouldn’t recreate the same thing. There is no specific evidence of the Christian God around us today. The only evidence of God in our world is tradition and the Bible. Lose them, and Christianity would be lost forever.

Bob comes up with this thought experiment and then provides the Christian and biblical answer to it:

The Bible comments on our thought experiment. It claims, “Since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” [Romans 1:20] But that’s exactly the problem—God is not clearly seen.

Having solved the problem, Bob simply denies that God is seen in His creation. Well, that’s his opinion. Virtually all of the greatest minds in the first several hundred years of scientific development agreed with this and were theists or Christians. So were many of the greatest philosophers in western civilization. They all saw what Bob can’t see. So how do we decide who is right? Even Einstein stated:

My religiosity consists of a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we can comprehend about the knowable world. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God. (To a banker in Colorado, 1927. Cited in the New York Times obituary, April 19, 1955)

Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe — a spirit vastly superior to that of man . . . In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort . . . (To student Phyllis Right, who asked if scientists pray; January 24, 1936)

Then there are the fanatical atheists . . . They are creatures who can’t hear the music of the spheres. (August 7, 1941)

My point is that perceiving God in the universe that He made is not utterly implausible or unable to be held by the most rigorous, “non-dogmatic” intellects, such as Albert Einstein and David Hume (who — contrary to a widespread myth — was a deist or “minimal theist” and actually accepted one form of the teleological argument). And the atheist has to account for that fact somehow, it seems to me. Hume wrote:

The order of the universe proves an omnipotent mind. (Treatise, 633n)

Wherever I see order, I infer from experience that there, there hath been Design and Contrivance . . . the same principle obliges me to infer an infinitely perfect Architect from the Infinite Art and Contrivance which is displayed in the whole fabric of the universe. (Letters, 25-26)

The whole frame of nature bespeaks an intelligent author; and no rational enquirer can, after serious reflection, suspend his belief a moment with regard to the primary principles of genuine Theism and Religion . . .

Were men led into the apprehension of invisible, intelligent power by a contemplation of the works of nature, they could never possibly entertain any conception but of one single being, who bestowed existence and order on this vast machine, and adjusted all its parts, according to one regular plan or connected system . . .

All things of the universe are evidently of a piece. Every thing is adjusted to every thing. One design prevails throughout the whole. And this uniformity leads the mind to acknowledge one author. (Natural History of Religion, 1757, ed. H.E. Root, London: 1956, 21, 26)

Now, I ask atheists: whence comes Einstein’s “deeply” felt “conviction” or Hume’s conclusion of “an infinitely perfect Architect”? Is it a philosophical reason or the end result of a syllogism? They simply have it. It is an intuitive or instinctive feeling or “knowledge” or “sense of wonder at the incredible, mind-boggling marvels of the universe” in those who have it. Bob doesn’t have this sense. But he has no rational or objective or logical basis with which to mock those — like Einstein and Hume — who do. Their experience is their own, just as Bob’s is his own: all equally valid in terms of the person’s subjective perspective or epistemological warrant.

36 Virgin Birth Prophecy

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

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37 God’s Hiddenness
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40 Historians Reject the Bible Story
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Here Bob says that historians reject the Gospels because they contain miracles. It’s too broad of a statement. Not all historians do so. Meanwhile, there continues to be a lot of archaeological and historical confirmation of the Gospels’ historical trustworthiness:
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Pearce’s Potshots #64: Archaeology & 1st Century Nazareth [2-25-22]

Ehrman Errors #11: Luke the Unreliable Historian? (Debunking Yet More of the Endless Pseudo-“Contradictions” Supposedly All Over the Bible) [3-28-22]

King Herod Agrippa I (d. 44 AD) Eaten By Worms: Pure Myth & Nonsense or Scientifically Plausible? [Facebook, 10-8-22]

41 Who Wrote the Gospels?
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How do we know the apostle Mark wrote the gospel of Mark? How do we know Mark recorded the observations of Peter, an eyewitness?

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43 The Crucifixion
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Here, Bob delves into deep waters of Christian soteriology (the theology of salvation): talking off the top of his head. There is no point in wrangling with him about such matters. He doesn’t even understand the elementary things of Christianity. He could no more grasp this than a two-year-old could comprehend calculus or the theory of relativity. As Paul explained in 1 Corinthians 2:14: “The unspiritual man does not receive the gifts of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.”
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44 Finding Jesus Through Board Games
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This is scarcely an argument. It’s basically a totally subjective, biased thought experiment. It carries no force or challenge, and so it need not be replied to.
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45 Jesus on Trial
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This is no argument, either. Rather, it is a plea for folks to remain open-minded and open to a change of mind. As one who has undergone many major changes of mind in my life: in religion, morals, political positions, and other matters, I completely agree!
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49 Religions Continue to Diverge
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This gist of this is that “religious folks disagree, therefore, no single religious view can possibly be true, or even largely true.” This is “epistemological kindergarten” thinking, and as such, deserves no further attention.
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50 The Great Commission
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Here, Bob preaches to Christians, authoritatively interprets several biblical injunctions, and suggests we be more like atheists. Not an argument . . .
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Photo credit: cover of Bob Seidensticker’s 2-Minute Christianity: 50 Big Ideas Every Christian Should Understand [Amazon book page]

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Summary: I provide answers to atheist anti-theist Bob Seidensticker’s “2-Minute” anti-Christian arguments: neatly compiled into fifty two-page provocative, polemical queries.

 

 

2022-03-31T15:00:01-04:00

Last updated on: March 31, 2022 at 3:00 pm   By

+ Medical Advances Made in the Christian-Dominated Middle Ages

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some other interesting facts regarding the Bible and germ theory:

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

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

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

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

See also: “Old Testament Laws About Infectious Diseases.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Medicine” from the same work:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Carrier claimed that the Bible never mentions soap. Wrong:

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Charlemagne (c. 742-814; Roman emperor)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

See also related materials:

“Medieval medicine of Western Europe” (Wikipedia)

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

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

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

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

Philosophy, Science & Christianity (my web page)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Photo credit: Thigh Cauterisation [Wellcome Images; refer to Wellcome blog post (archive) / Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license / Wikimedia Commons]

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Summary: Atheist Richard Carrier trots out the usual ignorant accusations about the Bible & disease & medicine, & the supposed lack of medical science in the Middle Ages.

 

2021-10-22T17:30:53-04:00

Last updated on: October 22, 2021 at 5:30 pm   By

Atheist anti-theist Jonathan M. S. Pearce is the main writer on the blog, A Tippling Philosopher. His “About” page states: “Pearce is a philosopher, author, blogger, public speaker and teacher from Hampshire in the UK. He specialises in philosophy of religion, but likes to turn his hand to science, psychology, politics and anything involved in investigating reality.” His words will be in blue; words of fellow atheist John Loftus in green, and those of eric in purple.

*****

Presently, I am responding to his article, “God Is Unfair – An Accident of History and Geography Syllogism” (10-21-21).

[I]f you were an Arab born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in 1996, you are incredibly unlikely to be a Hindu; indeed, it is almost certain that you will grow up being a Muslim. Likewise, you are unlikely to grow up with primal-indigenous beliefs of the Amazon growing up in a Lutheran community in Bible Belt USA. Parents, families, communities and societies so often define who we become and what we believe.

There are, and this is an indisputable fact, distinct concentrations of religions around the world. Christians may be concentrated in Europe, South and North America, and other pockets of colonial history. Islam prevails in the Middle East, North Africa, subcontinental India, and the islands of the Indian Ocean. Shintos primarily exist in Japan, Hindus in India and thereabouts.

The challenge for religionists is that most religions have it wrong. That is, religions are mutually exclusive. If I am a Muslim, I believe that the Muslim religion and revelation are correct, and a more accurate representation of reality than that which Jain believes (almost certainly) in India. And if access to heaven or hell, or nirvana, or whatever afterlife it is, or if access to God (whichever god this is), or if access to the fruits of belief in the correct god, depends upon believing in the correct god, then there is a lot on the line.

However, given the serious implications of belief, it seems rather bizarre that OmniGod would design, create and arrange the world (or allow the world to develop) in such a way that most people don’t rationally survey the smorgasbord of religious offerings and then, using logic and reason, assent to the correct one. Instead, they are overwhelmingly born into any given religion.

The belonging to a particular religion depends on where and when they were born.

And that might well be the component of their existence that informs the verdict of whether or not they access the good stuff or get condemned to the bad stuff. Perhaps for eternity.

…

It gets worse when you consider the vagaries of history. Imagine being born into Egyptian or Aboriginal Australian culture in 5,000 BCE, before the events of the Hebrew Bible or the Christian Bible (i.e., Old and New Testaments). Now imagine that Christianity is the one true religion. How is it fair, when one has no control over when and where one is born, that one is born into one of those contexts? The person would have absolutely no chance of being able to access the correct divine revelation upon which rests the reward of heaven or the punishment of hell.

Okay, now back to me again. (As opposed to me.)

What I meant to know is if this syllogism works, or could be improved. It’s informal, language-wise:

But with most versions of God as we understand them, and given religious exclusivity, the scenario presented in this argument is as follows:

(1) Our beliefs will define whether we get the good stuff or don’t (heaven, hell, loving union with God, etc.).

(2) Our beliefs (globally) are overwhelmingly defined by when and where we are born.

(3) From (1) and (2), whether we get the good stuff or not is overwhelmingly defined by when and where we are to be born.

(4) We have no control over when and where we are to be born.

(5) Most people are born into the “wrong” places, where beliefs prevail that preclude them from getting the good stuff.

(6) From (3) – (5), most people, overwhelmingly, have no control over whether they get the good stuff (reward) or not (punishment).

(7) It is unfair to be punished or rewarded for things over which we have no control.

(8) God, being ultimately powerful and responsible, has control over everything – when and where we are to be born, the entire world into which we are to be born, who is to be rewarded and punished, and how, etc.

(9) God designs and creates a world in which it knowingly allows most people to overwhelmingly have no control over the good stuff or not.

(10) From (5), (8) and (9), God designs and creates a world in which most people are punished and, overwhelmingly, have control over their punishment.

(11) From (7) – (10), therefore, God is unfair.

***

[the material below comes from combox exchanges]

Joe DeCaro [Christian of some sort]: Although being born into a particular religion may depend on where one is born, staying in that faith, or finding another is up to the individual, not his birthplace, or even his family. * So how can someone in an Amazon rainforest realistically do this? Don’t look at things from your projected Christocentric point of view. Remember, your system might be wrong and Shintoism might hold, instead. * By learning to read and at length think critically, by means of education, becoming familiar with the options of what one can believe, and making his or her own choice, rather than just automatically being what is surrounding him and her.****

The belonging to a particular religion depends on where and when they were born.

If we apply this analysis to you and I, we see that it fits far more in your case: with your atheist worldview. England is one of the most secularized and post-Christian societies in the world, with a population of atheists at or around 50% or so (what a wonderful place: my ancestral homeland!). Some 2% of Christians there go to church regularly (I’ve heard that more Catholics do so than Anglicans now).

So you have simply adopted the prevailing view around you (more atheists and agnostics than anything else), just as someone in the jungles in a primitive tribe grows up animist, or someone in lower western Michigan (my state) tends to be a Calvinist, or the New Englander tends to be very theologically liberal (lots of, e.g., Unitarians) or agnostic. We are what we eat.

In my case, on the other hand, I started out with what might be said to be the prevailing religious view in America: a nominal, vague Protestantism (in my family’s case, Methodist): not talked about much and merely a private, subjective affair (very typically sociologically “Methodist”). I stopped going to church regularly at ten years old and did not again do so till I was 22. That was not the norm at all in the US in the late 60s and 70s. Then I converted to evangelical Protestantism in 1977, which was indeed a sociological trend at that time, but still by no means the majority of the population.

Then I became a Catholic at age 32. That’s in no way the norm in the US, which is about 25% Catholic. Then if you break down Catholics to those (like myself) who attend Mass every week and believe all that the Church teaches (including all the dreaded sexual stuff), it’s probably 10-15% of Catholics and so 2.5-4% of the entire population.

That makes me quite the nonconformist, as I always have been in my life after age 10. I have the belief of between 1 out of 40 people and 1 in 25 folks in the US. If I am walking down the street in the downtown of a large city, I’d have to work very hard to find someone with my same general observant, “orthodox” Catholic beliefs. But I could easily find a religious nominalist or even agnostic within the first three or four people I talked to.

Therefore, it comes down to the individual: to education, ability to think critically and compare the relative plausibility and rationality of competing belief-systems and acting accordingly. We have both become educated, made those choices, and written in defense of our views. In that way we are alike,. But if we do your present analysis and look to see who is more similar to what surrounds him, it’s you, far and away.

It follows that your present analysis (the recycled “outsider test of faith”) casts your own choice of belief in question far more than it does in my case. How ironic, huh?

***

This [argument in the OP] is nothing new. You’re simply recycling (as you must know) Jittery John Loftus’ “Outsider Test of Faith” argument. I’ve refuted that twice (of course with no counter-reply from him, as usual; not even the volcanic explosion for which he is infamous): * Reply to Atheist John Loftus’ “Outsider Test of Faith” Series [9-30-07] * Loftus Atheist Error #4: The Outsider Test for Faith [9-5-19]*So what does the self-respecting atheist do when a Christian refutes their argument (or — to be more neutral, puts up something clearly plausible as a possible counter-explanation)? He or she ignores it, with or without the put-downs and insults, waits a few months, and repeats the same argument again, as if repetition is an indicator of the strength of an argument. * This is not the outsider test for faith, as far as I can tell.That argument is something like “looked at from an external perspective, Christianity makes little sense”This argument is more classically theological, and is better summarized as a version of “it is unfair to send people to hell for not believing in Jesus, when they had no practical way to believe in Jesus.” * Yeah, I’m taking what Loftus’ book discusses in the beginning in order to take it’s off into a problem of evil argument. Loftus, on the other hand, uses this same basis to express his otf [outsider test of faith] from there. But that is an epistemological argument. I’m glad you recognise this even if David didn’t… * It’s simply a variant. The original argument is obviously construed as reflecting on God and His alleged abominable “unfairness.” All you do is make that more explicit (Loftus eventually gets to blaming God, too, just like all good atheists do). It’s nothing new. Atheists see the problem of evil behind every rock and do all they can to ignore their own far more thorny “problem of good.” * Of course he blames god. Who else do you think has ultimate control of the universe and designed and created it knowingly?[responding to eric]

You need not take my word for it. Listen to John Loftus himself, from his book, Why I Became an Atheist (revised version, 2012, 536 pages):

His chapter 3 is entitled, “The Outsider Test for Faith” (pp. 64-78). Loftus summarizes this argument of his as follows:

(1) Rational people in distinct geographical locations around the globe overwhelmingly adopt and defend a wide diversity of religious faiths due to their upbringing and shared cultural heritage.

(2) [T]o an overwhelming degree, one’s religious faith is causally dependent upon cultural conditions.

From (1) and (2) it follows that:

(3) It is highly likely that any given adopted religious faith is false.

Given these odds we need a test, or an objective standard, to help us determine if our inherited religious faith is true, so I propose that:

4) The best and probably the only way to test one’s adopted religious faith is from the perspective of an outsider with the same level of skepticism one uses to evaluate other religious faiths.

. . . I’m not arguing that religious faiths are completely culturally relative and therefore all false because of religious diversity. I’m merely arguing that believers should be very skeptical of their faith because of these cultural factors. . . . (p. 65)

If you were born in Saudi Arabia you would be a Sunni Muslim right now. . . . If you were born in the first century BCE in Israel, you’d adhere to the Jewish faith, and if you were born in Europe in 1200 CE, you’d be a Roman Catholic.. . . In short, we are overwhelmingly products of our times. (p. 66)

At the very minimum, believers should be willing to subject their faith to rigorous scrutiny by reading many of the best-recognized critiques of it. For instance, Christians should be willing to read this book of mine and others I’ve published. (p. 68)

[T]hey can no longer start out by believing that the Bible is true . . . nor can they trust their own anecdotal religious experiences, since such experiences are had by people of all religious faiths who differ about the cognitive content learned as the result of these experiences. (pp. 68-69)

If after you have investigated your religious faith with the presumption of skepticism, you find that it passes intellectual muster, you can have your religious faith. It’s that simple. If not, abandon it. (p. 71)

I proceed to refute this in my two papers linked above. In my longer reply to Jonathan [in the combox; seen above], one can see (basically) how it is done. It applies just as much to atheists as it does to anyone else, and so the argument essentially reduces to a “wash.”

You literally don’t get it. My argument above is not an epistemological argument in that same way. * In the past, when you actually still argued point-by-point with me, you yourself asserted that saying God is “unfair” in your analyses, is essentially the same as saying that He doesn’t exist. You summarized your viewpoint twice, as follows:

(1) God is OmniGod (classical theism: -potent, -scient, -benevolent).

(2) Part of OmniGod’s necessary characteristics would be fairness.

(3) God desires humanity to believe in him and to enter into a loving relationship with him.

(4) Belief isn’t just blind faith and requires some basis in evidence for what is to be believed (e.g., the Bible, being able to touch Jesus, personal revelation etc.).

(5) This evidence is unevenly distributed amongst the population over time and place (i.e., from 0% to 99.9% – e.g., perhaps Thomas).

(6) Unfair distribution of evidence (over which God has sovereign control) is unfair and favours certain people.

(7) Therefore God is either unfair (not OmniGod) or does not exist.

And a more compact version:

1. God is fair (as part of OmniGod theism).
2. We live in a world where humans appear to not have “equality of access to God” (EOAG).
3. If God was to be fair, he would give every human identical EOAG.
4. To give every human identical EOAG, God would have to create some sort of homogenous world.
5. Homogenous worlds are in some sense less perfect/good/desirable than the sort of world we live in.
6. Therefore, there is some good reason (skeptical theism) – a greater good – that God has created a world where humans appear to not have EOAG.
7. (Or god does not exist or is not OmniGod.)

From: “It Turns out the Whole Unfairness of Evidence Apportioning Boils down to “Free Will” “ (3-21-21). I have dealt with this “unfairness” business at least six times in the last seven months:

Debate w Atheists: Doubting Thomas & an “Unfair” God [3-17-21]

Pearce’s Potshots #17: Doubting Thomas & an “Unfair” God [3-17-21]

Pearce’s Potshots #18: Doubting Thomas & Evidence [3-18-21]

Pearce’s Potshots #19: Doubting Thomas & a “Mean God” [3-19-21]

Debate w Atheists on the Allegedly “Unfair” & “Hidden” God [3-21-21]

Pearce’s Potshots #20: Unfair Meanie God & Unfree Will [5-7-21]

Saying god is [not] fair is saying the OmniGod doesn’t exist.

Exactly my point. You end by asserting “God is unfair” (one of your favorite mantras). Of course, you don’t believe God exists, so in effect you are saying, “this unfairness that results from the way things are is proof that God doesn’t exist in the first place, because by definition He is supposedly ‘fair’ and benevolent.” You don’t think there is an “unfair” God up there somewhere. You think God is nonexistent, and you provide as one evidence of that, the supposed massive unfairness of the way things are.

As usual, I go right to your presuppositions, like a good socratic.

I was grappling with philosopher Ted Drange, using a variant of the same argument, in 2003. He wrote a good capsule summary of his position:

It is not that atheism is obviously true, but that ANB [argument from non-belief] (which very few people know about) is obviously sound. The concept is so very simple: If God were to exist then he would want people to be aware of the gospel message (what his son did for them) and could cause them to be aware of it. But most people on our planet do not even believe the gospel message. Hence, God does not exist.

See:

Atheist Argument From Non-Belief (vs. Dr. Ted Drange) [2-26-03]

Debate: Argument from Non-Belief (ANB) (vs. Steve Conifer) [2-26-03]

As usual you are already employing your increasingly frequent tactic of completely dismissing what I say without even grappling with it at all. In other words, you’re becoming more and more like Loftus, Seidensticker, and Madison every day. At least in the “old days” you would put up some kind of fight and counter-reply.

But to do so puts you in hot water with 90% of the commenters here and (I get it from the human perspective) you just don’t have the energy and will power to resist all that social pressure. It’s much easier to join in on the fun and play the game of “Armstrong [and by extension all Christian nonconformists posting here] is a clueless ignoramus who need not detain us even for five minutes.”

The argument in the OP is one big whopper. God judges based on what people know and what they do with that knowledge (see Romans 2 and other similar passages): not based on what they don’t know; supposedly punishing them for ignorance that they can’t help. This is simply atheist mythology. It plays well to the choir, but unfortunately for the argument it’s not Christian teaching. The only ones you could pin such a teaching on is the Calvinists, who are a tiny minority of Christianity now and always in the past (after they sprang into existence 1500 years after Christ).

***

All these arguments along these lines amount to the same thing: “God is an unfair meanie in fact; the Bible presents a fair, benevolent God; therefore the biblical God is a fairy tale, like leprechauns and unicorns.” In a broader sense, it’s merely an application of the good ol’ Problem of Evil (atheism’s favorite argument by far).

I think I show how the argument fails. I engaged in three long dialogues with Jonathan on this in the past. In charity, I’ll assume that’s why he isn’t engaging me now. But he generally doesn’t engage me at length anymore. I continue to engage his arguments.

I would say that reason and evidence (if only folks come across them and are willing to look for them) do clearly point to one true religion: Christianity. I’m not denying that at all. Atheists and radical secularists, Marxists, etc. do their best to suppress any such evidence by mocking and ignoring (processes that are literally constant on this forum and others like it) and even legally suppressing it, so it’s more difficult to get it out.

The difficulty (I agree it is one) is to account for large portions of the world who are not Christians and who have never heard the Christian saving Gospel of God becoming man and dying on our behalf, to make a way to go to heaven.

The biblical solution was for Christians to communicate the Gospel far and wide (the missionary impulse). We have miserably failed in that task and very few Christians are interested in doing that. Of course, God knew this would happen (that had been “Plan A” so to speak), and so He has a way (“Plan B”) that those who haven’t heard can also possibly be saved (therefore, He is “fair”).

Those who never heard the Gospel or learned of true Christianity (not the many counterfeit versions) are judged by what they truly know and how they act upon it. So, for example, if a person grasps and accepts the ethical precept of the Golden Rule, and consistently acts upon it, that counts for a great deal in God’s eyes, and He will respond accordingly and be merciful on Judgment Day.

On the other hand, Christians who know that and much more, and fail to act upon what they know; fail to love others, are — we have strong reason to believe, right from Jesus — in distinct danger of damnation. Just calling themselves Christian doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. In the Bible, the goal is always not just correct belief (orthodoxy) but also correct action based on those beliefs (orthopraxy).

Jonathan made it clear, by saying “Saying god is on fair is saying the OmniGod doesn’t exist” [I take it he meant “unfair” or “not fair” there].

Atheist arguments in the end always seek to disprove God’s existence; not to prove that He does exist, but is a terrible moron and a Beast (which would be the position of something like Satanism). Seeking to show He is “unfair” is simply a reductio ad absurdum technique, in order to seek to force the Christian to admit the alleged dilemma and give up belief in the benevolent God of Christian, biblical theism.

***

The outsider test for faith is not the problem of evil.

It’s asking whether a true outsider would derive Christianity from the evidence they see around them. Or would they derive Hinduism, or some
other religion. Do the facts of the world support the existence of souls that go on to heaven? Do they support the existence of souls that
reincarnate into other animals? Or do the facts not really support any soul hypothesis at all? Or do they support some other hypothesis?
That’s the outsider test.

It would be entirely possible for the world to be such a way that everyone, even aliens and other radical notions of ‘outsider’, agrees there is some entity behind it. In that case, entity-belief would pass the outsider test. And it wouldn’t matter how much evil or suffering there would be in the world, because they are two entirely different arguments.

And Loftus arguing both on different occasions doesn’t make them the same argument, any more than your argument for a localized flood is “simply a variant” on your argument that the Christmas star was Jupiter. Same person, different aspects but the same theology, two different arguments.

What you describe was indeed the first part of Jonathan’s argument in the OP.

The arguments differ in some secondary characteristics, but the bottom line (and that’s what I always focus on, as a socratic) is that God is unfair (itself a version of the Problem of Evil), which for the atheist is “evidence” that He doesn’t exist, just as Jonathan stated twice in one reply to me:

(7) Therefore God is either unfair (not OmniGod) or does not exist. . . .

7. (Or god does not exist or is not OmniGod.)

***

[replying to Joe DeCaro above] Atheists believe that:

1) God doesn’t exist, but that nevertheless,

2) they (at least the online anti-theist types like Jonathan) must be obsessed with Him 24-7 and become angry at how mean and terrible this non-entity supposedly is; how unjust the world with God, er, without God, is: so unfair and tyrannical.

Don’t try to make rational sense of it. It’s impossible. Their thoroughly inconsistent behavior gives them away every time.

***

As I said, the two [arguments: “outsider test of faith” and Jonathan’s current one] are not absolutely  identical. Much ado about nothing. They’re identical in the first part [which is what I was initially referring to] and then go off in different directions, like intersecting circles. Nearly all atheist arguments, however, have the goal of showing or at least heavily implying that God doesn’t exist. That’s my main focus: challenging the atheist as to the route they take to reach such a conclusion.

***

Photo credit: Darrenjsmith (1-30-11). Monks outside the temple at the Tibetan Buddhist monastery, Rato Dratsang, in India [Wikimedia Commons / Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license]

***

Summary: Atheist JMS Pearce regurgitates his “Unfair God” argument, which is a variant of the “outsider test of belief” & “argument from non-belief” (failed) atheist arguments.

2021-10-02T13:06:27-04:00

Last updated on: October 2, 2021 at 1:06 pm   By

Atheist anti-theist Jonathan M. S. Pearce is the main writer on the blog, A Tippling Philosopher. His “About” page states: “Pearce is a philosopher, author, blogger, public speaker and teacher from Hampshire in the UK. He specialises in philosophy of religion, but likes to turn his hand to science, psychology, politics and anything involved in investigating reality.” His words will be in blue.

*****

Jonathan managed to scrounge up a desperate pseudo-pseudo-quasi-“reply” [choke] to my most recent paper on Noah’s Flood with passing references to my earlier primary one: Local Mesopotamian Flood: An Apologia. He completely ignored another preliminary paper (Local Flood & Atheist Ignorance of Christian Thought), that dealt with biblical language, and why virtually all Christians scholars believe in a local, not a universal Flood.

It’s a case study of intellectual evasion and cowardice and relentless unwillingness to engage point-by-point, with the usual mockery and condescension that we have come to know and love from almost all atheists (at least of the anti-theist variety) who interact online with Christians at all. He calls his “reply” God, Floods, Miracles and Evidence (10-1-21).

It’s an argument about physical evidence, and, of course, there is no physical evidence for it – whether global or regional. 

It’s also an argument from analogy, dealing with the science of what is possible and what could have been entailed in Noah’s Flood. Part of Jonathan’s argument is that even a local Flood, such as what I proposed, is not possible according to the laws of science and specifically of the behavior and characteristics of water, storm systems, etc. Therefore, if I show that it is indeed possible, his counter-argument is defeated. In that respect, it is not simply about literal physical evidence. But there actually is some of that (that Jonathan ignored or never read: per his usual sloppy and unsystematic modus operandi.

The scientific article that I mostly relied on, from geologist Carol A. Hill, was “Qualitative Hydrology of Noah’s Flood”, Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith (Volume 58, Number 2, June 2006). She maintained:

At Shuruppak, and also at Uruk, the last Jemdet Nasr remains are separated from the subsequent Early Dynastic I Period by clean, water-lain clay deposited by a flood. This clay is nearly five feet thick at Uruk [60] and two feet thick at Shuruppak. [61] Since the Sumerian King List mentions that Noah (Ziusudra) lived in Shuruppak (today the archaeological mound of Fara), and since Noah is believed to have lived during the Jemdet Nasr Period, [62] then these sediments date from the right time and place and may be deposits left by Noah’s Flood. [c. 2900 BC]

A popular misconception is that a great inundation such as Noah’s Flood should have left a widespread layer of sediment all over Mesopotamia. If flood deposits occur at Shuruppak (Fara), then why not at nearby Kish? Why have no flood deposits been found at Ur that correspond to Noah’s Flood, and why in the city-mound of Ur do some pits contain thick flood deposits while other pits nearby contain no flood deposits?

This presumed problematic situation is completely understandable to hydrologists—in fact, it is what they expect. Floods erode sediment as well as deposit sediment. Rivers in vegetated terrain (like in northern Mesopotamia) are capable of eroding less sediment than in unvegetated, clay-silt terrain (like in southern Mesopotamia). Rivers may scour and down cut sediment along steep gradients, whereas they may deposit sediment in shallow-gradient situations. Or, sediment left from the waters of one flood may be removed by erosion in a later flood. Most Mesopotamian cities were located close to former river channels or canals since commerce and transportation depended on these waterways.

Apologist Dave Armstrong was complaining that I wasn’t interacting with his apologia for a localised flood. So I half-read it. I say half because I got halfway down and couldn’t take any more. I declared, “I literally don’t understand how someone can rationally assent to the claim.”

There you have it folks. He not only refused to grapple with my paper (or it’s preliminary / introductory precursor) point-by-point, he also didn’t even read the whole thing. By his own estimate he only read “half” of it. This is not the response of one who is confident of his own positions, or who has a robust courage of his convictions. It’s sophistry and special pleading, obscurantism and obfuscation.

His first piece (linked above) essentially boils down to “God did a miracle” (we’ll get onto this in a bit) as well as, “but just in case he didn’t, here’s a bunch of modeling and ‘evidence’ to suggest it could well be natural”. He’s eating his cake and keeping it, too.

This is a gross caricature of my thought (what else is new with Jonathan?). Christian thinking with regard to the relationship of God, natural laws, and miracles is far more sophisticated than Jonathan thinks. I wrote:

Sometimes in the Bible God is described as having caused something that is actually natural. In these cases, the meaning would be that God “upholds” creation and/or caused the origin of natural laws in the first place, which now govern natural events, short of the rare miraculous divine intervention with a miracle. Other times it is purely miraculous . . .

Then I cited Carol Hill:

One does not have to invoke the notion of the suspension or violation of natural laws in “nature miracles.” Divine action can simply be understood as higher-order laws (God’s ultimate purpose) working seamlessly with lower order laws (God’s physical laws). Is it any less a miracle because it can be explained by natural processes? This is the nature of “nature miracles”: to have the timely intervention of God into natural processes.

One of the best examples of a “nature miracle” that comes to mind is Jesus rebuking the winds and sea (Matt. 8:23–26). In Matt. 8:26, the calming of the winds and sea could be explained by a sudden change of barometric pressure—which was probably the case. But it was God who caused this change to take place exactly when Christ commanded the waves and wind to be still.

The argument I made, accordingly, can and should be construed as a purely natural one, insofar as scientific analysis is brought to bear. Christians simply refuse to exclude God as the creator and upholder of the laws of nature that are capable of being observed and more deeply understood via the scientific method.

And when he does try to present natural evidence, he presents someone saying it might just about be done if x, y, z happened and there is a 40-day model of 2.75 inches of rain per hour and tapering off to “just” 1 inch per hour every hour for the next 110 days. Solid.

Yeah, as I said, I stopped reading after that.

That’s not interaction with an exceedingly nuanced and detailed argument that involved far, far more than the above. It’s selective presentation, mockery, and dismissal.

It also inaccurately reports what Dr. Alan Hill argued as to the rate of rainfall. It wasn’t 2.75 inches per hour for all forty days. It was a “peak” of 2.75 inches, then gradually “tapering” to one inch per hour at 40 days. As Figure 3A on page 135 shows, it’s actually two inches, thirty days in, gradually going down to one inch by forty days. Dr. Hill stated “in forty days”: meaning in context, “by forty days.” It then continues to drop, whereas Jonathan mischaracterized it as “1 inch per hour every hour for the next 110 days.” The graph in Figure 3A shows how this is false. The rate decreases to one-half inch by about 85 days and one-quarter inch by 110 days.

Dr. Hill notes: “Such rainfall rates are not unreasonable for large hurricanes.” Indeed, we can match and exceed them (for a 24-hour period) in examining the greatest historical rates of rainfall (since it has been recorded). Dr. Hill’s peak rate is 66 inches in 24 hours. That was surpassed on January 7-8, 1966, when 71.8 inches of rain fell in 24 hours on Reunion Island: approximately 670 kilometers east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean, during Tropical Cyclone Denise. Therefore, we know it is possible to rain that much in a day. But that’s only the “peak” figure, that only lasts a few days at most in Hill’s mathematical model.

The world record for a month’s rainfall is 366 inches [30.5 feet] at Cherrapunji, Meghalaya, India in July 1861. That’s 0.49 inches per day, which matches over a month’s time, Dr. Hill’s calculation for the rate of rain at Day 85 of the Flood. Now, granted, we can’t match the figure for the entire 150 days, but we can get close enough to render it at least thinkable or possible to conceive of the Ultimate Superstorm: Noah’s Flood. We only have an accurate record of global weather since 1880. We can’t rule out much larger storms during all of history before that. 141 years of weather-keeping is so low of a percentage of the world’s age (4.543 billion years) that it actually comes out to 0% in calculations. It’s 32.23 million times more time in earth’s history than the vanishingly tiny and miniscule length of time we have been recording weather.

Consequently, there are huge meteorological and climatological / catastrophic events that we know of such as the Altai flood in Siberia, from 12-15,000 years ago, the Black Sea Deluge (about 5600 BC), the Missoula floods in northwest United States, from 13-15,000 years ago, the Zanclean flood that refilled the Mediterranean Sea 5.33 million years ago, and the Bonneville flood in Utah and Idaho (14,500 years ago). One article on prehistoric “monster hurricanes” stated:

A new record of sediment deposits from Cape Cod, Mass., show evidence that 23 severe hurricanes hit New England between the years 250 and 1150, the equivalent of a severe storm about once every 40 years on average. Many of these hurricanes were likely more intense than any that have hit the area in recorded history, . . .

There is even a field of study called Paleotempestology, which is “the study of past tropical cyclone activity by means of geological proxies as well as historical documentary records.”

It stands to reason that in all these millions and billions of years of earth history, that something like Noah’s Flood was entirely possible and did indeed happen.

You are absolutely right. I did misread that and therefore mischaracterise his figures to some extent. But it makes absolutely no difference at all. I will try and respond to this in greater detail when I’m not just about to go to bed…

However, one of the main problems is the fact that Hill and yourself are comparing record statistics over a tiny area of concentrated rain during a cyclone that had limited time, area and scope and extending that to a massive geographical region over a huge amount of time. This is just simply impossible. It is literally impossible. There is more, to boot, but I am not sure I have the energy. We shall see.

***

He relies heavily on Alan Hill’s “Quantitative Hydrology of Noah’s Flood”. 

That’s one of my two main sources, yes. At least he got that right.

However, even the author of this calculation admits God ‘having performed a “nature miracle”‘ (p. 130). 

The notion of “nature miracle” was explained above by his wife.

He also admits, “First, this model, and the nature of the assumptions it embraces, are crude at best” and “we are unable to realistically determine what actually happened to any level of detail during Noah’s Flood” (p. 131).

Of course: just as would be the case with virtually any other scientific analysis of events estimated to have occurred some 4,900 years ago. Any good argument doesn’t claim more for itself than is warranted. Such straightforward and realistic honesty doesn’t disqualify his and his wife’s articles as serious, worthy scientific analyses: not at all of the anti-intellectual, fundamentalist type that Jonathan and many atheists used to be part of (and which still highly influences their thinking in their deeply flawed understanding of Christianity).

The piece relies on an incredibly unrealistic storm surge that lasts for an inordinate amount of time, relying on a whole set of variables. Due to the “paper’s” complete lack of citation, I imagine no one takes this stuff seriously.

Note the mocking dismissal, which (again) is not any attempt at seriously interacting with the argument. He’s so out to sea he doesn’t even seem to realize that the main component of my argument is Carol Hill’s presentation, not Alan Hill’s. Carol Hill isn’t even mentioned! That’s how far he is from actually interacting with and grappling with my actual overall argument. He picks and chooses what he thinks will be best for his purposes of sophistry and mere mockery.

As to a supposed “complete lack of citation”, this is untrue. Anyone can look at the 12-page presentation (complete with very complex mathematical calculations), go to the end, and observe 15 citations. Three are from two articles by his geologist wife. The rest, as far as I can tell, are completely secular scientific citations. Carol Hill’s article, that Jonathan ignores, is copiously footnoted, with 74 footnotes.

So here we have the spectacle of Jonathan MS Pearce, who doesn’t seem to have earned a doctorate even in philosophy (I’ve never been able to ascertain what the case is there, and he got angry about it when I asked him one time), in effect lecturing a geologist and physicist about true science, as if they are quacks and frauds. Near the end of his farcical “reply” Jonathan takes another shot at Dr. Hill:

It’s just, you know, for me, I need good rational evidence. And that, I’m sorry to say, doesn’t include Alan E. Hill and his hydrological winguttery.

“Winguttery” is, I confess, a new term for me. I couldn’t find it in any online dictionary, but it seems to be a term of abject scorn, used mostly by leftish and skeptical-type folks, looking for a colorful insult. Ad hominem, straw men, non sequiturs, switching topics, ignoring, sophistry,  anything at all used in the service of avoiding serious interaction at all costs with a serious Christian and scientific argument: setting forth views he disagrees with, is Jonathan’s goal. It’s pathetic and a disgrace.

In fact, Alan Hill was formerly a Distinguished Scientist of the Institute For Quantum Science & Engineering at Texas A&M University. He has spent some forty years inventing and developing lasers of the Star Wars variety, and in the early 1960s, while at the University of Michigan, Alan and co-workers on a study, were the first to discover nonlinear optics and second-harmonic generation. Wikipedia describes the latter discovery:

Second-harmonic generation was first demonstrated by Peter Franken, A. E. Hill, C. W. Peters, and G. Weinreich at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1961.[7] The demonstration was made possible by the invention of the laser, which created the required high intensity coherent light. They focused a ruby laser with a wavelength of 694 nm into a quartz sample. They sent the output light through a spectrometer, recording the spectrum on photographic paper, which indicated the production of light at 347 nm. Famously, when published in the journal Physical Review Letters,[7] the copy editor mistook the dim spot (at 347 nm) on the photographic paper as a speck of dirt and removed it from the publication.[8] The formulation of SHG was initially described by N. Bloembergen and P. S. Pershan at Harvard in 1962.[9] In their extensive evaluation of Maxwell’s equations at the planar interface between a linear and nonlinear medium, several rules for the interaction of light in non-linear mediums were elucidated.

Here is the article that Dr. Hill contributed to: “Generation of Optical Harmonics” (P. A. Franken, A. E. Hill, C. W. Peters, and G. Weinreich; Physical Review Letters, 7, 118 – Published 15 August 1961). This highly significant and influential article has been cited by no less than 4,392 scientists.

No doubt, Jonathan will interact point-by-point with that, too, and show us all how he is the real, bona fide scientist. Yes, I’m sure (but hey, I won’t be holding my breath waiting. I value my life). Dr. Alan Hill is quite obviously not a nutcase or some fundamentalist pretender. This is a real scientist, and Pearce doesn’t even pretend to overthrow his calculations.

He knows when he is over his head. And so he childishly mocks and lies about a supposed lack of citations (about a scientist whose most famous article has been cited 4,392 times), to try to cover it up. If he insists on embarrassing himself with emptyheaded pseudo-academic displays like this, I will be more than happy to host such novelties on my blog.

The main issue appears to be his reliance on a fairly arbitrary 40-mile conduit into the Persian Gulf  as being the only place where the water can escape. Of course, Mesopotamia is BIG and VERY FLAT. In fact, there is a 1200-odd km southern flatness where, you know, an absolute deluge of water could flow and no storm surge could keep it in.

Again, this is not a comprehensive, point-by-point attempted refutation of the actual argumentation. It is a caricatured, cynical summary of arguments and a mere dismissal. It’s sophistry. The Mesopotamian floodplain being “VERY FLAT” is actually part and parcel of the overall argument, rightly understood and comprehended. But this was in Carol Hill’s article that Jonathan (conveniently) makes no note of, whatever:

The Mesopotamian alluvial plain is one of the flattest places on earth. The surface of the plain 240 miles (400 km) inland from the head of the Gulf is less than 60 feet (20 m) above sea level, [25] and at An Nasiriyah, the water level of the Euphrates is only eight feet (<3 m) above sea level, even though the river still has to cover a distance of more than 95 miles to Basra (Fig. 1). Once As Samawah and Al ‘Amarah are passed, the waters of the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers are lost in an immense marshland-lake region (Fig. 1), where water flows very slowly to the Persian Gulf. During spring this whole region—from the Euphrates east to the Tigris—can become severely inundated. [26] The level surface of the plain and shallow river beds of the Euphrates and Tigris, which offer the right conditions for irrigation, [27] can also cause immediate, widespread flooding. And, however difficult it is to get water to the land via irrigation canals, it is just as difficult to get it off the land when it floods. [28] Before any dams were built (before ~1920), about two-thirds of the whole area of southern Mesopotamia (Babylonia) could be underwater in the flood season from March to August. [29] . . .

There are historical references to floods in Mesopotamia in the tenth, eighteenth, and twentieth centuries BC and seventh and eighth centuries AD. 33 From AD 762–1906, thirty major floods were recorded in and around Baghdad. [34]

Footnotes

25 J. N. Postgate, Early Mesopotamia—Society and Economy at the Dawn
of History (London: Routledge, 1992), 180.

26 M. C. DeGraeve, The Ships of the Ancient Near East (c. 2000–500 BC)
(Lewen: Department Orientalistich, 1981), 8.

27 C. A. Hill, “A Time and Place for Noah,” Perspectives on Science and
Christian Faith 53, no. 1 (2001): 28.

28 Postgate, Early Mesopotamia, 180.

29 Semple, “The Regional Geography of Turkey,” 346.

30 H. F. Vos, Beginnings in Bible Archaeology (Chicago: Moody Press,
1973), 13; DeGraeve, The Ships of the Ancient Near East, 11.

31 S. N. Kramer, “Reflections on the Mesopotamian Flood: The Cuneiform Data New and Old,” Expedition 9, no. 4 (1967): 16.

32 K. Smith and R. Ward, Floods: Physical Processes and Human Impacts
(New York: John Wiley, 1998), 10.

33 Kramer, “Reflections on the Mesopotamian Flood,” 16.

34 Harza Engineering, Hydrological Survey of Iraq (Baghdad: Ministry
of Agriculture, Government of Iraq, 1963), 3–2, 3–3.

And, before I go on, none of Armstrong’s piece or the sources overcome the problems I set out in my own piece, particularly the theological issues (A regional flood is a retribution on all of humanity? How does this fit with Cain and Abel, and the Tower of Babel etc.?) and the idea that, if this was a localised flood, then anyone could have just, you know, escaped the region or run up a taller hill… I mean, what proportion of all of humanity that is supposedly evil and requires punishment lives on this floodplain? None of this makes nay sense of the Hebrew Bible.

It’s all so desperate.

This sort of (silly, hackneyed) objection was, of course, dealt with in my article, Local Flood & Atheist Ignorance of Christian Thought), that he has chosen to ignore, now, and when I announced it on his blog, almost three months ago now.

Let’s look at world records to quickly check Hill’s thesis:

Wettest place on earth by year: 1041 inches over 365 days = 2.85 inches A DAY = 0.1 inches per hour (your figures require 27.5 times that).
Wettest place on earth by month: 370 inches over 31 days = 11.9 inches per day = 0.49 inches per hour (your figures require over 5 times that).

Here again, as noted above, Jonathan distorts what Dr. Alan Hill actually argued. I think he had such derision for it that his mind simply didn’t process the words properly. That’s what extreme bias does. In both calculations above, he is using the figure of 2.75 inches per hour over the entire period in question, that was in actuality, only a short-term peak figure, and comparing that to the wettest place on earth by year and month. It’s invalid, because he’s using incorrect figures. Noah’s Flood still has a lot more water, but it’s comparatively much less than it would be, using these inaccurate numbers.

He’s also completely neglecting in his equation, as I noted last time, additional water from snow melting off of the surrounding mountains, from the abundant springs in the area, and from surging seawater. Genesis 8:2 refers to “the fountains of the deep” in conjunction with the Flood: presumably a reference to these springs.

You would be demanding, with ALL SORTS of extra variables in place (such that the water doesn’t just rush away into that big flat desert area to the south, there), at least 2046 inches per month, and then for an extra ten days, and then a whole big bunch more thereafter. That is over double the rate seen in one month than over one year in the single wettest place – a village.

It gets worse, though, because those rainfall stats I provided are for a tiny place, not a whole region. So for that amount of rain to fall over a behemoth region is – well – impossible. Actually impossible. There is simply not that amount of rain possible in the world, and no example of this ever having happened. The atmosphere cannot collect that. For clouds to hold that much rain and dump it over THE ENTIRETY of Mesopotamia is utterly ridiculous.

Just think about it

And I’m not convinced it would not flow away too quickly due to…storm surges.

That’s all fine and dandy, but doesn’t deal with the dual arguments of husband and wife (physicist and geologist) Alan and Carol Hill: laid out in the greatest detail. If Jonathan wasn’t merely firing blanks or throwing manure pies, desperately hoping some of it will stick, and hoping that no one will notice his unsavory and unworthy tactics, he would certainly attempt (in his allegedly oh-so-superior academic excellence) a serious systematic interaction and refutation. But he ain’t interested. All he cares about is maintaining the illusion that all Christians are stupid and anti-science.

His “paper” is…

a) demanding things that have never even remotely been experienced in the history of the planet, and
b) demanding things that are still physically impossible.

He replied “Nonsense. There have been several floods of the magnitude that my model posits: from storm surges, tidal waves, etc. And there have been instances of a great deal of water remaining for months.”

Yeah, but no. Not to that degree. Ever.

That was the purpose of my last article: Pearce’s Potshots #47: Mockery of a Local Flood (+ Striking Analogies Between the Biblical Flood and the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927). That was but one example of a flood with remarkable similarities to the biblical description of Noah’s Flood (with an even longer sustained rain and longer overall drying time) and to my proposed local model in Mesopotamia. Jonathan dismisses it with an eight-word “sentence.” That’s not rational dialogue, folks. It’s just . . . silly. Don’t fall for this crap. It’s not a serious reply at all, and as far from a “refutation” as east is from west.

And he seems to have reduced his flood theory scope over time so now this really, really is a local flood: “It’s only the floodplain of Mesopotamia, and it doesn’t have to be all that deep.“

Wow. Quite the climbdown.

There is no “reduced” scope or “climbdown.” This has been my view for (at the very least) almost 40 years. I wrote in a related paper, dated 5-25-04 (that’s over 17 years ago):

I formed my view on this during the early 80s due largely to Bernard Ramm’s book, The Christian View of Science and Scripture (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1954). He pointed out things like the 18 layers of forests on top of each other in Yellowstone Park, which blows away the young earth and flood geology alike.

As for a universal flood (if by that one means that the waters literally covered the entire earth), the Bible doesn’t require this. The theory also suffers from several serious flaws having to do with what would happen with that much water around, even covering the mountains.

So, nice try at misrepresenting my views (in the effort to — you guessed it! — make me look silly), but no cigar.

I suggest you go and read Genesis 7-9 and see whether the Bible is talking about the Mesopotamian floodplain, and not at all that deep. “It doesn’t have to be all that deep” also happened to kill every human being and animal, including swarming insects. All dead. From a floodplain flood.

I suggest Mr. Science and Mr. Bible go and read my paper, Local Flood & Atheist Ignorance of Christian Thought), that deals with all this in infinitely more detail than Jonathan’s self-serving tidbits of tedium.

I could go on looking at Armstrong’s apologetics but it’s a waste of time, it really is. 

Yet another elegant evasion, that fools no one but himself and his sycophant, clonish, groupthinking followers.

But perhaps this is a “win” of sorts. He is moving goalposts because evidence has actually forced him to admit a smaller and smaller scope for the huge inundation so that perhaps we will get to some real local flood that he admits was the foundation of a mythologised biblical account like, you know, we see in every other culture of the world.

Nice bit of “wishful mythologizing” there.

He’s written another piece on how a Mississippi flood can be used as evidence for such a flood. That reasoning, too, was erroneous for a whole bunch of reasons. A 30ft flood that took a year to subside (without having a massive flat desert to the south). I think it, at peak, rained 15 inches in 18 hours, not remotely near 2.75 inches every hour for 40 days, and then another 1 inch every hour for 110 days…

This article absolutely refuted Jonathan’s idiotic claims about proposed analogous floods:  “Not to that degree. Ever” and “No – not for that amount of time and over that area. There have not.” So he uses his usual vacuous method: 3-4 sentences of hyper-biased, jaded “summary” followed by the breezy dismissal. “How the mighty have fallen.”

Perhaps my favorite Armstrong quote is this: “Then we wouldn’t have the wonderful story, laden with spiritual meaning. Obviously, he did what God told him to do. If one believes in God, and this God communicates, the follower listens and obeys.”

Nothing says wonderful story and spiritual meaning like human and animal genocide. Oh yeah, hmm mmmm, just feel that spiritual goodness seeping through like…moral poison.

Holy crud. It’s worse than I thought.

So when God righteously judges, it’s “genocide.” But when us oh-so-good and holy human beings decide to wickedly, heartlessly torture and murder innocent, helpless children in their mother’s wombs (some 2.5 billion times over the last 50 years or so; certainly more than the entire population of the world in Noah’s time), it’s “choice” and “a woman’s right” and “spiritual goodness”. Gotcha.

Jonathan cites in agreement some anonymous idiot saying, “Physics, obstacles, boundaries and rules don’t apply when you’re talking about God’s magnificence.” This is rich in irony and farce. Here I have cited an actual physicist bringing his expertise to bear on the topic of proposed models for a local Flood, and Jonathan claims that “no one takes this stuff seriously” and that Dr. Hill is a proponent of “hydrological winguttery.”

No true interaction; no serious examination of either his or his (utterly ignored) geologist wife’s extensive and fascinating arguments. Only mockery. And why? Well, obviously, it’s because Jonathan is way over his head here and he knows it. He’s not fooling anyone not already in his adoring choir. But (here’s his dilemma) he can’t ever be “shown up” by a Christian apologist (and above all: not one who is utterly despised by his sycophants on his blog) and so this is what we get: fatuous silliness and verbal diarrhea.

In all honesty, I did plan on a section on this in my previous piece, but it would have dragged on even more. As this one has.

We could have all sorts of scenarios where God can do perpetual miracles, can do something insanely big like a flood and then clean up afterward to make sure no evidence exists and so on.

Sure, you can always find anything you want to find out there somewhere. It has nothing, however, to do with my analysis, so it’s a perfect non sequitur.

If God can do crazy miracles, and can set up scenarios where we have no natural evidence of those miracles, then there’s no point arguing with believers. 

I already went through this above.

They can just assert anything. But we shouldn’t believe it because the only evidence are the claims in a single 2000-year-old book (or their heads). And when we do textual and anthropological analysis of that text, things don’t look good for the believer. This is a conversation ender.

That’s not all there is. One can analyze the biblical claims made about the Flood and see if such a Flood is possible or impossible, based on what we know as a result of scientific inquiry and discovery.

But if such massive miracles are not miraculously cleared up afterwards, then there would be evidence of them happening. A global flood should leave mountains of evidence across heaps of domains. The same can be said of a regional flood.

Not necessarily, as explained by Carol Hill (and ignored by Jonathan).

What we have is a confluence of criticisms against people like Armstrong. Not only do your claims not even work scientifically,

. . . as he ignores virtually every scientific argument that I cite, and mocks one scientist I cite and ignores the other . . . impressive!

but there is no positive scientific evidence for them, and your book is textually, anthropological, historically, linguistically, theologically, philosophically problematic to boot.

We have evidence of a sort by possibility and analogy. It’s not a book; it’s a series of articles.

Or, Mr Armstrong, you have no rational justification for believing what you do. 

Whatever you say, Jonathan, o inexhaustible font of wisdom and knowledge!

Psycho-socially? Why, yes, you were born where you were to the family and community you were. So, of course, you are Christian, and, of course, your entire life revolves around sustaining your worldview.

I was born into a nominally Methodist family; didn’t know diddley squat about Christianity for my first 19 years (wasn’t even aware that Jesus claimed to be God), was a practical atheist and didn’t go to church for ten years, became politically and socially ultra-liberal in high school and college, and became an evangelical Protestant based on my own choice (not my nominal family’s) at age 19. Thirteen years later, I became convinced (through very extensive research) of Catholicism, which is even more remote and further away from my all-Protestant immediate family. Nothing was “of course” about it at all. No one could have predicted wither my theological or intellectual path.

If I had followed my initial upbringing, I would be a typical secularist, far left Democrat today who probably wouldn’t go to church and who would accept a vague “God” at best: One Who had no effect on one’s day-to-day life (more like the deists’ “god”). One would have seen no outward indication at all in 1975, that I would be a fervent evangelical two years later, or in 1988, that I would become convinced of Catholicism two years later.

So this bullcrap pseudo-psychoanalytical “analysis” doesn’t work with me. I don’t fit into Jonathan’s arbitrary boxes that he puts Christians into. As soon as I was old and equipped enough to do so, I adopted positions and worldviews based on my own reasoning and research: not caring one whit what anyone else thought or thinks of my choices.

Moreover, I have refuted this line of argument in-depth, twice (twelve years apart). Author of multiple books and webmaster John Loftus (one of Jonathan’s mentors and inspirations), calls this “the outsider test of faith.” He challenged me to grapple with it. I have, two times, with (according to the usual anti-theist atheist intellectual cowardice) no reply from him:

Reply to Atheist John Loftus’ “Outsider Test of Faith” Series [9-30-07]

Loftus Atheist Error #4: The Outsider Test for Faith [9-5-19]

***

I wrote on Jonathan’s blog (in response to a post of his that did exactly what I critique here):

Once again, folks are doing anything and everything except interacting point-by-point with my very extensive argument. Now it’s fine if any given person chooses not to do so. But don’t pretend that my argument has been interacted with when it hasn’t. Jonathan has taken a few chunks of it and replied. At least he has done that.

This could actually be a fun and enjoyable discussion about science.

You guys should be overjoyed that a Christian has taken science seriously, and tried to harmonize it with the Bible, that he takes equally seriously. That’s what you always demand: show how the two are compatible. Others here have sought to do so with a Universal Flood view.

Instead we get the “101 topics” routine. I’m not gonna go down that rabbit trail. I made my argument and I defend THAT. So far no one has offered any comprehensive reply to it. All the questions are just a way to avoid grappling with my argument as I have constructed it.

That’s not to say they have no validity in and of themselves. Many of them do. But I don’t address them based on a methodological gripe: if someone makes a methodical, systematic argument, then IT needs to be taken on. If folks want to talk about a million other Flood-related things, more power to them. I continue to stand by my argument and wait for someone to actually interact with it in a sustained, comprehensive fashion. So far, no takers.

My overall argument for a local Mesopotamian Flood (c. 2900 BC) has three parts:

Local Flood & Atheist Ignorance of Christian Thought

Local Mesopotamian Flood: An Apologia

Pearce’s Potshots #47: Mockery of a Local Flood (+ Striking Analogies Between the Biblical Flood and the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927)

***

Photo credit: Hans [Pixabay / Pixabay License]

***

Summary: Anti-theist atheist Jonathan MS Pearce displays a “flood of irrationality & cowardice” in his desperate non-answers to my elaborate arguments for a local Flood.

2024-09-30T13:35:00-04:00

Last updated on: September 30, 2024 at 1:35 pm   By

ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE / BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY  

Books by Dave Armstrong: The Word Set in Stone: How Archaeology, Science, and History Back Up the Bible [1-24-23]

Introduction for My Book: The Word Set in Stone: How Archaeology, Science, and History Back up the Bible + Near Eastern Archaeological Periods and Timeline of the Patriarchs [1-24-23]

“Dig Deep and Defend the Bible” [promotional article for for my book: The Word Set in Stone: How Archaeology, Science, and History Back up the Bible] [ Catholic Answers Magazine, 10 July 2023]

Free “Book”: The Word Set in Stone: “Volume Two”: More Evidence of Archaeology, Science, and History Backing Up the Bible (163 sections) [as of 9-30-24]

15 Archaeological Proofs of Old Testament Accuracy (short summary points from my book, The Word Set in Stone) [National Catholic Register, 3-23-23]

15 Archaeological Proofs of New Testament Accuracy (short summary points from my book, The Word Set in Stone) [National Catholic Register, 3-30-23]

Abraham

Abraham, Warring Kings of Genesis 14, & History [7-31-21]

Ehrman Errors #1: Philistines, Beersheba, Bible Accuracy [3-18-22]

Sodom Obliterated (Chapter Four from my book, The Word Set in Stone: How Archaeology, Science, and History Back up the Bible) [1-26-23]

Walking the Journey of Abraham (Chapter Three from my book, The Word Set in Stone: How Archaeology, Science, and History Back up the Bible) [3-2-23]

Amorites

Arameans, Amorites, and Archaeological Accuracy [6-8-21]

Bethlehem

Archaeology & First-Temple Period Bethlehem [4-6-23]

Camels, Domestication of

Camels Help Bible Readers Get Over the Hump of Bible Skepticism [National Catholic Register, 7-21-21]

Pearce’s Potshots #67: Camels Make an Ass of a Man [3-1-22]

Chariots, Iron (Judges and Joshua)

Pearce’s Potshots #41: 13th c. BC Canaanite Iron Chariots [7-16-21]

David, Saul, and Solomon / Kingdoms of Judah and Israel

Rarity of Non-Biblical Mentions of King David Explained [9-16-21]

King Hezekiah: Exciting New Archaeological Findings [12-13-22]

Archaeology & Solomon’s Temple-Period Ivory [1-28-23]

Archaeology & King Rehoboam’s Wall in Lachish [1-31-23]

Archaeology Confirms Dates of Five Biblical Battles: Battles at Beth She’an (c. 926 BC), Beth Shemesh (c. 790 BC), Bethsaida & Kinneret (732 BC), and Lachish (701 BC) [2-6-23]

King David: from “Myth” to History (excerpt from my 2023 book, The Word Set in Stone: How Archaeology, Science, and History Back Up the Bible) [3-14-23]

“King David Versus King Arthur” is only available as Chapter Eleven of my book, The Word Set in Stone: How Archaeology, Science, and History Back Up the Bible (Catholic Answers Press: March 15, 2023)

King Solomon’s “Mines” & Archaeological Evidence [3-24-23]

Ziklag (David’s Refuge from Saul) & Archaeology [3-29-23]

King Ahab, Queen Jezebel, & Archaeology [4-7-23]

Fall of Jerusalem (586 B.C.), Archaeology, & Biblical Accuracy [4-10-23]

Assyrian King Sennacherib, the Bible, & Archaeology [4-17-23]

Archaeology & Ten (More) Kings of Judah & Israel [4-20-23]

Solomon’s “Impossible” (?) Wealth & Archaeology [4-25-23]

Solomon’s Temple and its Archaeological Analogies (Also, Parallels to Solomon’s Palace) [4-25-23]

The Queen of Sheba, Solomon, & Archaeology [4-27-23]

Archaeology, Solomon and the Queen of Sheba [National Catholic Register, 6-2-23]

Archaeology and King Solomon’s Mines [National Catholic Register, 6-29-23]

Was King David Mythical or Historical? [National Catholic Register, 7-24-23]

Edomites

Edomites: Archaeology Confirms the Bible (As Always) [6-10-21]

Pearce’s Potshots #42: 12th c. BC Moabite & Ammonite Kings (The Broad Definition of “King” in the Ancient Near East, + Biblical Use of  “Chiefs of Edom”) [7-19-21]

Exodus / Hebrew Bondage in Egypt

Seidensticker Folly #5: Has Archaeology Disproven the Exodus? [8-15-18]

A Pharaoh’s Death (Ex 2:23) & Exodus Chronology [7-27-22]

Egyptian Proof of Hebrew Slaves During Jacob’s Time [2-17-23]

When Was the Exodus: 15th or 13th Century B.C.? [4-15-23]

Evidence for Hebrews / Semites in Egypt: 2000-1200 B.C. [5-3-23]

Did the Hebrews Cross the Red Sea or the “Reed Sea”?: And Which Specific Body of Water Did They Cross, According to the Combined Deductions and Determinations of the Bible and Archaeology? [5-9-23]

Biblical Hebrew Names with an Egyptian Etymology [5-9-23]

Ezra

Garden of Eden

“Search for the Garden of Eden”: available only in Chapter One in my book, The Word Set in Stone: How Archaeology, Science, and History Back Up the Bible (Catholic Answers Press: March 15, 2023)

General

God: Historical Arguments (Copious Resources) [11-9-15]

Archaeology: Biblical Maximalism vs. Minimalism (+ Dates of the Patriarchs and Other Major Events and People in the Old Testament) [9-9-21]

OT & Archaeology: 25 Fascinating Confirmations (From Noah to Joshua”: the Hebrew Scripture is Extraordinarily Accurate & True to History) [9-21-21]

Timeline of the Patriarchs: A Summary [Facebook, 9-28-22]

Genesis: Table of Nations

Genesis 10 “Table of Nations”: Authentic History [8-25-21]

Table of Nations (Gen 10), Interpretation, & History [11-27-21]

Gerasenes / Gadarenes

Gadarenes, Gerasenes, Swine, & Atheist Skeptics  [7-25-17]

Gerasenes, Gadarenes, Pigs and “Contradictions” [National Catholic Register, 1-29-21]

Goliath

Goliath’s Height: Six Feet 9 Inches, 7 Feet 8, or 9 Feet 9? [7-4-21]

Gospels: Accuracy of

Are the Gospels & Acts “Propaganda”? (Unpacking a Statement from Historian A. N. Sherwin-White) [2-16-22]

Hebrew Language

Archaeology, Ancient Hebrew, & a Written Pentateuch (+ a Plausible Scenario for Moses Gaining Knowledge of Hittite Legal Treaties in His Egyptian Official Duties) [7-31-21]

Archaeology & a Proto-Hebrew Language in 1800 BC [1-31-23]

Hittites

The Hittites: Atheist “DagoodS” Lies About Christian Apologists Supposedly Lying About How Biblical Critics Once Doubted Their Historical Existence [1-10-11, at Internet Archive]

Habitually “Lying” Christian Apologists?: 19th Century “Hittites Didn’t Exist” Radical Skepticism and Examination of Atheist DagoodS’ Replies and Charges [1-15-11, at Internet Archive]

Hittite Skeptics Chronicles, Part III: Specific Citations of Denial (Budge, Sumner, & Conder) and Biblical Historical Accuracy (in the Time of Elisha) [1-19-11, at Internet Archive]

Great Hittite Wars, Part IV: Lying Christian Egyptologist M. G. Kyle?: Atheist DagoodS Disputes Sir A. E. Wallis Budge’s Reported Hittite Skepticism  [1-21-11, at Internet Archive]

“Higher” Hapless Haranguing of Hypothetical Hittites (19th C.) [10-21-11; abridged 7-7-20]

“Israelites” as a Title

Pearce’s Potshots #27: Anachronistic “Israelites”? [5-25-21]

Jesus

The Census, Jesus’ Birth in Bethlehem, & History [2-3-11]

“’Bethany Beyond the Jordan’: History, Archaeology and the Location of Jesus’ Baptism on the East Side of the Jordan” [8-11-14]

Archaeology: Jesus’ Crucifixion, Tomb, & the Via Dolorosa [9-18-14]

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

Reply to Atheist Jonathan MS Pearce: “Contradictory” Genealogies of Christ? [7-27-17]

December 25th Birth of Jesus?: Interesting Considerations [12-11-17]

Seidensticker Folly #4: Jesus Never Existed, Huh? [8-14-18]

Was Christ Actually Born Dec. 25? [National Catholic Register, 12-18-18]

The Bethlehem Nativity, Babe Ruth, and History [National Catholic Register, 1-1-19]

Are the Two Genealogies of Christ Contradictory? [National Catholic Register, 1-5-19]

Jesus’ Resurrection: Scholarly Defenses of its Historicity [4-12-20]

Jesus’ December Birth & Grazing Sheep in Bethlehem (Is a December 25th Birthdate of Jesus Impossible or Unlikely Because Sheep Can’t Take the Cold?) [12-26-20]

Pearce’s Potshots #11: 28 Defenses of Jesus’ Nativity (Featuring Confirmatory Historical Tidbits About the Magi and Herod the Great) [1-9-21]

Herod’s Slaughter of the Innocents: Myth & Fiction? [2-10-21]

Pearce’s Potshots #52: No Tomb for Jesus? (Skeptical Fairy Tales and Fables vs. the Physical Corroborating Evidence of Archaeology in Jerusalem) [11-10-21]

Pearce’s Potshots #64: Archaeology & 1st Century Nazareth [2-25-22]

Quirinius & Luke’s Census: Resources on the “Difficulty” [2-26-22]

Cana: Archaeological Comparison of “Rival” Sites [3-29-23]

What We Know About Nazareth at the Time of Jesus [National Catholic Register, 11-24-23]

“Upper Room” (Last Supper & Pentecost) & Archaeology [9-30-24]

Job

Book of Job, Archaeology, History, & Geography [4-1-23]

John: Historical Accuracy of

Archaeology & the Gospel of John’s Accuracy (Ch. 15 of my book, The Word Set in Stone: How Archaeology, Science, and History Back Up the Bible) [3-2-23]

Joseph (Patriarch)

“Joseph in Egypt”: available only in Chapter Five of my book, The Word Set in Stone: How Archaeology, Science, and History Back Up the Bible (Catholic Answers Press: March 15, 2023)

Joshua’s Conquest of Canaan / Era of the Judges

Pearce’s Potshots #32: No Evidence for Joshua’s Conquest? [5-28-21]

What Archaeology Tells Us About Joshua’s Conquest [National Catholic Register, 7-8-21]

Ehrman Errors #5: Hazor Battles “Contradictions”? (Including Possible Archaeological Evidence for the Battle of Deborah in Judges 4) [3-23-22]

Ehrman Errors #6: Joshua’s Conquest & Science [3-23-22]

Archaeology & Judges-Era Lead & Tin Trade [1-26-23]

“Joshua and the Conquest of Canaan” is now only available as Chapter Ten in my book, The Word Set in Stone: How Archaeology, Science, and History Back Up the Bible (Catholic Answers Press: March 15, 2023)

Samson’s Death-Scene: Archaeological Confirmation [3-27-23]

Did Samson Really Destroy the Philistine Temple With His Bare Hands? [National Catholic Register, 4-28-23]

Joshua’s Conquest: Rapid, Always Violent, & Total? [5-1-23]

Judas & the Thirty Silver Coins

Judas’ “Thirty Coins of Silver”: Archaeology & History [6-18-23]

Luke: Historical Accuracy of

“St. Luke Knows His Stuff” is only available as Chapter Fourteen of my book, The Word Set in Stone: How Archaeology, Science, and History Back Up the Bible (Catholic Answers Press: March 15, 2023).

Moabites & Ammonites

Pearce’s Potshots #42: 12th c. BC Moabite & Ammonite Kings (The Broad Definition of “King” in the Ancient Near East, + Biblical Use of  “Chiefs of Edom”) [7-19-21]

Moses and the Pentateuch

Did Moses Exist? No Absolute Proof, But Strong Evidence (Pearce’s Potshots #35, in Which Our Brave Hero Classifies Moses as “a Mythological Figure” and I Reply!) [6-14-21]

Using the Bible to Debunk the Bible Debunkers (Is the Mention of ‘Pitch’ in Exodus an Anachronism?) [National Catholic Register, 6-30-21]

Archaeology, Ancient Hebrew, & a Written Pentateuch (+ a Plausible Scenario for Moses Gaining Knowledge of Hittite Legal Treaties in His Egyptian Official Duties) [7-31-21]

In Search of the Real Mt. Sinai (Fascinating Topographical and Biblical Factors Closely Examined) [8-16-21]

The Tabernacle: Egyptian & Near Eastern Precursors (Archaeology Entirely Backs Up the Extraordinary Accuracy of Holy Scripture Yet Again) [9-8-21]

Fascinating Biblical Considerations About Mount Sinai [National Catholic Register, 11-23-22]

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Moses, Science, and Water from Rocks [Catholic365, 11-18-23]
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Archaeology Supports the Book of Nehemiah [National Catholic Register, 11-30-23]
*
New Testament
*

Noah’s Flood

Noah’s Ark: Josephus, Earlier Historians, & Church Fathers (Early Witnesses of the Ark Resting on Jabel [Mt.] Judi) [3-16-22]

Biblical Size of Noah’s Ark: Literal or Symbolic? [3-16-22]

Peter

Archaeology & St. Peter’s House in Capernaum [9-23-14]

Philistines

Pearce’s Potshots #33: No Philistines in Moses’ Time? [6-3-21]

Ehrman Errors #1: Philistines, Beersheba, Bible Accuracy [3-18-22]

Prophets

Prophet Elisha and Archaeology [4-4-22]

Prophet Elijah and Archaeology [4-13-22]

Is There Any Archaeological Support for the Prophet Daniel? [National Catholic Register, 4-25-22]

See “Digging Up Proofs of the Prophets”: Chapter Twelve of my book, The Word Set in Stone: How Archaeology, Science, and History Back Up the Bible (Catholic Answers Press: March 15, 2023).

Sodom and Gomorrah

Sodom & Gomorrah & Archaeology: North of the Dead Sea? [10-9-14]

Sodom Obliterated (Chapter Four from my book, The Word Set in Stone: How Archaeology, Science, and History Back up the Bible) [1-26-23]

Tower of Babel

Pearce’s Potshots #54: Tower of Babel; Who’s the “Idiot”? [11-24-21]

The Tower of Babel, Archaeology, & Linguistics [4-13-23]

Linguistic Confusion and the Tower of Babel [National Catholic Register, 6-21-22]

Tower of Babel: Dialogue with a Linguist [6-26-23]

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Helpful General Articles from Others

53 People in the Bible Confirmed Archaeologically (Bible History Daily / Biblical Archeology Society, 10-13-20)

 

SCIENTIFIC ACCURACY AND THE BIBLE / SCIENTIFIC HARMONY WITH THE BIBLE

Adam and Eve (and Genetics)

Historicity of Adam and Eve [9-23-11; rev. 1-6-22]

Defending the Literal, Historical Adam of the Genesis Account (vs. Catholic Eric S. Giunta) [9-25-11]

Adam & Eve of Genesis: Historical & the Primal Human Pair [11-28-13]

Adam & Eve & Original Sin: Disproven by Science? [9-7-15]

Dialogue with Philosopher Dr. Lydia McGrew on Adam and Eve and the Polygenism vs. Monogenism Genetics Issue [Facebook, 5-11-17]

Only Ignoramuses Believe in Adam & Eve? [9-9-15]

Animals: Mythical

Loftus Atheist Error #9: Bible Espouses Mythical Animals? [9-10-19]

The Bible and Mythical Animals [National Catholic Register, 10-9-19]

Pearce Pablum #71: Dragons in the Bible? [3-4-22]

Demonic Possession

Demonic Possession or Epilepsy? (Bible & Science) [2015]

Disease / Germ Theory

Vs. Atheist David Madison #37: Bible, Science, & Germs [12-10-19]

Seidensticker Folly #36: Disease, Jesus, Paul, Miracles, & Demons [1-13-20]

The Bible on Germs, Sanitation, & Infectious Diseases [3-16-20]

Bible on Germ Theory: An Atheist Hems & Haws (. . . while I offer a serious answer to his caricature regarding the Bible and genetics) [8-31-21]

Earth: Creation of

Cosmological Argument for God (Resources) [10-23-15]

Genesis Contradictory (?) Creation Accounts & Hebrew Time: + Refutation of a Clueless Atheist “Biblical Contradiction” [5-11-17]

The Genesis Creation Accounts and Hebrew Time [National Catholic Register, 7-2-17]

Earth: Sphere

Biblical Flat Earth (?) Cosmology: Dialogue w Atheist (vs. Matthew Green) [9-11-06]

Flat Earth: Biblical Teaching? (vs. Ed Babinski) [9-17-06]

Carrier Critique #3: Bible Teaches a Flat Earth? [3-31-22]

Evolution, Theory of

Catholicism and Evolution / Charles Darwin’s Religious Beliefs [8-19-09]

Dialogue with an Atheist on Evolution [9-17-15]

My Claims Regarding Piltdown Man & the Scopes Trial Twisted [10-10-15]

Scripture, Science, Genesis, & Evolutionary Theory: Mini-Dialogue with an Atheist [8-14-18; rev. 2-18-19]

Catholics & Origins: Irreducible Complexity or Theistic Evolution? [6-17-19]

Why I Believe in “Non-Miraculous” Intelligent Design [6-20-19]

Debate: Can Intelligent Design Be “Non-Interventionist”? (vs. Dr. Lydia McGrew) [6-21-19]

Exodus and Moses

Acacia, Ark of the Covenant, & Biblical Accuracy [8-24-21]

Science, Hebrews and a Bevy of Quail [National Catholic Register, 11-14-21]

“Out of Egypt with Moses,” “The Ten Plagues and their Aftermath,” and “The Red Sea, and Miracles in the Desert” are only available in Chapters Seven to Nine of my book, The Word Set in Stone: How Archaeology, Science, and History Back Up the Bible (Catholic Answers Press: March 15, 2023)

Manna: Possibly a Natural Phenomenon? [5-5-23]

Flood & Noah 

Old Earth, Flood Geology, Local Flood, & Uniformitarianism (vs. Kevin Rice) [5-25-04; rev. 5-10-17]

Adam & Eve, Cain, Abel, & Noah: Historical Figures [2-20-08]

Noah’s Flood & Catholicism: Basic Facts [8-18-15]

Do Carnivores on the Ark Disprove Christianity? [9-10-15]

New Testament Evidence for Noah’s Existence [National Catholic Register, 3-11-18]

Local Flood & Atheist Ignorance of Christian Thought [7-2-21]

Local Mesopotamian Flood: An Apologia [7-9-21]

Pearce’s Potshots #47: Mockery of a Local Flood (+ Striking Analogies Between the Biblical Flood and the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927) [9-30-21]

Pearce’s Potshots #48: Flood of Irrationality & Cowardice [10-1-21]

Noah’s Flood: Not Anthropologically Universal + Miscellany [10-5-21]

Debate: Historical Local Flood & Biblical Hyperbole [11-12-21]

Pearce Pablum #72: Flood: 25 Criticisms & Non Sequiturs [3-8-22]

Atheist Jonathan MS Pearce’s Straw Man Global Flood [8-30-22]

Garden of Eden

“Search for the Garden of Eden”: available only in Chapter One in my book, The Word Set in Stone: How Archaeology, Science, and History Back Up the Bible (Catholic Answers Press: March 15, 2023)

General

Dialogue w Atheist on Christianity & the Scientific Method [7-19-01]

God and “Natural Evil”: A Thought Experiment [2002]

Atheist Myths: “Christianity vs. Science & Reason” (vs. “drunkentune”) [1-3-07]

Richard Dawkins & “Religion vs. Science” Mentality (+ Galileo Redux) [3-20-08]

Reply to Atheist Scientist Jerry Coyne: Are Science and Religion Utterly Incompatible? [7-13-10]

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

Books by Dave Armstrong: Science and Christianity: Close Partners or Mortal Enemies? [10-20-10]

Typical “Science vs. Catholicism” Criticisms (and Myths) from an Agnostic Scientist Refuted [7-29-11]

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

Dialogue with an Agnostic on Catholicism and Science [9-12-16]

Richard Dawkins: D- Grade for Science & Christianity [5-23-18]

Seidensticker Folly #21: Atheist “Bible Science” Absurdities [9-25-18]

Seidensticker Folly #23: Atheist “Bible Science” Inanities, Pt. 2 [10-2-18]

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

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

Modern Science is Built on a Christian Foundation [National Catholic Register, 5-6-20]

Seidensticker Folly #44: Historic Christianity & Science [8-29-20]

OT & Archaeology: 25 Fascinating Confirmations (From Noah to Joshua”: the Hebrew Scripture is Extraordinarily Accurate & True to History) [9-21-21]

“Nature Miracles”: Natural Hypotheses for God’s Actions (For Example: Noah’s Flood, Parting of the Red Sea, Quails, Earth Swallowing up Sinners, Sodom & Gomorrah, & Water from the Rocks) [10-30-21]

Goliath

Goliath’s Height: Six Feet 9 Inches, 7 Feet 8, or 9 Feet 9? [7-4-21]

Herod Agrippa “Eaten by Worms”

Herod Agrippa I “Eaten By Worms”: Myth or Plausible? [6-20-23]

Jericho

Jericho and Archaeology — Disproof of the Bible? (Here is one possible explanation for the high level of erosion in Jericho) [National Catholic Register, 9-26-21]

Jericho: Did the Walls Collapse Due to Resonance? [5-1-23]

What Made the Walls of Jericho Fall? [National Catholic Register, 5-20-23]

Jesus

Resurrection Debate #4: No “Leafy Branches” on Palm Sunday? [4-19-21]

Resurrection (?) #10: “Blood & Water” & Medical Science [4-25-21]

Carrier Critique #2: Crucifixion Eclipse? [3-30-22]

Darkness at Jesus’ Crucifixion — Solar Eclipse or Sandstorm? [National Catholic Register, 4-15-22]

Jonah

Was Jonah in the Belly of a Whale? Yes, But . . . [3-27-23]

Did God Raise Jonah from the Dead? [National Catholic Register, 4-20-23]

Medical Science

Carrier Critique #4: Bible & Disease & Medicine (+ Medical Advances Made in the Christian-Dominated Middle Ages) [3-31-22]

Miracles and Science

The Resurrection: Hoax or History? [cartoon tract; art by Dan Grajek, 1985]

Silly Atheist Arguments vs. the Resurrection & Miracles [2002]

Biblical and Historical Evidences for Raising the Dead [9-24-07; revised for National Catholic Register, 2-8-19]

Dialogue with an Atheist on Miracles & First Premises [12-18-10]

Exchange on Miracles & Hyper-Rationalism [12-7-15]

Dialogues with Atheists on Miracles [6-8-16]

Does God Still Perform Miracles? (Some Evidence) [5-26-18]

Miracle of the Sun at Fatima: Brief Exchange [7-3-18]

Dialogue w Agnostic on Proof for Miracles (Lourdes) [9-9-18]

Miracles & Scientific Method: Dialogue with Atheist [2-22-19]

Atheist Desire for Amazing Divine Miracles / Incorruptibles [2-23-19]

David Madison vs. the Gospel of Mark #6: Chapters 5-6 (Supernatural & Miracles / Biblical Literary Genres & Figures / Perpetual Virginity / Healing & Belief / Persecution of Jesus in Nazareth) [8-18-19]

Seidensticker Folly #39: “The Sun Stood Still” (Joshua) [4-16-20]

Reflections on Joshua and “the Sun Stood Still” [National Catholic Register, 10-22-20]

Debate On Miracles Vs. An Atheist [1-6-23]

Patriarchs: Old Ages of

969-Year-Old Methuselah (?) & Genesis Numbers [7-12-21]

Souls and Spirits

Seidensticker Folly #8: Physics Has Disproven Souls? [8-16-18]

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

Dark Energy, Dark Matter and the Light of the World [National Catholic Register, 2-17-21]

Star of Bethlehem

Star of Bethlehem, Astronomy, Wise Men, & Josephus (Amazing Astronomically Verified Data in Relation to the Journey of the Wise Men  & Jesus’ Birth & Infancy) [12-14-20]

Timeline: Star of Bethlehem, Herod’s Death, & Jesus’ Birth (Chronology of Harmonious Data from History, Archaeology, the Bible, and Astronomy) [12-15-20]

Who Were the “Wise Men,” or Magi? [National Catholic Register, 12-16-20]

Conjunctions, the Star of Bethlehem and Astronomy [National Catholic Register, 12-21-20]

Star of Bethlehem: Refuting Silly Atheist Objections [12-26-20]

Route Taken by the Magi: Educated Guess [12-28-20]

Star of Bethlehem: More Silly Atheist “Objections” [12-29-20]

Astronomy, Exegesis and the Star of Bethlehem [National Catholic Register, 12-31-20]

Pearce’s Potshots #12: Supernatural Star of Bethlehem? (Biblical View of Astronomy, Laws of Nature, and the Natural World) [1-11-21]

Star of Bethlehem: Natural or Supernatural? [1-13-21]

Bible Commentaries & Matthew 2:9 (Star of Bethlehem) [1-13-21]

Star of Bethlehem: Reply to Obnoxious Atheist Aaron Adair (Plus Further Related Exchanges with Aaron and a Few Others in an Atheist Combox) [1-14-21]

Star of Bethlehem: 2nd Reply to Arrogant Aaron Adair [1-18-21]

Star Researcher Aaron Adair: “Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire!” [1-19-21]

Star of Bethlehem & Magi: 20 Fascinating Aspects [1-22-21]

Ehrman Errors #9: Star Stopping Over a House?! [3-25-22]

Did the Star of Bethlehem Move Like Tinker Bell? (+ Discussion of Micah 5:2: The Prophecy of Jesus’ Birth in Bethlehem) [12-19-22]

Star of Bethlehem: Scientific Verification (vs. an Atheist) [12-20-22]

Was the Star of Bethlehem a Natural Celestial Event? [12-21-22]

“The Star Went Before Them” (The Word Set in Stone) (Retrograde Motion and the Phenomenological Language of the Bible) [7-24-23]

Universe, Origin of: Cosmological Argument / Big Bang

Cosmological Argument for God (Resources) [10-23-15]

Cause of the Big Bang: Atheist Geologist Challenged [4-21-17]

Seidensticker Folly #14: Something Rather Than Nothing [9-3-18]

Seidensticker Folly #38: Eternal Universe vs. an Eternal God [4-16-20]

Seidensticker Folly #42: Creation “Ex Nihilo” [8-28-20]

Creation Ex Nihilo is in the Bible [National Catholic Register, 10-1-20]

Universe, Origin of: General

Atheism: the Faith of “Atomism” [8-19-15]

Clarifications Regarding My Controversial Atheist “Reductio” Paper [8-20-15]

Exchanges with Atheists on Ultimate Origins [11-19-15]

Atheists Seem to Have Almost a Childlike Faith in the Omnipotence of Atoms [National Catholic Register, 10-16-16]

Atheists & Inherent “Omnipotent” Creative Qualities of Godless Matter [7-26-17]

Dialogue w Atheist on the Origin of the Universe [6-23-18]

Dialogue with an Atheist on “God of the Gaps” [6-24-18]

Vs. Atheist David Madison #38: Who is Insulting Intelligence? (. . . with emphasis on the vexing and complex question of the ultimate origins of matter and life) [12-11-19]

Seidensticker Folly #75: Why a Universe at All? [11-5-21]

Debate: a Universe Self-Created from Nothing? [11-9-21]

Universe, Origin of: Teleological Argument / Intelligent Design

Albert Einstein’s “Cosmic Religion”: In His Own Words [originally 2-17-03; expanded greatly on 8-26-10]

Theistic Argument from Longing or Beauty, & Einstein [3-27-08; rev. 3-14-19]

Teleological (Design) Argument for God (Resources) [10-27-15]

Dogmatic Materialist Scientists vs. Intelligent Design [10-29-15]

Seidensticker Folly #41: Argument from Design [8-25-20]

God the Designer?: Dialogue with an Atheist [8-27-20]

Universe: Sustained by God

“Quantum Entanglement” & the “Upholding” Power of God [10-20-20]

Quantum Mechanics and the “Upholding” Power of God [National Catholic Register, 11-24-20]

Books by Dave Armstrong: The Word Set in Stone: How Archaeology, Science, and History Back Up the Bible [1-24-23]

Introduction for My Book: The Word Set in Stone: How Archaeology, Science, and History Back up the Bible + Near Eastern Archaeological Periods and Timeline of the Patriarchs [1-24-23]

***

Photo credit: Kenneth A. Kitchen is the dean of biblical archaeologists in our time. His book, On the Reliability of the Old Testament, was published in 2006. [from the Amazon book page]

***

Summary: I collect hundreds of my blog posts having to do with the Bible & archaeology (scientific evidence that supports its accuracy) & also the relationship between the Bible & science, generally.

Updated on 30 September 2024

2023-03-18T17:04:22-04:00

Last updated on: March 18, 2023 at 5:04 pm   By

I’ve done quite a few of these. I thought it would be good, then (for reference purposes) to collect them together all in one place: alphabetically categorized by topic. If people would buy self-published books of Catholic and general Christian apologetics, I’d collect them in a book, but since they don’t (unless the book is massively advertised, which I can’t afford), I won’t.

In any event, you have my rebuttals here for your use, for free. Please prayerfully consider financially supporting my apostolate, if you have been aided by it, or want to support apologetics and evangelism, generally speaking. The laborer is worthy of his hire. I’m not getting rich over here: just working my tail off in defending the Bible, Christianity, traditional morality, and specifically, Catholicism. I’ve written 3,217 articles (and counting) and fifty books, as well as lots of published articles (242 at National Catholic Register, etc.). 2021 is my 40-year anniversary of writing Christian apologetics (the last 30 as a Catholic).

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“Contradictions” (Supposed): Examined More Closely

Reply to Atheists: Defining a [Biblical] “Contradiction” [1-7-11]

Debates with Atheist “DagoodS” (“Bible Difficulties”) [2006-2007, 2010-2011]

Review of The Book of Non-Contradiction (Phillip Campbell) [5-9-17]

Critique of Theologically Liberal Bible-Basher [6-6-17]

Alleged “Bible Contradictions”: Most Are Actually Not So [2002 and 6-7-17]

Atheist Inventions of Many Bogus “Bible Contradictions” [National Catholic Register, 9-4-18]

Seidensticker Folly #28: Lies About Bible “Contradictions” (1. Christians don’t sin? 2. Universalism? 3. “Tomb evangelism”. 4. Can human beings see God or not?) [10-23-18]

Bible “Contradictions” & Plausibility (Dialogue w Atheist) [12-17-18]

Seidensticker Folly #32: Sophistically Redefining “Contradiction” [4-20-19]

Seidensticker Folly #37: “What is a Contradiction?” 0101 [4-15-20]

Reply to Atheist Ward Ricker Re “Biblical Contradictions” [5-15-20]

Dialogues on “Contradictions” w Bible-Bashing Atheists [5-16-20]

Alleged Bible “Contradictions” & “Difficulties”: Master List of Christian Internet Resources for Apologists (Links) [7-19-10; links updated on 9-6-20]

Seidensticker Folly #69: “Difficulties” Aren’t Contradictions [1-4-21]

Atheists, Biblical “Contradictions” & the Plausibility Issue [2-4-21]

Refutation of Atheist Paul Carlson’s 51 Bible “Contradictions” [4-6-21]

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

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

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

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

Refutation of 194 Biblical “Contradictions” (#101-125) [4-8-22]

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

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

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

How Do Atheists Define an Alleged “Biblical Contradiction”?: . . . And What is a So-Called “Bible Difficulty”? [1-9-23]

General Principles / Preliminaries / Premises

An Introduction to Bible Interpretation [1987]

Atheist Bible “Scholarship” & “Exegesis” [3-18-03]

Are All Bible Books Self-Evidently Inspired? [6-19-06]

Are All the Biblical Books Self-Evidently Canonical? [6-22-06]

Were Apostles Always Aware of Writing Scripture? (6-29-06; abridged on 9-25-16)

Is the Bible in Fact Clear, or “Perspicuous” to Every Individual? [2007]

How Do Catholics Approach & Interpret Holy Scripture? [6-17-09]

Catholic Interpretation of Scripture (Hermeneutics / Exegesis): Resource List (Links) [6-28-09]

The Bible & Skepticism: Irrational Double Standards & Bias [8-6-09]

Bible: Completely Self-Authenticating, So that Anyone Could Come up with the Complete Canon without Formal Church Proclamations? (vs. Wm. Whitaker) [July 2012]

The Bible: “Clear” & “Self-Interpreting”? [February 2014]

“Butcher & Hog”: On Relentless Biblical Skepticism [9-21-15]

Dialogue with an Atheist on Bible Difficulties, Plausibility Structures, & Deconversion [6-10-17]

Why We Should Fully Expect Many “Bible Difficulties” [7-17-17]

Richard Dawkins’ “Bible Whoppers” Are the “Delusion” [5-25-18]

Biblical Interpretation & Clarity: Dialogue w an Atheist [5-26-18]

Is Inspiration Immediately Evident in Every Biblical Book? [National Catholic Register, 7-28-18]

Catholic Biblical Interpretation: Myths and Truths [National Catholic Register, 12-3-18]

Bible “Difficulties” Are No Disproof of Biblical Inspiration [National Catholic Register, 6-29-19]

Seidensticker Folly #33: Clueless Re Biblical Anthropopathism [7-24-19]

“Difficulty” in Understanding the Bible: Hebrew Cultural Factors [2-5-21]

An Omniscient God and a “Clear” Bible [National Catholic Register, 2-28-21]

Dialogue: Biblical Inspiration & Bible “Contradictions” [4-13-22]

Abortion

Seidensticker Folly #62: Bible & Personhood of Fetuses [11-10-20]

Abraham

Abraham & Beersheba, the Bible, & Archaeology [6-9-21]

Ehrman Errors #1: Philistines, Beersheba, Bible Accuracy [3-18-22]

Absolution

Resurrection #28: Remission of Sins “Contradictions”? [5-5-21]

Animal Rights

Dialogue w Atheist on Jesus, Demons, Pigs, & Animal Rights [7-5-18]

Arameans and Amorites

Arameans, Amorites, and Archaeological Accuracy [6-8-21]

Bible: Cosmology of

Biblical Flat Earth (?) Cosmology: Dialogue w Atheist (vs. Matthew Green) [9-11-06]

Flat Earth: Biblical Teaching? (vs. Ed Babinski) [9-17-06]

Bodies, Spiritual

Seidensticker Folly #26: Spiritual Bodies R Still Bodies! [10-9-18]

Seidensticker Folly #52: Spiritual Bodies R Physical [9-10-20]

Camels and the Patriarchs / Archaeology

Abraham, Moses, Camels, & Archaeological Evidence [5-22-21]

OT Camels & Biblically Illiterate Archaeologists [5-24-21]

When Were Camels Domesticated in Egypt & Israel? [5-25-21]

David, King

Ward’s Whoppers #13: How Did David Kill Goliath? [5-19-20]

Disciples, Twelve

12 Disciples of Jesus: Alleged Contradictions Debunked [12-9-06]

Resurrection #26: “Twelve” or Eleven Disciples? [5-4-21]

Documentary Theory

Documentary Theory of Biblical Authorship (JEPD): Dialogue [2-12-04]

Documentary Theory (Pentateuch): Critical Articles [6-21-10]

C. S. Lewis Roundly Mocked the Documentary Hypothesis [10-6-19]

Edomites

Edomites: Archaeology Confirms the Bible (As Always) [6-10-21]

Eucharist, Holy

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

Exodus

Seidensticker Folly #5: Has Archaeology Disproven the Exodus? [8-15-18]

Faith & Reason

Seidensticker Folly #66: Biblical “Evidence-Less Faith”? [12-9-20]

Faith & Works

Final Judgment & Works (Not Faith): 50 Passages [2-10-08]

Seidensticker Folly #22: Contradiction? Saved by Faith or Works? [10-1-18]

“Fools” (Calling People That)

The Biblical “Fool” & Proverbial Literary Genre: Did Paul and Peter Disobey Jesus and Risk Hellfire (Calling Folks “Fools”)? Did Jesus Contradict Himself? Or Do Proverbs and Hyperbolic Utterances Allow Exceptions? [2-5-14]

“Foreigners” / “Neighbors”

Ward’s Whoppers #9-10: Parting the Red Sea / “Foreigners” [5-18-20]

Seidensticker Folly #54: “Neighbor” in OT = Jews Only? [9-12-20]

Gadarenes / Gerasenes

Gadarenes, Gerasenes, Swine, & Atheist Skeptics (vs. Jonathan MS Pearce) [7-25-17]

Demons, Gadara, & Biblical Numbers (vs. JMS Pearce) [12-18-20]

Gerasenes, Gadarenes, Pigs and “Contradictions” [National Catholic Register, 1-29-21]

Pearce’s Potshots #62: Gadarenes & Gerasenes #3 [2-17-22]

Pearce’s Potshots #63: Lex, NT Texts, & the Next Town Over [2-18-22]

Galilee, Sea of

Ehrman Errors #7: “Other Side” of the Sea of Galilee [3-24-22]

Genesis: Abraham

Isaac and Abraham’s Agony: Dialogue with Agnostic (vs. Dr. Jan Schreurs) [June 1999]

Ward’s Whoppers #5: Isaac: Abraham’s “Only” Son? [5-18-20]

Ward’s Whoppers #7-8: “God of Abraham…” / Passover [5-18-20]

Genesis: Adam & Eve

Adam & Eve, Cain, Abel, & Noah: Historical Figures [2-20-08]

Historicity of Adam and Eve [9-23-11; rev. 1-6-22]

Defending the Historical Adam of Genesis (vs. Eric S. Giunta) [9-25-11]

Adam & Eve of Genesis: Historical & the Primal Human Pair [11-28-13]

Adam & Eve & Original Sin: Disproven by Science? [9-7-15]

Only Ignoramuses Believe in Adam & Eve? [9-9-15]

Ward’s Whoppers #4: Which Tree Fruit In Eden to Eat?  [5-17-20]

Genesis: Cain & Abel

Adam & Eve, Cain, Abel, & Noah: Historical Figures [2-20-08]

“Where Did Cain Get His Wife?” [3-7-13]

Dialogue on How Cain Found a Wife [6-22-18]

Genesis: Documentary Hypothesis and Chiasmus

Pearce’s Potshots #38: Chiasmus & “Redundancy” in Flood Stories (Also, a Summary Statement on Catholics and the Documentary Hypothesis) [7-4-21]

Pearce’s Potshots #39: Ignoring Chiastic Literary Genre in Genesis [7-5-21]

Genesis & Evolution

Scripture, Science, Genesis, & Evolutionary Theory: Mini-Dialogue with an Atheist [8-14-18; rev. 2-18-19]

Genesis & History

Modernism vs. History in Genesis & Biblical Inspiration [7-23-18]

Genesis: Noah & the Flood

Old Earth, Flood Geology, Local Flood, & Uniformitarianism (vs. Kevin Rice) [5-25-04; many defunct links removed and new ones added: 5-10-17]

Adam & Eve, Cain, Abel, & Noah: Historical Figures [2-20-08]

Noah’s Flood & Catholicism: Basic Facts [8-18-15]

Do Carnivores on the Ark Disprove Christianity? [9-10-15]

New Testament Evidence for Noah’s Existence [National Catholic Register, 3-11-18]

Seidensticker Folly #49: Noah & 2 or 7 Pairs of Animals [9-7-20]

Pearce’s Potshots #36: Noah’s Flood: 40 or 150 Days or Neither? [7-1-21]

Pearce’s Potshots #37: Length of Noah’s Flood Redux [7-2-21]

Local Flood & Atheist Ignorance of Christian Thought [7-2-21]

Local Mesopotamian Flood: An Apologia [7-9-21]

Genesis: Serpent

Exchange w Biblical Skeptic on the Genesis Serpent [6-1-17]

Orthodox Interpretation of Genesis and the Serpent [National Catholic Register, 11-19-18]

Genesis & Time

Genesis Contradictory (?) Creation Accounts & Hebrew Time: + Refutation of a Clueless Atheist “Biblical Contradiction” [5-11-17]

The Genesis Creation Accounts and Hebrew Time [National Catholic Register, 7-2-17]

God: Anthropopathism

Anthropopathism and Anthropomorphism: Biblical Data (God Condescending to Human Limitations of Understanding) [1-20-09]

Seidensticker Folly #33: Clueless Re Biblical Anthropopathism [7-24-19]

God: Bloodthirsty?

Jesus’ Death: Proof of a “Bloodthirsty” God, or Loving Sacrifice? (primarily written to and for atheists) [7-21-10]

God: Creator

Seidensticker Folly #14: Something Rather Than Nothing [9-3-18]

Ward’s Whoppers #1-3: Genesis 1 vs. 2 (Creation) [5-17-20]

Seidensticker Folly #41: Argument from Design [8-25-20]

Seidensticker Folly #42: Creation “Ex Nihilo” [8-28-20]

“Quantum Entanglement” & the “Upholding” Power of God [10-20-20]

Quantum Mechanics and the “Upholding” Power of God [National Catholic Register, 11-24-20]

God: Eternal & Uncreated

Seidensticker Folly #38: Eternal Universe vs. an Eternal God [4-16-20]

God & Evil

Problem of Evil: Treatise on the Most Serious Objection (Is God Malevolent, Weak, or Non-Existent Because of the Existence of Evil and Suffering?) [2002]

God and “Natural Evil”: A Thought Experiment [2002]

Replies to the Problem of Evil as Set Forth by Atheists [10-10-06]

“Logical” Problem of Evil: Alvin Plantinga’s Decisive Refutation [10-12-06]

“Strong” Logical Argument from Evil Against God: RIP? [11-26-06]

Is God the Author of Evil? (vs. John Calvin) [Oct. 2012]

Why Did a Perfect God Create an Imperfect World? [8-18-15]

Atheists, Miracles, & the Problem of Evil: Contradictions [8-15-18]

Alvin Plantinga: Reply to the Evidential Problem of Evil [9-13-19]

God: “Evolves” in the OT?

Seidensticker Folly #20: An Evolving God in the OT? [9-18-18]

God: Existence of

Seidensticker Folly #13: God Hasta Prove He Exists! [8-29-18]

God & Free Will

Seidensticker Folly #3: Falsehoods About God & Free Will [8-14-18]

God & “Hard Hearts”

Reply to a Calvinist: Hardening of Pharaoh’s Heart (vs. Colin Smith) [10-14-06]

God “Hardening Hearts”: How Do We Interpret That? [12-18-08]

God: Immutability

Is God in Time? [11-30-06]

Critique of Atheist John Loftus Regarding a Timeless God . . . And of Course, “Jittery John” Again Explodes [11-30-06]

Seidensticker Folly #34: Does God “Regret” or “Repent”? [7-25-19]

God: Judgment

Judgment of Nations: Biblical Commentary and Reflections [9-21-01]

God’s Judgment of Humans (Sometimes, Entire Nations) [2-16-07]

“How Can God Order the Massacre of Innocents?” (Amalekites, etc.) [11-10-07]

God’s “Punishing” of Descendants: Unjust? [7-8-10]

Final Judgment is Not a Matter of “Faith Alone” At All [National Catholic Register, 10-7-16]

Does God Ever Judge People by Sending Disease? [10-30-17]

Is God an Unjust Judge? Dialogue with an Atheist [10-30-17]

God’s Judgment of Sin: Analogies for an Atheist Inquirer [9-6-18]

Seidensticker Folly #17: “to the third and fourth generations”? [9-11-18]

Does God Punish to the Fourth Generation? [National Catholic Register, 10-1-18]

Madison vs. Jesus #9: Clueless Re Rebellion & Judgment [8-7-19]

“Why Did God Kill 70,000 Israelites for David’s Sin?” [4-13-20]

God & Lying

Seidensticker Folly #35: Is God an Inveterate Liar? [7-25-19]

God & Murder

Did God Command Jephthah to Burn His Daughter? [6-8-09]

Seidensticker Folly #12: God Likes Child Sacrifice? Huh?! [8-21-18]

Did God Immorally “Murder” King David’s Innocent Child? (God’s Providence and Permissive Will, and Hebrew Non-Literal Anthropomorphism) [5-6-19]

Loftus Atheist Error #6: Is God “Love” or a “Moral Monster”? [9-9-19]

Does God Cause Miscarriages?: A Farcical Exchange [8-23-20]

God: Name of

Ward’s Whoppers #6: Meaning of “Knowing” God’s Name [5-18-20]

God: Narcissist?

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

If God Needs Nothing, Why Does He Ask For So Much? (Is God “Narcissistic” or “Love-Starved?) [National Catholic Register, 8-22-19]

God: Omnipresence

God in Heaven & in His Temple: Contradiction? (vs. Dr. Steven DiMattei) [11-23-20]

God in Heaven and in His Temple: Biblical Difficulty? [National Catholic Register, 12-10-20]

God: Omniscience

Ward’s Whoppers #15-16: God & Omniscience / Worship [5-20-20]

God & Rape

Seidensticker Folly #6: God Has “No Problem with Rape”? [8-15-18]

God & Repentance

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

Does God Ever Actively Prevent Repentance? [National Catholic Register, 9-1-19]

God & Sin

Does God “Want” Men to Sin? Does He “Ordain” Sin? [2-17-10 and 3-16-17]

God: a Spirit

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

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

Dark Energy, Dark Matter and the Light of the World [National Catholic Register, 2-17-21]

God: Trinity

50 Biblical Evidences for the Holy Trinity [National Catholic Register, 11-14-16]

Seidensticker Folly #9: Trinity Unclear in the Bible? [8-17-18]

Seidensticker Folly #40: Craig, Trinity Definition, & Analogies [4-17-20]

God, Worship, & Praise

Why Do We Worship God? Dialogue with an Atheist [5-11-18]

Ward’s Whoppers #15-16: God & Omniscience / Worship [5-20-20]

Seidensticker Folly #47: Does God Need Praise? [8-31-20]

Seidensticker Folly #51: God and Praise, Part II [9-8-20]

Does God Have Any Need of Praise? [National Catholic Register, 9-24-20]

Golden Calf

Golden Calf & Cherubim: Biblical Contradiction? (vs. Dr. Steven DiMattei) [11-23-20]

Goliath

Goliath’s Height: Six Feet 9 Inches, 7 Feet 8, or 9 Feet 9? [7-4-21]

Hell

Dialogue w Atheists on Hell & Whether God is Just [12-5-06]

Herod the Great

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

Hittites

“Higher” Hapless Haranguing of Hypothetical Hittites (19th C.) [10-21-11; abridged 7-7-20]

Homer and the Gospels

Pearce’s Potshots #49: Homer & the Gospels (Mythmaking Scholar Suggests the Story of Priam in the Iliad as the Model for a Fictional Joseph of Arimathea) [10-15-21]

Pearce’s Potshots #50: Obsession w NT Imitation (?) of Homer (Once Again, Archaeology and Legitimate Historiography [i.e., Known Historical Facts] Refute These Ridiculous Claims [10-18-21]

Immigration Issues

Immigration & the Bible (w John Cavanaugh-O’Keefe) (see also the longer Facebook version) [9-18-17]

Do Jesus and the Bible Advocate Open Borders? [9-18-17; expanded on 6-21-18]

Borders and the Bible [National Catholic Register, 1-14-19]

“Israelites”

Pearce’s Potshots #27: Anachronistic “Israelites”? [5-25-21]

Jairus’ Daughter

Pearce’s Potshots #44: Jairus’ Daughter “Contradiction”? [8-17-21]

Jeremiah

Loftus Atheist Error #10: Prophet Jeremiah vs. Mosaic Law? [9-11-19]

Jesus & “Anxiety”

Jesus’ Agony in Gethsemane: Was it “Anxiety”? [National Catholic Register, 10-29-19]

Jesus: Ascension

Seidensticker Folly #15: Jesus’ Ascension: One or 40 Days? [9-10-18]

Jesus: Bethlehem (and Nazareth)

Reply to Atheist Jonathan MS Pearce: Bethlehem & Nazareth “Contradictions” (Including Extensive Exegetical Analysis of Micah 5:2) [7-28-17]

Pearce’s Potshots #65: Who First Visited Baby Jesus? [2-26-22]

Jesus: Burial of

Resurrection #12: Who Buried Jesus? [4-26-21]

Jesus: Census

The Census, Jesus’ Birth in Bethlehem, & History [2-3-11]

Quirinius & Luke’s Census: Resources on the “Difficulty” [2-26-22]

Pearce’s Potshots #66: Bethlehem Joseph / Census Issues [2-28-22]

Jesus: Children of?

Did Jesus Have Children? (“Offspring”: Isaiah 53:10) [5-30-06]

Jesus: Christmas

Vs. Atheist David Madison #36: Matthew & Christmas [12-10-19]

Jesus: Disciples’ Forsaking of

Resurrection (?) #8: Disciples Forsaking Jesus [4-23-21]

Jesus: Divinity of

Was Jesus Confused About His Mission? [9-8-15]

Jesus Had to Learn That He Was God? [12-15-15]

50 Biblical Proofs That Jesus is God [National Catholic Register, 2-12-17]

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

Ehrman Errors #8: Jesus: Synoptics vs. John? (Jesus “Scarcely” Talks About Himself in the Synoptics? No Parables At All in John?) [3-24-22]

Jesus: Existence of

Seidensticker Folly #4: Jesus Never Existed, Huh? [8-14-18]

Jesus & Families: Leaving of

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

Madison vs. Jesus #4: Jesus Causes a Bad Marriage? [8-5-19]

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

Did Jesus Teach His Disciples to Hate Their Families? [National Catholic Register, 8-17-19]

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

Jesus: Genealogies

Reply to Atheist Jonathan MS Pearce: “Contradictory” Genealogies of Christ? [7-27-17]

Are the Two Genealogies of Christ Contradictory? [National Catholic Register, 1-5-19]

Jesus: Great Commission

Seidensticker Folly #30: Small vs. Great Commission? [10-26-18]

Jesus & Jewish Burial Customs

Seidensticker Folly #31: Jesus’ Burial Spices Contradiction? [4-20-19]

Madison vs. Jesus #12: Discipleship & Jewish Burial Customs [8-8-19]

Jesus & Jews & Gentiles

David Madison vs. the Gospel of Mark #7: Ch. 7 (Gentiles) [8-19-19]

Vs. Atheist David Madison #39: Jesus the Xenophobic Bigot? (And did Jesus minister exclusively to Jews and not Gentiles at all: an alleged Gospel inconsistency)? [12-12-19]

Did Jesus Minister Exclusively to Jews and not Gentiles? [7-2-20]

Did Jesus Heal and Preach to Only Jews? No! [National Catholic Register, 7-19-20]

Jesus: Last Words on the Cross

Jesus’ Last Words: Biblical “Contradictions”? [4-8-21]

Jesus: “Many NT Jesuses”?

Seidensticker Folly #56: Many Jesuses in the New Testament? [9-13-20]

Jesus: “Mean”?

David Madison vs. the Gospel of Mark #8: Ch. 9 (“Mean” Jesus) [8-19-19]

Jesus: Messianic Prophecies of the OT

Isaiah 53: Ancient & Medieval Jewish Messianic Interpretation [1982; revised 9-14-01]

Psalm 110: Examples of Jewish Commentators Who Regard it as Messianic / Reply to Rabbi Tovia Singer’s Charges of Christian “Tampering” with the Text [9-14-01]

Isaiah 53: Jewish-Christian Dialogue: Is the “Servant” the Messiah (Jesus) or Collective Israel? (vs. Ari G. [Orthodox] ) [9-14-01, with incorporation of much research from 1982]

Reply to Atheist on “Fabricated” OT Messianic Prophecies (ProfMTH”‘s Video Jesus Was Not the Messiah – Pt. I) [7-1-10]

Reply to Atheist on Isaiah 53 & “Dishonest” Christians [7-2-10]

Reply to Atheist on Messianic Prophecies (Zech 13:6, Ps 22) [7-3-10]

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]

Jesus & Money

Vs. Atheist David Madison #42: Jesus vs. Financial Responsibility? [12-19-19]

Jesus: Mustard Seed

Seidensticker Folly #25: Jesus’ Alleged Mustard Seed Error [10-8-18]

Jesus: Nativity

Pearce’s Potshots #11: 28 Defenses of Jesus’ Nativity (Featuring Confirmatory Historical Tidbits About the Magi and Herod the Great) [1-9-21]

Pearce Pablum #69: Straw-Man, Mythical “Nativity” [3-2-22]

Pearce Pablum #70: Nativity Book Errors [3-4-22]

Jesus the “Nazarene”

Jesus the “Nazarene”: Did Matthew Make Up a “Prophecy”? (Reply to Jonathan M. S. Pearce from the Blog, A Tippling Philosopher / Oral Traditions and Possible Lost Old Testament Books Referred to in the Bible) [12-17-20]

Jesus the “Nazarene” Redux (vs. Jonathan M. S. Pearce) [12-19-20]

Jesus: Palm Sunday: Olive and Palm Branches

Resurrection Debate #4: No “Leafy Branches” on Palm Sunday? [4-19-21]

Jesus: Parables

David Madison vs. the Gospel of Mark #5: Chapter 4 (Parables) [8-16-19]

Jesus: Passion and Trial of

David Madison: Synoptics vs. John Re Jesus’ Will & Passion? [8-22-19]

Who Seized Jesus & Struck Him During His Trial? (vs. Bob Seidensticker) [2-15-23]

Jesus: “Prince of Peace”

Madison vs. Jesus #11: He’s Not the Prince of Peace? [8-8-19]

Jesus: Resurrection

The Resurrection: Hoax or History? [cartoon tract with art by Dan Grajek: 1985]

“Three Days and Nights” in the Tomb: Contradiction? [10-31-06]

Dialogue w Atheist on Post-Resurrection “Contradictions” [1-26-11]

Seidensticker Folly #18: Resurrection “Contradictions”? [9-17-18]

Seidensticker Folly #57: Male Witnesses of the Dead Jesus [9-14-20]

Pearce’s Potshots #13: Resurrection “Contradictions” (?) [2-2-21]

Pearce’s Potshots #14: Resurrection “Contradictions” #2 [2-4-21]

Refuting 59 of Michael Alter’s Resurrection “Contradictions” [3-12-21]

12 Alleged Resurrection “Contradictions” That Aren’t Really Contradictions [National Catholic Register, 4-7-21]

Resurrection (?) #6: “Three Days and Three Nights” [4-21-21]

Resurrection #15: Luke & Jesus’ Galilee Appearances [4-28-21]

Resurrection #17: Women Who Saw the Risen Jesus [4-29-21]

Resurrection #18: “Touch Me Not” & Mary Magdalene [4-29-21]

11 More Resurrection “Contradictions” That Aren’t Really Contradictions [National Catholic Register, 5-8-21]

Seidensticker Folly #76: Resurrection Eyewitnesses [12-7-21]

Pearce’s Potshots #56: Paul & Jesus’ Resurrection [12-10-21]

Dan Barker’s Easter Challenge (Chronology of Accounts) [3-18-23]

See also:

How the Resurrection Narratives Fit Together (Jimmy Akin, 1-23-17)

Jesus: Second Coming

Dr. David Madison vs. Jesus #3: Nature & Time of 2nd Coming [8-3-19]

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

Jesus: Sermon on the Mount

Atheist “Refutes” Sermon on the Mount (Or Does He?) [National Catholic Register, 7-23-17]

Jesus: Thieves Crucified With Him

Resurrection (?) #7: Crucified Thieves Taunting Jesus [4-21-21]

Jesus: “Turning the Other Cheek”

Jesus Didn’t Always Turn the Other Cheek (Proverbs) [7-6-19]

What Does “Turn the Other Cheek” Mean? [National Catholic Register, 7-20-19]

Jesus and Unbelief

Resurrection #27: Jesus’ View of Unbelief & Evidence [5-5-21]

Jesus and the Women at the Crucifixion

Resurrection (?) #9: The Women at the Crucifixion [4-23-21]

Job

Ward’s Whoppers #14: Who Caused Job’s Suffering? [5-20-20]

Who Caused Job to Suffer — God or Satan? [National Catholic Register, 6-28-20]

John, Gospel of (Author)

Pearce’s Potshots #46: Who Wrote the Gospel of John? [9-2-21]

John the Baptist

Dialogue w Agnostic on Elijah and John the Baptist [9-24-06]

Seidensticker Folly #27: Confusion Re John the Baptist [10-9-18]

Jonah

Catholics and the Historicity of Jonah the Prophet [6-27-08]

Joseph (Patriarch)

Pearce’s Potshots #28: Pharaoh Didn’t Know Joseph?! [5-26-21]

Genesis, Joseph, Archaeology, & Biblical Accuracy (+ A Brief Survey of Evidence for “The King’s Highway” in Jordan in the Bronze Age: Prior to 1000 BC) [6-8-21]

Joseph of Arimathea

Dialogue w Atheist: Joseph of Arimathea “Contradictions” (??) (Lousy Atheist Exegesis Example #5672) [1-7-11]

Resurrection #11: “All the Council” / Joseph of Arimathea? [4-25-21]

Pearce’s Potshots #49: Homer & the Gospels (Mythmaking Scholar Suggests the Story of Priam in the Iliad as the Model for a Fictional Joseph of Arimathea) [10-15-21]

Pearce’s Potshots #50: Obsession w NT Imitation (?) of Homer (Once Again, Archaeology and Legitimate Historiography [i.e., Known Historical Facts] Refute These Ridiculous Claims [10-18-21]

Joshua & the Sun

Seidensticker Folly #39: “The Sun Stood Still” (Joshua) [4-16-20]

Joshua’s Conquest

Ehrman Errors #5: Hazor Battles “Contradictions”? (Including Possible Archaeological Evidence for the Battle of Deborah in Judges 4) [3-23-22]

Judas

Death of Judas: Alleged Bible Contradictions Debunked (vs. Dave Van Allen and Dr. Jim Arvo) [9-27-07]

Resurrection #19: When Was Judas Paid? [4-30-21]

Resurrection #20: Motivation of Judas’ Betrayal [4-30-21]

Resurrection #21: Chronology of Judas’ Evil Plans [5-1-21]

Resurrection #22: Did Judas Repent Or Not? [5-2-21]

Resurrection #23: How Did Judas Die? [5-3-21]

Resurrection #24: Judas & the Potter’s Field [5-3-21]

Last Things (Eschatology)

Debate with an Agnostic on the Meaning of “Last Days” and Whether the Author of Hebrews Was a False Prophet [9-13-06]

Biblical Annihilationism or Universalism? (w Atheist Ted Drange) [9-30-06]

“The Last Days”: Meaning in Hebrew, Biblical Thought [12-5-08]

Love of Enemies

“Love Your Enemies”: Old Testament Teaching Too? [9-7-20]

Luke: Historical Reliability 

Gospel of Luke Bashing Examined & Found Wanting (vs. Vexen Crabtree) [2-12-21]

Ehrman Errors #11: Luke the Unreliable Historian? (Debunking Yet More of the Endless Pseudo-“Contradictions” Supposedly All Over the Bible) [3-28-22]

Lust

Vs. Atheist David Madison #40: Jesus: All Sexual Desire is Lust? (Replies to some of the most clueless atheist “arguments” to ever enter the mind of a sentient human being . . .) [12-18-19]

Mark: Gospel of

Dr. David Madison vs. Jesus #2: Weird & Fictional Mark 16? [8-3-19]

Madison vs. the Gospel of Mark #1: Intro. & Overview (Gospels as “Con Job”? / Parables & Repentance / Old Testament Sacrifices & Jesus / “Weird” Mark 16 / Why Jesus Was Killed) [8-13-19]

David Madison vs. the Gospel of Mark #2: Chapter 1 (Why Did Mark Omit Jesus’ Baptism? / Why Was Jesus Baptized? / “Suffering Servant” & Messiah in Isaiah / Spiritual “Kingdom of God” / Archaeological Support) [8-14-19]

David Madison vs. the Gospel of Mark #3: Chapter 2 (Archaeological Support / Sin, Illness, Healing, & Faith / “Word” & “Gospel”) [8-15-19]

David Madison vs. the Gospel of Mark #4: Chapter 3 (Unforgivable Sin [Blaspheming the Holy Spirit] / Plots to Kill Jesus / Rude Jesus? [“Who is My Mother?”]) [8-16-19]

David Madison vs. the Gospel of Mark #6: Chapters 5-6 (Supernatural & Miracles / Biblical Literary Genres & Figures / Perpetual Virginity / Healing & Belief / Persecution of Jesus in Nazareth) [8-18-19]

David Madison vs. the Gospel of Mark #9: Chapter 10 (Christian Biblical Ignorance / Jesus vs. Marriage & Family? / Divinity of Jesus) [8-20-19]

David Madison vs. the Gospel of Mark #10: Chapter 11 (Two Donkeys? / Fig Tree / Moneychangers) [8-20-19]

David Madison vs. the Gospel of Mark #11: Chapter 12 (Jesus Predicts His Passion & Death / Judgment Day / God’s Mercy / God as Cosmic Narcissist?) [8-21-19]

Pearce’s Potshots #15: Gospel of Matthew vs. Gospel of Mark? [2-7-21]

Groundless Gospel of Mark Bashing Systematically Refuted (vs. Vexen Crabtree) [2-9-21]

Mary & Jesus

“Who is My Mother?”: Beginning of “Familial Church” [8-26-19]

Did Jesus Deny That Mary Was “Blessed” (Lk 11:27-28)? [11-19-19]

Did Jesus Denigrate Calling Mary “Blessed?” [National Catholic Register, 12-24-19]

“Who is My Mother?” — Jesus and the “Familial Church” [National Catholic Register, 1-21-20]

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

Mary: Sinless

“All Have Sinned” vs. a Sinless, Immaculate Mary? [1996; revised and posted at National Catholic Register on 12-11-17]

Jason Engwer and a Supposedly Sinful Mary (Doubting Jesus’ Sanity? / Inconsiderate (?) Young Jesus in the Temple / “Woman” and the Wedding at Cana) [11-16-20]

Matthew: Gospel of

Seidensticker Folly #53: Matthew Cited the Wrong Prophet? [9-11-20]

Pearce’s Potshots #15: Gospel of Matthew vs. Gospel of Mark? [2-7-21]

Gospel of Matthew Bashing Refuted Point-by-Point (vs. Vexen Crabtree) [2-10-21]

Moses

Did Moses (and God) Sin In Judging the Midianites (Numbers 31)? [5-21-08]

Righteous and Sinful Anger in Moses: Smashing the Tablets and the Rock at Meribah [5-22-08]

Ward’s Whoppers #9-10: Parting the Red Sea / “Foreigners” [5-18-20]

Moses & Aaron & Their Staff(s): Biblical Contradictions? (vs. Dr. Steven DiMattei) [11-21-20]

A Bible Puzzle About the Staff of Moses and Aaron [National Catholic Register, 1-14-21]

Pearce’s Potshots #29: No Pitch / Bitumen in Moses’ Egypt? [5-26-21]

Moses, Kadesh, Negev, Bronze Age, & Archaeology [6-10-21]

Pearce’s Potshots #34: Atheist Throws a Screwball Pitch (Part II of “Pitch / Bitumen in Moses’ Egypt”) [6-12-21]

Did Moses Exist? No Absolute Proof, But Strong Evidence (Pearce’s Potshots #35, in Which Our Brave Hero Classifies Moses as “a Mythological Figure” and I Reply!) [6-14-21]

New Testament: Citation of the Old Testament

Old Testament Citations in the NT Defended (Jn 7:38) [7-4-10]

Pacifism

Pacifism vs. “Just War”: Biblical and Social Factors [April 1987]

Passover

Ward’s Whoppers #7-8: “God of Abraham…” / Passover [5-18-20]

Paul & Atheism

St. Paul: Two-Faced Re Unbelief? (Romans 1 “vs.” Epistles) [7-5-10]

Paul: Knowledge of Jesus

Seidensticker Folly #24: Paul’s Massive Ignorance of Jesus (?) [10-5-18]

Ehrman Errors #4: Paul’s “Neglect” of the Life of Jesus [3-22-22]

Paul & Lying

Pearce’s Potshots #16: Does St. Paul Justify Lying? [2-12-21]

Paul: “Pluralist”?

St. Paul: Orthodox Catholic or Theological Pluralist? [12-28-18]

Paul & Romans

David Madison vs. Paul and Romans #1: Chapter 1 (Virgin Birth / God in Creation / Human Rebelliousness / Paul’s Loving Tolerance / God’s Forgiveness / Paul on Sex & Marriage / God’s Just Judgment) [8-22-19]

David Madison vs. Paul and Romans #2: Chapter 2 (God’s Fair Judgment / Soteriology / God Knowing Our Thoughts / Chosen People) [8-26-19]

David Madison vs. Paul and Romans #3: Chapter 3 (Pauline / Biblical Soteriology: Faith and Works, Grace and Merit / Hyperbole [“No one is good”]) [8-27-19]

David Madison vs. Paul and Romans #4: Chapter 4 (Development: Law & Grace & Faith / Circumcision & Abortion / Eternal Salvation & Damnation in the Old Testament) [8-27-19]

David Madison vs. Paul and Romans #5: Chapter 5 (Conversion & Apostolic Credentials / Pre-Pauline Evangelism / “Rogue Apostle”? / Falsely Alleged Fears / Universal Atonement / Foolishness of the Cross / Unspiritual Persons) [8-28-19]

David Madison vs. Paul and Romans #6: Chapter 6 (Baptismal Regeneration / Is Paul a Killjoy? / Paul & the Last Days) [8-28-19]

David Madison vs. Paul and Romans #7: Chapter 7 (Stock Atheist Insults / Flesh vs. Spirit / Did Paul Wallow in “Personal Torment”?) [8-29-19]

David Madison vs. Paul and Romans #8: Chapter 8 (Meaning of “Flesh” / Original Sin & Man’s Rebellion / Paul’s Triumphant Solution / Paul & Greek Culture) [8-29-19]

David Madison vs. Paul and Romans #9: Chapter 9 (“Hardening Hearts” and Hebrew “Block Logic”) [8-30-19]

David Madison vs. Paul and Romans #10: Chapter 10 (“Circumcision of the Heart” & the Law / “Being Saved” in Ancient Jewish Scripture) [8-30-19]

David Madison vs. Paul and Romans #11: Chapter 11 (“Scary” & “Vindictive” Yahweh? / Endless Stupefied Insults of God / Judgment Explained Yet Again) [8-30-19]

Peter: Denials of

Seidensticker Folly #48: Peter’s Denials & Accusers [8-31-20]

Philistines

Pearce’s Potshots #33: No Philistines in Moses’ Time? [6-3-21]

Ehrman Errors #1: Philistines, Beersheba, Bible Accuracy [3-18-22]

Polytheism & the Bible

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

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

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

The Bible Teaches That Other “Gods” are Imaginary [National Catholic Register, 7-10-20]

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

Prayer

Seidensticker Folly #7: No Conditional Prayer in Scripture? [8-16-18]

Should We Pray for All People or Not (1 John 5:16)? [9-5-18]

Biblical Prayer is Conditional, Not Solely Based on Faith [National Catholic Register, 10-9-18]

We Can’t Demand That God Directly Communicate to Us or Answer Prayer Exactly as We Want Him to (and God’s non-answer is no reason to leave the faith) [blog combox, 2-23-19]

Madison vs. Jesus #10: Universal Answered Prayer & Healing? [8-7-19]

Proverbs

Ward’s Whoppers #17-21: Proverbs Allow of Exceptions [5-21-20]

Salvation

Seidensticker Folly #29: Repentance: Part of Salvation [10-26-18]

Seidensticker Folly #64: A Saved Dahmer & Damned Anne Frank? [11-24-20]

Ehrman Errors #3: Jesus vs. Paul on Salvation? [3-22-22]

Science & the Bible / The Universe

Seidensticker Folly #21: Atheist “Bible Science” Absurdities [9-25-18]

Seidensticker Folly #23: Atheist “Bible Science” Inanities, Pt. 2 [10-2-18]

Loftus Atheist Error #9: Bible Espouses Mythical Animals? [9-10-19]

The Bible and Mythical Animals [National Catholic Register, 10-9-19]

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

Vs. Atheist David Madison #37: Bible, Science, & Germs [12-10-19]

Vs. Atheist David Madison #38: Who is Insulting Intelligence? (. . . with emphasis on the vexing and complex question of the ultimate origins of matter and life) [12-11-19]

Seidensticker Folly #36: Disease, Jesus, Paul, Miracles, & Demons [1-13-20]

Sea of Galilee

Bashing Mark on Geography / “Sea” of Galilee [3-30-22]

Slavery & the Bible

Biblical Inspiration & Cultural Influences: Contradictory? (emphasis on slavery) [8-10-18]

Seidensticker Folly #10: Slavery in the Old Testament [8-20-18]

Seidensticker Folly #11: Slavery & the New Testament [8-20-18]

Souls

Seidensticker Folly #8: Physics Has Disproven Souls? [8-16-18]

Ten Commandments

Seidensticker Folly #16: Two Sets of Ten Commandments? [9-10-18]

Ward’s Whoppers #11-12: Ten Commandments Issues [5-19-20]

Pearce Pablum #68: “Thou Shalt Not Kill” [Murder] [3-2-22]

Tomb of Jesus

Resurrection #14: When Was the Stone Rolled Away? [4-27-21]

Resurrection #16: Peter & John at the Empty Tomb [4-28-21]

Women

Dialogue: Sexist, Misogynist Bible and Christianity? (Debate with Five Atheists. Are Christian Women Abused as “Sheep”?) [9-20-10; abridged a bit on 2-12-20]

“Zombies” (Matthew 27:51-53)

Seidensticker Folly #45: “Zombies” & Clueless Atheists (Atheist Neil Carter Joins in on the Silliness and Tomfoolery as Well) [8-29-20]

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Photo credit: geralt (8-18-16) [Pixabay / Pixabay License]

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Summary: I’ve done quite a few rebuttals of falsely alleged biblical “contradictions”, so I thought it would be good (for reference purposes) to collect them all together in one place, categorized by topic.

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Last updated on 18 March 2023

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2021-01-31T12:23:40-04:00

Last updated on: January 31, 2021 at 12:23 pm   By

Atheist and anti-theist Bob Seidensticker runs the influential Cross Examined blog. He asked me there, on 8-11-18: “I’ve got 1000+ posts here attacking your worldview. You just going to let that stand? Or could you present a helpful new perspective that I’ve ignored on one or two of those posts?” He added in June 2017 in a combox: “If I’ve misunderstood the Christian position or Christian arguments, point that out. Show me where I’ve mischaracterized them.” Delighted to oblige his wishes . . .

Bob (for the record) virtually begged and pleaded with me to dialogue with him in May 2018, via email. But by 10-3-18, following massive, childish name-calling attacks against me,  encouraged by Bob on his blog, he banned me from commenting there. I also banned him for violation of my rules for discussion, but (unlike him) provided detailed reasons for why it was justified.

Bob’s cowardly hypocrisy knows no bounds. On 6-30-19, he was chiding someone for something very much like his own behavior: “Spoken like a true weasel trying to run away from a previous argument. You know, you could just say, ‘Let me retract my previous statement of X’ or something like that.” Yeah, Bob could!  He still hasn’t yet uttered one peep in reply to — now — 69 of my critiques of his atrocious reasoning.

Bible-Basher Bob reiterated and rationalized his intellectual cowardice yet again on 12-21-20: “I love people who can make cogent arguments against mine or point out data I hadn’t considered before. What I dislike (and ban) are $#&*%@s who . . . refuse to learn/adapt . . . ignore compelling arguments against their position, and so on.”

Bible-Basher Bob’s words will be in blue. To find these posts, follow this link: “Seidensticker Folly #” or see all of them linked under his own section on my Atheism page.

*****

In his post, “Defending 10 Atheist Arguments (3 of 5)” (1-30-21). Bible-Basher Bob again beats the dead horse of a supposed “henotheism” taught in the Bible. Henotheism is a variant of polytheism (“many gods”), defined as “the worship of a single, overarching god while not denying the existence or possible existence of other lower deities” (Wikipedia). Bob — incredibly — claims that the Bible actually teaches this. I thoroughly corrected and refuted him twice, over two years ago now (I’ll provide those links below), but as we all know, he ignores all critiques from me (can’t be too careful!), and so goes on repeating the same tired, stupid, refuted claims (as if repeating a lie enough times magically makes it true).

In this effort, Bob is opposing Tim Barnett of the Protestant Stand to Reason apologetics ministry. Anyone but me (the one who provides a direct point-by-point rebuttal of his nonsense) . . . Bible-Basher Bob, ever the Bible expert (more than any Christian!) pontificates:

The Bible (at least part of it) imagines a world with multiple gods—not just the Israelites’ Yahweh, but Chemosh, Moloch, Marduk, Baal, and other ancient Mesopotamian deities. And these are (supposedly) real gods—the Bible isn’t saying, “Yahweh obviously exists, but those nutty Moabites worship their invented god Chemosh.” There were multiple choices for a god but no good reason to pick one as preferable over another.

If we’re taking the Bible as true, then these “other gods” were just as real as Yahweh. . . . 

The first Commandment, “You shall have no other gods before me,” doesn’t say that there aren’t other gods or even that they mustn’t be worshipped! It simply says that Yahweh must be the primary god. . . . 

What is clear is that the Bible evolved over time.

The book of Isaiah was written in three parts, and this chapter is in the middle piece, written in the 6th century BCE. It’s true that verse claims God is the only god, but by this time, henotheism had been replaced by monotheism. The Bible evolved.

This claim of “biblical evolution” (in essential aspects, like the nature of God) is poppycock, and I have already refuted it:

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

. . . The Bible itself says that Yahweh is just one of many gods. The Bible documents the evolution of the supernatural from henotheism to monotheism, which shows that Yahweh is no more real than any of the others.

These are all lies, and I have refuted them repeatedly:

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

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

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

The Bible Teaches That Other “Gods” are Imaginary [National Catholic Register, 7-10-20]

Once the Mosaic Law is established, monotheism (one God and one God only) is crystal clear, and remains so throughout the Bible:

Exodus 8:10 (RSV) . . there is no one like the LORD our God. (cf. 1 Chr 17:20; 2 Chr 6:14)

Deuteronomy 4:35, 39 To you it was shown, that you might know that the LORD is God; there is no other besides him. . . . [39] . . . the LORD is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other. (cf. Neh 9:6; 2 Sam 7:22; 1 Kgs 8:23; Is 43:10; 44:6, 8; 45:5-6, 14, 18, 21-22; 46:9; 47:8; Hos 13:4)

Deuteronomy 6:4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD; (cf. Mk 12:29; Jas 2:19)

Deuteronomy 32:39 See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.

Psalm 83:18 Let them know that thou alone, whose name is the LORD, art the Most High over all the earth.

Psalm 86:10 For thou art great and doest wondrous things, thou alone art God.

Isaiah 37:20 …thou alone art the LORD. (cf. 37:16)

Isaiah 43:10 …Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me.

Isaiah 44:8 …Is there a God besides me? There is no Rock; I know not any. (cf. 44:6; 45:5-6, 21-22; 46:9; Mal 2:10)

And the Bible also explains beyond any doubt that the other “gods” being talked about are not real (only imagined to be by false worshipers). The Bible refers to them in the sense that they exist in other religious belief-systems: not because they exist in fact or reality. Obviously, these sorts of texts are saying that this is all these supposed “gods” are: wood and stone. They have no conscious existence. It’s classic idolatry: that the Jews were judged for again and again throughout the period of the Old Testament:

Genesis 31:19 . . . Rachel stole her father’s household gods.

Genesis 35:2, 4 So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Put away the foreign gods that are among you, and purify yourselves, and change your garments; . . . [4] So they gave to Jacob all the foreign gods that they had, and the rings that were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was near Shechem.

Exodus 20:23 You shall not make gods of silver to be with me, nor shall you make for yourselves gods of gold.

Leviticus 19:4 Do not turn to idols or make for yourselves molten gods: I am the LORD your God.

Deuteronomy 4:27-28 And the LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the LORD will drive you. [28] And there you will serve gods of wood and stone, the work of men’s hands, that neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell. (cf. 29:17; 1 Chr 16:26; Is 2:8, 20; 31:7; 37:19; 44:10, 15, 17; 46:6; Jer 1:16)

Deuteronomy 28:36 The LORD will bring you, and your king whom you set over you, to a nation that neither you nor your fathers have known; and there you shall serve other gods, of wood and stone. (cf. 28:64: “other gods, of wood and stone”)

Deuteronomy 32:17 They sacrificed to demons which were no gods, . . .

2 Kings 19:15-19 And Hezeki’ah prayed before the LORD, and said: “O LORD the God of Israel, who art enthroned above the cherubim, thou art the God, thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; thou hast made heaven and earth. [16] Incline thy ear, O LORD, and hear; open thy eyes, O LORD, and see; and hear the words of Sennach’erib, which he has sent to mock the living God. [17] Of a truth, O LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands, [18] and have cast their gods into the fire; for they were no gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone; therefore they were destroyed. [19] So now, O LORD our God, save us, I beseech thee, from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou, O LORD, art God alone.” (cf. Is 37:19; 45:20)

2 Chronicles 13:9 . . . Whoever comes to consecrate himself with a young bull or seven rams becomes a priest of what are no gods.

Psalm 40:4 . . . those who go astray after false gods!

Psalm 96:5 For all the gods of the peoples are idols; but the LORD made the heavens. (cf. 97:7; 115:4; 135:15)

Isaiah 37:19 …for they were no gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone.…

Isaiah 44:10 Who fashions a god or casts an image, that is profitable for nothing?

Isaiah 44:15 . . . he makes a god and worships it, he makes it a graven image and falls down before it.

Isaiah 44:17 And the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol; and falls down to it and worships it; he prays to it and says, “Deliver me, for thou art my god!”

Isaiah 46:6 Those who lavish gold from the purse, and weigh out silver in the scales, hire a goldsmith, and he makes it into a god;
then they fall down and worship!

Jeremiah 2:11  Has a nation changed its gods, even though they are no gods? . . .

Jeremiah 5:7 . . . Your children have forsaken me, and have sworn by those who are no gods. . . . (cf. 10:14)

Jeremiah 16:20 Can man make for himself gods? Such are no gods! (cf. 51:17)

The New Testament is no different. The existence of these “gods” is denied by St. Paul:

1 Corinthians 8:4-6 Hence, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “an idol has no real existence,” and that “there is no God but one.” [5] For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth — as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords” — [6] yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

Galatians 4:8 Formerly, when you did not know God, you were in bondage to beings that by nature are no gods;

Ephesians 4:5-6 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, [6] one God and Father of us all, who is above all and through all and in all.

1 Timothy 2:5 For there is one God, . . .

Some also claim that St. John in the book of Revelation is a henotheist or polytheist. I don’t see how. The book of Revelation never includes the word “gods” a single time. Here’s what it teaches:

Revelation 1:8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.

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Photo credit: God the Father, as typically presented with dramatic license in art (since in the Bible He is a spirit) [Pixabay / Pixabay License]

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2021-01-14T15:45:31-04:00

Last updated on: January 14, 2021 at 3:45 pm   By

Biblical View of Astronomy, Laws of Nature, and the Natural World

Atheist anti-theist Jonathan M. S. Pearce is the main writer on the blog, A Tippling Philosopher. His “About” page states: “Pearce is a philosopher, author, blogger, public speaker and teacher from Hampshire in the UK. He specialises in philosophy of religion, but likes to turn his hand to science, psychology, politics and anything involved in investigating reality.” His words will be in blue.

*****

I am replying to the following portion of Jonathan’s article, “Frank Tipler refuted on his Star of Bethlehem thesis by Aaron Adair” (8-10-12), and a related comment on another of his posts as well (all bolding added presently):

[Y]ou should consider the possibility that the Star of Bethlehem was a supernatural phenomenon. As such, it may have been visible to the Magi only – which would explain why nobody else saw it. We don’t know. But in that case, there would be nothing to prevent it from resting over a house. . . . I don’t know why Christians bother with trying to find naturalistic explanations for something so clearly supernaturalist. The Bible is full of supernaturalism – why plead this is naturalistic and then look for an incredibly ad hoc and uncorroborated naturalistic explanation! [two typos corrected]

Now, if the star is naturalistic, then the whole world could have seen it, and could have interpreted its indicative nature. Why only three or so Eastern Magi did is bizarre. That no one from Jerusalem follows the star with these people is odd. Even if the Jerusalemites were unanimously skeptical (imagine the probability of THAT!) . . . that not a single person ventured three hours south to verify or falsify the claims of the chief priests and scribes is utterly intelligible. So, really, the star must have been supernatural and only appeared to the vision of the Magi. Nothing else is particularly coherent. (12-22-14)

Jonathan has this notion in his head that the star of Bethlehem described in the Bible “must have been supernatural.” Any natural explanation is, in his opinion, “incredibly ad hoc and uncorroborated” and not “particularly coherent.”  

Why he thinks this way (what presupposition — who knows what? — allegedly requires it) is anybody’s guess. Atheists have this very odd trait of always seeming to think that they know the Bible much much better than those gullible, ignorant Christians who waste their entire lives studying and being devoted to the Bible (believing to be God’s infallible revelation to mankind). In my case, I’ve done so for over 40 years: the last forty as a Christian apologist, and the last nineteen as an apologist by profession / occupation.

In any event, Jonathan magisterially and dogmatically pontificates that the explanation can only be “supernatural” and that nothing else will do, and that this is, indeed, obvious to any rational person. In fact, Christian scholars and commentators and exegetes have come down on both sides of the question, and have offered both supernatural and natural explanations. That being the case, each interpreter can only provide their own reasons for why they believe as they do, in an effort to persuade others. This is how it is for many Bible passages, that allow for differing interpretations. 

I shall argue here that the natural explanation is not ruled out at all, and is quite plausible, based on the analogy of how the Bible treats natural phenomena: particularly astronomical ones. The Bible expresses an acquaintance with the stars by the ancient Hebrews:

Saturn is no less certainly represented by the star Kaiwan, adored by the reprobate Israelites in the desert (Amos 5:26) [RSV: “You shall take up Sakkuth your king, and Kaiwan your star-god, your images, which you made for yourselves;”]. The same word (interpreted to mean “steadfast”) frequently designates, in the Babylonian inscriptions, the slowest-moving planet; while Sakkuth, the divinity associated with the star by the prophet, is an alternative appellation for Ninib, who, as a Babylonian planet-god, was merged with Saturn. The ancient Syrians and Arabs, too, called Saturn Kaiwan, the corresponding terms in the Zoroastrian Bundahish being Kevan. . . . Gad and Meni (Isaias, lxv, 11 [Isaiah 65:11]) are, no doubt, the “greater and the lesser Fortune” typified throughout the East by Jupiter and Venus; Neba, the tutelary deity of Borsippa (Isaias xlvi, 1 [Isaiah 46:1]), shone in the sky as Mercury, and Nergal, transplanted from Assyria to Kutha (2 Kings 17:30), as Mars. . . .

In a striking passage the Prophet Amos (v, 8 [RSV: “He who made the Plei’ades and Orion . . .”) glorifies the Creator as “Him that made Kimah and Kesil“, . . . The word, which occurs twice in the Book of Job (ix, 9; xxxviii, 31) [9:9, RSV: “who made the Bear and Orion, the Plei’ades and the chambers of the south;” / 38:31: “Can you bind the chains of the Plei’ades, or loose the cords of Orion?”], is treated in the Septuagint version as equivalent to Pleiades. This, also, is the meaning given to it in the Talmud and throughout Syrian literature; it is supported by etymological evidences, the Hebrew term being obviously related to the Arabic root kum (accumulate), and the Assyrian kamu (to bind); while the “chains of Kimah”, referred to in the sacred text, not inaptly figure the coercive power imparting unity to a multiple object. The associated constellation Kesil is doubtless no other than our Orion. . . . We may then safely admit that Kimah and Kesil did actually designate the Pleiades and Orion. (Catholic Encyclopedia [1907], “Astronomy in the Bible”; “Astronomical allusions in the Old Testament”)

The Old Testament refers to “constellations” (RSV) four times (2 Kgs 23:5; Is 13:10; Wisdom 7:19, 29). The word in Isaiah 13:10 (“constellations” also in KJV) is the Hebrew Kesil (already noted above; Strong’s word #3685), meaning “a heavenly constellation.” It appears also in Job 9:9; 38:31, and Amos 5:8: translated as “Orion” in the KJV). 2 Kings 2:35 in the KJV renders as “planets” the Hebrew mazzaloth (Strong’s word #4208), which means “constellations, perhaps signs of the zodiac.”

Thus, we find that the ancient Hebrews (Job usually being considered the oldest book of the Old Testament), were quite aware of both planets and constellations, as natural heavenly bodies, created by God.

The Bible (KJV) refers to the “ordinances” of the heavens and the stars. The Hebrew word is chuqqah (Strong’s word #2708), meaning “something prescribed, an enactment, statute.” Just as statutes were part of Mosaic law, chuqqah as applied to the stars and astronomy referred to their natural course across the sky, or, in other words, the “statutes of nature” / laws of nature as applied to the stars in the sky, in these three passages:

Job 38:33 (RSV) Do you know the ordinances of the heavens? Can you establish their rule on the earth?

Jeremiah 31:35 Thus says the LORD, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar . . .

Jeremiah 33:25 Thus says the LORD: If I have not established my covenant with day and night and the ordinances of heaven and earth,

Hence, other translations have renderings like “laws of the heavens” (NIV and Goodspeed) and “rules that govern the heavens . . . laws of nature on earth” (NEB) for Job 38:33, and “fixed patterns of heaven and earth” (NASB) or “laws of heaven and earth” (NIV) for Jeremiah 33:25. The idea is clearly the laws of nature or scientific laws governing the movement of celestial bodies. The stars have “courses” (Judges 5:20). In other words, it’s a primitive way of expressing a “proto-scientific” understanding in the categories that would be comprehensible to ancient Hebrews. Even so, they came very close to the mark indeed (and of course to the Christian this suggests a divine guiding hand in the authors).

Job 38:32 . . . can you guide the Bear with its children? (cf. 9:9 noted and cited above)

The reference is to the constellation Arcturus, or Ursa Major, in the northern sky. The “sons” referred to are the stars that accompany it, probably the stars that are now called the “tail of the bear.” (Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Whole Bible)

Most people in America know these stars by another name:

The Big Dipper (US, Canada) or the Plough (UK, Ireland) is a large asterism consisting of seven bright stars of the constellation Ursa Major; . . . Four define a “bowl” or “body” and three define a “handle” or “head”. It is recognized as a distinct grouping in many cultures. . . .

The constellation of Ursa Major (Latin: Greater Bear) has been seen as a bear, a wagon, or a ladle. (Wikipedia: “Big Dipper”)

The Bible — very clearly, and in the opinion of most commentators — refers to both solar and lunar eclipses:

Isaiah 13:10 . . . the sun will be dark at its rising and the moon will not shed its light.

Joel 2:10 . . . The sun and the moon are darkened, . . .

Joel 2:31 The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, . . . (cf. Acts 2:19-20)

Amos 8:9 . . . I will make the sun go down at noon, and darken the earth in broad daylight.

Revelation 6:12 . . . the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood

The ancient Hebrews, like the ancient Greeks, noted the phenomenon of the “morning star”:

Such a first appearance of a star was termed by the Greek astronomers its “heliacal” rising, and the mention in Scripture of “morning stars,” or “stars of the twilight” (Job 38:7; 3:9), shows that the Hebrews like the Greeks were familiar with this feature of the ordinances of heaven, and noted the progress of the year by observation of the apparent changes of the celestial host. One star would herald the beginning of spring, another the coming of winter; the time to plow, the time to sow, the time of the rains would all be indicated by successive “morning stars” as they appeared. (International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, 1915, “Astronomy, I”)

St. Augustine in the 5th century and St. Thomas Aquinas in the 13th, both rejected astrology long before modern science, while even the most prominent modern scientists in the 16th-17th centuries, such as Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler firmly believed in it.

The above shall suffice as a crash course in biblical astronomy. For related papers on the Bible and science, see:

Biblical Flat Earth (?) Cosmology: Dialogue w Atheist (vs. Matthew Green) [9-11-06]

Flat Earth: Biblical Teaching? (vs. Ed Babinski) [9-17-06]

Demonic Possession or Epilepsy? (Bible & Science) [2015]

Old Earth, Flood Geology, Local Flood, & Uniformitarianism (vs. Kevin Rice) [5-25-04; many defunct links removed and new ones added: 5-10-17]

Seidensticker Folly #21: Atheist “Bible Science” Absurdities [9-25-18]

Seidensticker Folly #23: Atheist “Bible Science” Inanities, Pt. 2 [10-2-18]

Loftus Atheist Error #9: Bible Espouses Mythical Animals? [9-10-19]

Seidensticker Folly #42: Creation “Ex Nihilo” [8-28-20]

“Quantum Entanglement” & the “Upholding” Power of God [10-20-20]

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

I’d like to highlight two additional areas where the Bible and the ancient Hebrew worldview was quite empirical and practical, rather than prone to quick supernatural, non-scientific, or so-called “snake oil” explanations.

Hippocrates, the pagan Greek “father of medicine” didn’t understand the causes of contagious disease. Nor did medical science until the 19th century. But the hygienic principles that would have prevented the spread of such diseases were in the Bible: in the Laws of Moses. The Bible Ask site has an article, “Did the Bible teach the germs theory?” (5-30-16):

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

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

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

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

Some other interesting facts regarding the Bible and germ theory:

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

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

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

4. Hippocrates, the pagan Greek “father of medicine” (born 460 BC) didn’t understand the causes of contagious disease. He thought it was “bad air” from swampy areas. (See also: “Old Testament Laws About Infectious Diseases”)

Moreover, since Jesus observed Mosaic Law, including ritual washings, etc., He tacitly accepted (by His example of following it) the aspects of it that anticipated and “understood” germ theory. The knowledge was already in existence.

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

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

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

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

Now, all of the above is an elaborate “presuppositional background” to the issue and topic I brought up at the beginning: atheist “biblical expert” Jonathan Pearce’s insistence that the explanation for the star of Bethlehem only makes sense in a biblical context if it is supernatural and not natural. The above suggests quite otherwise: especially the data about biblical astronomy.

I would say that the overwhelming likelihood, given all this related, relevant evidence, is that biblical references (based on sheer volume) to stars and particularly the star of Bethlehem are very likely to be to natural phenomena. With that in mind, let’s briefly examine the narrative about the star of Bethlehem:

Matthew 2:2 . . . we have seen his star in the East . . .

There is nothing at all here that demands a supernatural-only explanation or interpretation of this “star.” It’s all the more unlikely in light of the fact that we know that the Magi (wise men) were highly trained in astronomy and/or some variant of astrology (likely not the “horoscope” nonsense of today). They were not likely to immediately jump to a “supernatural / miraculous” explanation. It simply meant that they interpreted it as having something to do with a king and Jerusalem, — as I have explained in other papers –, based on the symbolism of constellations and individual stars (Jupiter being the “king planet” etc.).

The text doesn’t claim that they followed this star the entire way. That’s merely the artistic license of Christmas cards. I have argued that they simply determined that it was a sign that they should journey west in search of a very noteworthy newborn king. The significant city due west of them in northwest Persia was Jerusalem. They then followed well-established, ancient  routes around the desert to get there.

Matthew 2:9 . . . the star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came to rest over the place where the child was.

This passage refers only to the six-mile journey between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, and I have contended that all it means is that a bright star (I believe, Jupiter, in my scenario, backed up by astronomical charts of what was in the sky and where) was at the time in the direction of Bethlehem (that is, over it) from Jerusalem. It would not have “moved” in the perception of the wise men, over a journey of six miles, just as we could say we were traveling west, following the setting sun. It would always “go before us” as we traveled.

It’s phenomenological language, which is habitually used by Bible writers. We use it even to this day by referring to the “sun rising” or “sun going down” etc. Literally (as we understand) it is the earth rotating, thus making the sun appear to move. But we still refer to it in the non-literal way. So does the Bible, about a lot of things.

The other aspect is the clause “it came to rest over the place where the child was.” First of all, the text does not say that this means it shone specifically onto a “house.” Matthew 2:11 (i.e., two verses later) simply says they went “into a house”: not that the star was shining on it, identifying it. We have to get it straight: what exactly any given text under consideration actually asserts and does not assert.

Let’s examine the actual biblical text a little more closely. The Greek “adverb of place” in Matthew 2:9 is hou (Strong’s word #3757). In RSV hou is translated by “the place where” (in KJV, simply “where”). It applies to a wide range of meanings beyond something as specific as a house. In other passages in RSV it refers to a mountain (Mt 28:16), Nazareth (Lk 4:16), a village (Lk 24:28), the land of Midian (Acts 7:29), Puteoli (Pozzuoli): a sizeable city in Italy (Acts 28:14), and the vast wilderness that Moses and the Hebrews traveled through (Heb 3:9). Thus it can easily, plausibly refer to “Bethlehem” in Matthew 2:9.

In RSV (Mt 2:9), hou is translated by the italicized words: “it came to rest over the place where the child was.” So the question is: what does it mean by “place” in this instance? What is the star said to be “over”? And then I noted other uses of the same word, which referred to a variety of larger areas. The text does not specifically say that “it stood over a house.” Yet many atheists (and many able and sincere, but in my opinion mistaken, Christian commentators) seem to think it does.

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

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

I never claimed that hou was a “noun” in my original wording. I was noting that it was referring to place: as indeed it did in Matthew 2:9, since the translation of it in RSV is “the place where.” Therefore “place” is a translation of hou in this instance.

I have found 18 other English Bible translations of Matthew 2:9 that also have “the place where” (Weymouth, Moffatt, Confraternity, Knox, NEB, REB, NRSV, Lamsa, Amplified, Phillips, TEV, NIV, Jerusalem, Williams, Beck, NAB, Kleist & Lilly, and Goodspeed). In all these cases, they are translating hou: literally meaning “where” but at the same time implying place (which is the “where” referred to). The Living Bible (a very modern paraphrase) has “standing over Bethlehem”: which of course, bolsters my argument as well (because it didn’t say “house”).

All these things being understood, all the text in question plausibly meant is that the bright star was shining down on Bethlehem, just as we have all seen the moon or some bright star shining on a mountain in the distance or tall building or some other landmark. A man might see the light from the harvest moon romantically shining on his girlfriend or wife’s face. It need not necessarily mean that this is all they are shining on. It simply looks that way from our particular vantage-point.

All of this is in my opinion, more plausible and straightforward and in line with biblical thinking than positing a supernatural “star.” It’s true that many reputable and observant Christian biblical commentators exist who do argue for that interpretation, and I don’t disparage them. Theirs are honest efforts just as this paper is. Reasonable people can and do disagree. I can only present the reasons for why I hold to my opinion, and for why Jonathan’s assertions of a necessary or exclusively plausible supernatural nature of the star of Bethlehem are less reasonable and likely than my scenario. I have argued it in detail in the following papers:

Star of Bethlehem, Astronomy, Wise Men, & Josephus (Amazing Astronomically Verified Data in Relation to the Journey of the Wise Men  & Jesus’ Birth & Infancy) [12-14-20]

Timeline: Star of Bethlehem, Herod’s Death, & Jesus’ Birth (Chronology of Harmonious Data from History, Archaeology, the Bible, and Astronomy) [12-15-20]

Star of Bethlehem: Refuting Silly Atheist Objections [12-26-20]

Route Taken by the Magi: Educated Guess [12-28-20]

Star of Bethlehem: More Silly Atheist “Objections” [12-29-20]

Pearce’s Potshots #12: Supernatural Star of Bethlehem? (Biblical View of Astronomy, Laws of Nature, and the Natural World) [1-11-21]

Star of Bethlehem: Natural or Supernatural? [1-13-21]

Bible Commentaries & Matthew 2:9 (Star of Bethlehem) [1-13-21]

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

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