Dr. David Madison vs. Jesus #2: Weird & Fictional Mark 16?

August 3, 2019 By Dave Armstrong

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1) they will cast out demons;

2) they will speak in new tongues;

3) they will pick up serpents,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4) unharmed by poison (Lk 10:19)

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

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

Hence, Dr. Madison’s second claim fails.

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

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Dr. David Madison vs. Jesus #1: Hating One’s Family?

August 1, 2019 By Dave Armstrong

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

*****

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Romans carried forward this science . . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gary Amirault highlights more biblical examples in a similar article:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A setting of one Phrase in Contrast with another.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vs. Atheist David Madison #42: Jesus vs. Financial Responsibility?

December 19, 2019 By Dave Armstrong

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

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

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

This is one of the replies to Dr. Madison’s series, “Things we Wish Jesus Hadn’t Said” (podcast episodes 13-25). I have already replied to every previous episode. He states in his introduction to this second series:

[A]pologists (preachers and priests) who explain away—well, they try—the nasty and often grim message in many of the sayings attributed to Jesus. Indeed, the gospels are a minefield; many negatives about Jesus are in full view.

Dr. Madison’s episode 16 is entitled, “Jesus tells those present at his trial that they will see him coming on the clouds of heaven” (8-16-19). I’ve already refuted this reasoning earlier in this series: “Dr. David Madison vs. Jesus #3: Nature & Time of 2nd Coming” (8-3-19). His episode 17 (to which I presently respond) is called, “Bad advice that Jesus gave in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 6:19-20 and 5:40 & 42” (8-19-19). Episode 18 (8-24-19) continues essentially the same flawed analysis, and so is also refuted below. Episode 19 (“Mark 2:1-12, Jesus heals a paralyzed man by forgiving his sins”), has already been rebutted by my paper, David Madison vs. the Gospel of Mark #3: Chapter 2 (Archaeological Support / Sin, Illness, Healing, & Faith / “Word” & “Gospel”). Since Dr. Madison has deliberately decided to ignore all my critiques, he taped his episode 19 exactly 17 days after I refuted all of its main contentions.

My patience is now exhausted with this series, and Dr. Madison is often merely spinning his wheels and regurgitating stale material that he has already presented, so I will end my critiques of this series with this post.

Dr. Madison’s words will be in blue.

*****

Matthew 5:40-42 (RSV) “and if any one would sue you and take your coat, let him have your cloak as well; [41] and if any one forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. [42] Give to him who begs from you, and do not refuse him who would borrow from you.”

Matthew 6:19-21 Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, [20] but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. [21] For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” [Dr. Madison ignores verse 21, which is the conclusion of the thought]

Is this advice you would give to young people starting out in life? Of course not. But in the mind of Jesus, or more correctly, in the mind of the cult propagandist who wrote the Gospels, there wasn’t going to be any such thing as starting out in life or saving for the future. The kingdom of God, with Jesus ruling and all governmental authorities removed, made no allowance for careers or saving for the future, or for the unfolding of 2000 more years of history, for that matter. It didn’t matter if you loaned money. It didn’t matter if you gave it all away to beggars.

The business about the supposed assumption that the world was gonna end soon was already dealt with in my past paper, mentioned above. Here I will address the subject matter of generosity, charity, benevolence, and opposition to materialism and excessive riches. The advice given is, of course, proverbial; hence it was not intended absolutely literally, as if it applied to every conceivable situation; any and all situations.

Jesus is cultivating a general unselfish way of life, a way of love and concern for other human beings. Then He makes the point that the eternal, spiritual things are more important than temporary earthly possessions. He does it by the typical Hebraic extreme contrast of one thing over against another.

To use an entirely “earthy” comparison, it would be like saying, “would you choose a very happy marriage that lasted five years, or an even happier marriage that lasted for a lifetime?” Anyone would choose the latter. Thus, Jesus draws a contrast between temporary material goods on earth, and “treasures” in heaven, that last forever, and are beyond the reach of either decay or theft. The preference is a no-brainer.

If there is a heaven, this makes eminent sense. The problem, of course, is that atheists like Dr. Madison don’t believe in heaven or any kind of afterlife. Obviously, then, such a concept is meaningless to him (and them). They just view it as what they deride as “pie in the sky.” But it’s perfectly reasonable if one accepts the premise (on many other reasonable grounds) that God exists and an eternal afterlife of bliss in heaven also awaits those who follow Him and accept His free offer of grace and salvation that is available to all human beings.

In any event, what is described in Matthew 5:40-42 is proverbial advice. Bob Deffinbaugh wrote an excellent article on the nature of biblical proverbial literature. Here are a few snippets:

Proverbs are highly compressed, carefully chosen words of wisdom. In the Bible, proverbs are found elsewhere than just in the Book of Proverbs. I cannot help but smile when I read the proverb Israel’s King Ahab cites to Ben Hadad, king of Syria. Ben Hadad had assembled his army and besieged the city of Samaria. He sent word to Ahab, conveying his demands, threatening to destroy Samaria if Ahab did not comply. Ahab sent Ben Hadad this response:

“Tell him the one who puts on his battle gear should not boast like one who is taking it off” (1 Kings 20:11).

We would have said, “Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.”

Proverbs may very well exist in every culture. We have many proverbs in our culture. Here are just a few:

“First things first.”
“A stitch in time saves nine.”
“Don’t cry over spilled milk.”
“Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.”
“Hind sight is better than foresight.”
“People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”
“Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.”

Proverbs are words that are skillfully crafted to stick in our minds and to engage us in thought: . . .

Proverbs are not necessarily promises, but rather generalizations of what is commonly true. Generally speaking, those who work hard and are self-disciplined prosper, while those who are lazy and gluttonous become poor . . .

[W]e must be careful not to read any particular proverb as though it comes with an unconditional guarantee of being fulfilled.

See also, International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (“Proverb”). The key to understanding a proverb is to know that it is intended to be general advice, which admits of exceptions, according to situation. It’s not absolute in nature. It is not like asserting “2 + 2 = 4” or “the moon goes around the earth” or “The Empire State Building is in New York City.” It’s situational and prudential. A famous couplet from the book of Proverbs perfectly illustrates this:

Proverbs 26:4-5 Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself. [5] Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.

I’ve often employed both pieces of advice in my own apologetics work. There is a time to answer a fool (as in fact I am doing right now), and a time not to, which brings to mind another famous Proverb from Ecclesiastes, which was the basis of a song by Pete Seeger, and a #1 hit song for the Byrds in 1965:

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: [2] a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; [3] a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; [4] a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; [5] a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; [6] a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; [7] a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; [8] a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.

Jesus Himself proves that His advice in Matthew 5 is not absolute and to be applied in any and every situation, in His parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30; cf. Luke 19:11-26). It has been called a primitive description of capitalistic industriousness, in which He expressly sanctions investment with bankers, and the making of interest (Mt 25:27; Lk 19:23). In the parable the master is God, who agrees with the investment.

For Dr. Madison, who apparently cannot comprehend the nature of proverbial biblical literature, “in the mind of the cult propagandist who wrote the Gospels, there wasn’t going to be any such thing as starting out in life or saving for the future.” Wrong! Matthew 25 and Luke 19 show this to be a falsehood.

Moreover, Dr. Madison claims that Christians were not supposed to have the slightest concern about money or the practical necessities of responsible everyday life because they were allegedly taught that the world was gonna end very soon. Why is it, then, that in the introduction of the parable of the talents in Luke’s version, the narrator (Luke) expressly denies an imminent end of the world?:

Luke 19:11 . . . he proceeded to tell a parable, because he was near to Jerusalem, and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately.

Dr. Madison thinks the Gospel writer “cult propagandists” were seeking to indoctrinate the gullible, stupid Christian cult members to think that the end of the world could and would occur in the next five minutes. Why, then, is the parable of the talents in two of these Gospels, and why is Luke 19:11 there: dead-set against the supposed nefarious goal and agenda? It makes no sense. Jesus Himself makes the same point: that the time of the end is not known, immediately preceding the Matthew version of the parable of the talents:

Matthew 25:13 Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.

The parable of the ten virgins and their oil lamps, right before this portion of Matthew (Matthew 25:1-13) is making the same point: industrious preparedness and wise stewardship of the material possessions one has: the very opposite of “simply give to every beggar and take no thought of how to wisely provide for yourselves.” What one does depends on prudence and a given situation. That is biblical “wisdom”: expressed in a very specific literary idiom, with its own particular characteristics: the proverb or the parable.

So much for Dr. Madison’s imaginary nonsense and slop (for now the 42nd time!). He doesn’t have the slightest clue concerning what he is pontificating about. His atheism has made him thoroughly illogical and oblivious to facts and reason alike, when it comes to Anything Biblical. This is what extreme, fanatical bias and hostility do to an otherwise fairly rational and sensible mind.

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Unfortunately, Money Trees Do Not Exist: If you have been aided in any way by my work, or think it is valuable and worthwhile, please strongly consider financially supporting it (even $10 / month — a mere 33 cents a day — would be very helpful). I have been a full-time Catholic apologist since Dec. 2001, and have been writing Christian apologetics since 1981 (see my Resume). My work has been proven (by God’s grace alone) to be fruitful, in terms of changing lives (see the tangible evidences from unsolicited “testimonies”). I have to pay my bills like all of you: and have a (homeschooling) wife and three children still at home to provide for, and a mortgage to pay.

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See my information on how to donate (including 100% tax-deductible donations). It’s very simple to contribute to my apostolate via PayPal, if a tax deduction is not needed (my “business name” there is called “Catholic Used Book Service,” from my old bookselling days 17 or so years ago, but send to my email: apologistdave@gmail.com). Another easy way to send and receive money (with a bank account or a mobile phone) is through Zelle. Again, just send to my e-mail address. May God abundantly bless you.

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Photo credit: The Parable of The Talents, by Willem de Poorter (1608-1668) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

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Vs. Atheist David Madison #40: Jesus: ALL Sexual Desire is Lust?

December 18, 2019 By Dave Armstrong

Replies to some of the most clueless atheist “arguments” to ever enter the mind of a sentient human being . . .

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

[A]pologists (preachers and priests) who explain away—well, they try—the nasty and often grim message in many of the sayings attributed to Jesus. Indeed, the gospels are a minefield; many negatives about Jesus are in full view.

I am replying to episode 14, entitled, “Jesus equates sexual arousal with adultery” (7-29-19). Dr. Madison’s words will be in blue.

*****

Matthew 5:27-30 (RSV) “You have heard that it was said, `You shall not commit adultery.’ [28] But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. [29] If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. [30] And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.”

Dr. Madison pontificates:

First of all, adultery is a serious violation of trust. And it’s caused so much pain and anguish. We don’t need gods to tell us not to do it.

Great! I agree, and this is our common ground. Adultery is a bad thing, and Jesus and Christianity are against it. One would think we wouldn’t even have to discuss the issue, then. “All” agree. But no such luck . . .

But anyone who suggests that sexual arousal — that old religious obsession of lust — can be equated with adultery, is just dead wrong. Yes, I’m looking at you, Jesus. . . . Sexual fantasies just pop into our heads. . . . We don’t need some religious zealot standing over our shoulder, scolding us for lust: “guess what, pal? You’ve just committed adultery in your heart.”

I wholeheartedly agree with the first sentence. Sexual arousal itself is not the same thing as adultery; nor is it always the same thing as lust (it could be in some cases). What I profoundly disagree with is that Jesus is equating all sexual arousal with lust and adultery. It’s not in the text. Dr. Madison has simply assumed what ain’t there, because, after all, we’re talking about Christians, and everyone “knows” that they hate sex, right (even though secular sociological polls consistently reveal that committed, serious Christians have more sexual happiness in marriage — and happier, more long-lasting marriages — than just about any other group)?

It seems that Christians and atheists can agree on the definition of lust: or at least whatever exists in lust that Christians object to. Dictionary.com defines it as follows:

1 intense sexual desire or appetite.

2 uncontrolled or illicit sexual desire or appetite; lecherousness.

3 a passionate or overmastering desire or craving (usually followed by for): a lust for power.

Merriam-Webster provides a definition (its first one) that is closer to the meaning of the biblical term, and standard usage in Christianity (and similar to #2 in Dictionary.com):

1: usually intense or unbridled sexual desire : LASCIVIOUSNESS He was motivated more by lust than by love.

Note how “lasciviousness” is provided as a synonym. If we go to that entry, it defines the word as synonymous with “lewd.” If we go in turn to the definition of “lewd” it’s this:

1a: OBSCENE, VULGAR lewd remarks

b: sexually unchaste or licentious (see LICENTIOUS sense 1) lewd behavior

One gets the idea by now. This is not preaching or the Bible; it’s two secular dictionaries. Lust is not simply sexual desire or arousal itself. It goes far beyond that. It’s “uncontrolled” and “unbridled” and “lecherousness.” It’s “overmastering” and associated with a “lust for power” (a thing that isn’t even necessarily sexual). It’s “lascivious” and the opposite of love. It’s lewd, unchaste, licentious, obscene, and vulgar. Remember, this is simply dictionaries, not Christian manuals, written by old celibate men; killjoys who supposedly want to control what everyone does in the bedroom and make sure they are unhappy, unfulfilled, and miserable. But it almost sounds like an old-fashioned fire and brimstone sermon, doesn’t it?

I think Christians and atheists can also readily agree that disordered desire is a bad thing, and that there is proper desire. We certainly disagree (quite a bit!) on where the lines are drawn, but we agree that there are such ethical / moral distinctions to be recognized. Even today, there are many areas of immoral sexuality, where virtually all people of all belief systems can and do agree; for example, rape, pedophilia, sexual abuse of all kinds, incest, bestiality, and sexual slavery and trafficking.

Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount is talking about lust (i.e., what we have just seen defined, above), not all sexual desire. Dr. Madison is more than capable of figuring this out and grasping it. But he simply doesn’t give a fig about accurately portraying Jesus’ teaching. I’ve already demonstrated how he’s been consistently wrong and out to sea, 13 times; and this is (true to form) the 14th. But because of his extreme hostility, he makes this absurd argument.

Obviously then (these preliminaries out of the way), we can agree that lust is bad, and that Jesus was right to condemn it. It shouldn’t be in the least bit controversial. It’s only when Dr. Madison distorts and lies about Jesus’ words and thoughts, that we have a serious problem. Jesus’ reflections here are scarcely even arguable. It’s the idea that great crimes and sins and wrongful acts have an origin in our minds before we commit them. This is not at all exclusive to religious thinking. It’s the basis of degrees of charges for crime. Hence, premeditated murder is a much more serious charge because it was thought about beforehand and planned in great detail. That’s a lot more worthy of punishment than a crime of passion, committed in a momentary burst of anger.

So Jesus makes a point that should be readily understood and agreed with, with just a little reflection: “every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” That’s exactly right. The seeds and the essence of it are in the planning, just as the essence of a premeditated murder lies in the original evil plans to carry it out. Therefore, we ought not lust, as it can lead to very bad things: for us and for those around us. Simply having a sexual desire arise is not evil. It’s how we react to it. Do we sustain and “coddle” it if it is a wrong desire? The desire can quickly transform into lust.

The Bible and Christianity are not opposed to sexual desire; only to disordered sexual desire (sex outside of marriage between a man and a woman, non-procreative sex — as Catholics believe — forced sex, etc.). Hence, St. Paul in the Bible doesn’t condemn sexual desires themselves (towards a future spouse in this instance), but rather, uncontrolled desires (i.e., lust):

1 Corinthians 7:9 . . . if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion.

1 Corinthians 7:36-37 If any one thinks that he is not behaving properly toward his betrothed, if his passions are strong, and it has to be, let him do as he wishes: let them marry — it is no sin. [37] But whoever is firmly established in his heart, being under no necessity but having his desire under control, and has determined this in his heart, to keep her as his betrothed, he will do well.

Sexual desire is famously expressed (as perfectly good and permissible) in the Song of Solomon:

Song of Solomon 1:15-16 Behold, you are beautiful, my love; behold, you are beautiful; your eyes are doves. [16] Behold, you are beautiful, my beloved, truly lovely. . . .

Song of Solomon 2:5-6 . . . I am sick with love. [6] O that his left hand were under my head, and that his right hand embraced me!

Song of Solomon 4:5-7, 9-13 Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle, that feed among the lilies. [6] Until the day breathes and the shadows flee, I will hie me to the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense. [7] You are all fair, my love; there is no flaw in you. . . . [9] You have ravished my heart, my sister, my bride, you have ravished my heart with a glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace. [10] How sweet is your love, my sister, my bride! how much better is your love than wine, and the fragrance of your oils than any spice! [11] Your lips distil nectar, my bride; honey and milk are under your tongue; the scent of your garments is like the scent of Lebanon. [12] A garden locked is my sister, my bride, a garden locked, a fountain sealed. [13] Your shoots are an orchard of pomegranates with all choicest fruits, . . .

Song of Solomon 7:6-10 How fair and pleasant you are, O loved one, delectable maiden! [7] You are stately as a palm tree, and your breasts are like its clusters. [8] I say I will climb the palm tree and lay hold of its branches. Oh, may your breasts be like clusters of the vine, and the scent of your breath like apples, [9] and your kisses like the best wine that goes down smoothly, gliding over lips and teeth. [10] I am my beloved’s, and his desire is for me.

Really puritanistic, Victorian, sexually repressed words and sentiments, ain’t they?

This self-mutilation metaphor in this text is gross. Pluck out your eyes, cut off your hand. A great moral teacher could think of something better. Cult fanatics talk like this: before trying to get you to drink the Kool-Aid.

At least he has wits enough to recognize that it is a metaphor. But once one does that, there is little objection left. In one of my 39 past refutations of Dr. Madison’s nonsense (the first installment of this very series), I wrote about how Jesus said, “if you don’t hate your family, you’re not worthy of me.” This is hyperbole: the extreme contrast. But in another Gospel, Jesus gives the literal meaning, which is how the hyperbole is interpreted: “if you love your family more than me, you’re not worthy of me.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gary Amirault highlights more biblical examples in a similar article:

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

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

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

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

Dr. Madison concludes that this is flat-out bad and “gross” teaching, and the stuff of “cult fanatics.” The real truth is that he (biblical studies doctorate and all) is — amazingly enough — simply unfamiliar with the many sophisticated types and figures in the Bible, including hyperbole or exaggeration. He has to get up to speed and be properly educated, in order to understand and avoid contending for ludicrous things, as he has done (yet again!) here.

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Photo credit: MarCuesBo (7-28-16) [Pixabay / Pixabay License]

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Vs. Atheist David Madison #39: Jesus the Xenophobic Bigot?

December 12, 2019 By Dave Armstrong

And did Jesus minister exclusively to Jews and not Gentiles at all (an alleged Gospel inconsistency)?

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

[A]pologists (preachers and priests) who explain away—well, they try—the nasty and often grim message in many of the sayings attributed to Jesus. Indeed, the gospels are a minefield; many negatives about Jesus are in full view.

I am replying to episode 13, entitled, “Matthew 15:22-28, Jesus calls a Gentile woman a dog” (7-23-19). Dr. Madison’s words will be in blue, and those of other atheists in purple, green, and brown.

*****

Matthew 15:22-28 (RSV) And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and cried, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely possessed by a demon.” [23] But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and begged him, saying, “Send her away, for she is crying after us.” [24] He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” [25] But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” [26] And he answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” [27] She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” [28] Then Jesus answered her, “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

In this installment, Dr. Madison trots out what is apparently a big favorite of anti-theist atheist polemicists. This is my fourth time dealing with it, so it’s nothing new. One atheist who goes by the nick “BeeryUSA” stated that this very thing ( a complete misunderstanding on his part) made him cease to be a Christian:

I recall the precise passage that I was reading when I realized that Jesus was actually a xenophobic nationalist . . . and therefore could not be any kind of god I could worship:

Matthew 15:24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

So this psycho Jesus refuses to treat a woman’s daughter simply because she was a Canaanite. All of a sudden, my desire to give Jesus the benefit of the doubt melted away and, with my new-found skepticism, it didn’t take long from there for all the rest of it to unravel.

Likewise, Bible-Basher Bob Seidensticker (whom I have refuted 35 times with no reply whatsoever), opined:

At the end of the gospel story, Jesus has risen and is giving the disciples their final instructions.

Make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19).

This is the familiar Great Commission, and it’s a lot more generous than what has been called the lesser commission that appears earlier in the same gospel:

These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel.” (Matthew 10:5–6)

This was not a universal message. We see it again in his encounter with the Canaanite woman:

[Jesus rejected her plea to heal her daughter, saying] “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”

The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.

He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” (Matthew 15:24–6)

You might say that a ministry with limited resources had to prioritize, but that doesn’t apply here. Don’t forget that Jesus was omnipotent. . . .

Let’s revisit the fact that Matthew is contradictory when it says both “Make disciples of all nations” and “Do not go among the Gentiles [but only] to the lost sheep of Israel.” There are no early papyrus copies of Matthew 28 (the “Make disciples of all nations” chapter), and the earliest copies of this chapter are in the codices copied in the mid-300s. That’s almost three centuries of silence from original to our best copies, a lot of opportunity for the Great Commission to get “improved” by copyists. I’m not saying it was, of course; I’m simply offering one explanation for why the gospel in Matthew has Jesus change so fundamental a tenet as who he came to save.

Dr. Madison’s buddy, John Loftus also chimed in, along the same lines, in his book, Why I Became an Atheist (revised version, 2012, 536 pages). I have now critiqued it ten times without (you guessed it!) any counter-reply from him. In it, he wrote:

[H]e also called a Syrophoenician woman part of a race of “dogs” and only begrudgingly helped her (Mark 7:24-30). (p. 123)

Now, Dr. David Madison comes along in his podcast and makes these claims:

But guess what? In Matthew 28, at the end of the Gospel, verse 19, the resurrected Jesus says, “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations.” . . . this Jesus quote was probably added to the story then [50 years after Jesus’ death] and it certainly does not match, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” The Gospel writer didn’t notice much, contradictions, sometimes. . . . what a nasty thing to say: “it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” . . . The ideal Jesus that people adore is punctured by this Jesus, quote: this insult, calling her a dog.

Apologists Eric Lyons and Kyle Butt thoroughly dispense of this “objection” concerning Jesus’ use of the word “dog” (complete with a good dose of sorely needed humor) in their article, “Was Jesus Unkind to the Syrophoenician Woman?”:

To our 21^st-century ears, the idea that Jesus would refer to the Gentiles as “little dogs” has the potential to sound belittling and unkind. When we consider how we often use animal terms in illustrative or idiomatic ways, however, Jesus’ comments are much more benign. For instance, suppose a particular lawyer exhibits unyielding tenacity. We might say he is a “bulldog” when he deals with the evidence. Or we might say that a person is “as cute as a puppy” or has “puppy-dog eyes.” If someone has a lucky day, we might say something like “every dog has its day.” Or if an adult refuses to learn to use new technology, we might say that “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” In addition, one might say that a person “works like a dog,” is the “top dog” at the office, or is “dog tired.” Obviously, to call someone “top dog” would convey no derogatory connotation.

For Jesus’ statement to be construed as unkind or wrong in some way, a person would be forced to prove that the illustration or idiom He used to refer to the Gentiles as “little dogs” must be taken in a derogatory fashion. Such cannot be proved. In fact, the term Jesus used for “little dogs” could easily be taken in an illustrative way without any type of unkind insinuation. In his commentary on Mark, renowned commentator R.C.H. Lenski translated the Greek term used by Jesus (kunaria) as “little pet dogs.” . . . Lenski goes on to write concerning Jesus’ statement: “All that Jesus does is to ask the disciples and the woman to accept the divine plan that Jesus must work out his mission among the Jews…. Any share of Gentile individuals in any of these blessings can only be incidental during Jesus’ ministry in Israel” . . .

Consider that Matthew had earlier recorded how a Roman centurion approached Jesus on behalf of his paralyzed servant. Jesus did not respond in that instance as He did with the Syrophoenician woman. He simply stated: “I will come and heal him” (8:7). After witnessing the centurion’s refreshing humility and great faith (pleading for Christ to “only speak a word” and his servant would be healed—vss. 8-9), Jesus responded: “I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel” (vs. 10, emp. added). . . .

What many people miss in this story is what is so evident in other parts of Scripture: Jesus was testing this Canaanite woman, while at the same time teaching His disciples how the tenderhearted respond to possibly offensive truths. . . .

Before people “dog” Jesus for the way He used an animal illustration, they might need to reconsider that “their bark is much worse than their bite” when it comes to insinuating that Jesus was unkind and intolerant. In truth, they are simply “barking up the wrong tree” by attempting to call Jesus’ character into question. They need to “call off the dogs” on this one and “let sleeping dogs lie.”

As to the groundless charge of internal contradiction (sent to Israel only / disciples evangelize Israel only “vs.” evangelizing the whole world), here is my reply:

First of all, being sent to Israel doesn’t also mean that He would ignore all non-Israelis. This is untrue. The woman at the well was a Samaritan. He told the story about the good Samaritan who helped the guy who had been beaten, and concluded that he was a better neighbor than a Jew who didn’t do these things. He healed the Roman centurion’s servant, and commended his faith as better than most Jews. The Bible says that He healed this woman’s daughter (and highly commended her mother for her faith).

In the whole passage (blessed context), we readily see that Jesus was merely asking (as He often did) a rhetorical question. In effect He was asking her, “why should I heal your daughter?” She gave a great answer, and He (knowing all along that she would say what she did) did heal her.

I fail to see how this passage proves that Jesus didn’t give a fig about non-Jews. He healed the Canaanite woman’s daughter! How does that prove what atheists contend? Jesus heals a Canaanite girl (after being asked to by her mother), and that “proves” that He only healed and preached to Jews; hence it is a “contradiction”? Surely, this is a form of “logic” that no one’s ever seen before.

Another example, even more famous, is Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:4-29). He shares the Gospel very explicitly with her, stating that He is the source of eternal life (4:14), and that He is the Jewish Messiah (4:25-26): a thing that she later proclaimed in the city (4:28-29, 39-42).

The text even notes that — normally — Jews avoided Samaritans: “The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samar’ia?’ For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans” (4:9; RSV).

A third instance of Jesus’ outreach beyond the Jews is His interaction with the Roman centurion:

Matthew 8:5-13 As he entered Caper’na-um, a centurion came forward to him, beseeching him [6] and saying, “Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, in terrible distress.” [7] And he said to him, “I will come and heal him.” [8] But the centurion answered him, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. [9] For I am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, `Go,’ and he goes, and to another, `Come,’ and he comes, and to my slave, `Do this,’ and he does it.” [10] When Jesus heard him, he marveled, and said to those who followed him, “Truly, I say to you, not even in Israel have I found such faith. [11] I tell you, many will come from east and west and sit at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, [12] while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.” [13] And to the centurion Jesus said, “Go; be it done for you as you have believed.” And the servant was healed at that very moment.

Note how Jesus not only readily healed the Roman centurion’s servant (8:7, 13), but also “marveled” at his faith and commended it as superior to the faith of anyone “in Israel” (8:10). And that led Him to observe that many Gentiles will be saved, whereas many Jews will not be saved (8:11-12). But there is much more:

A fourth example is Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29-37). The whole point of it was to show that Samaritans were truly neighbors to Jews if they helped them, as the man did in the parable. I drove on the road (from Jerusalem to Jericho) which was the setting of this parable.

A fifth example is from the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus told His followers, “You are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14).

A sixth example is the common motif of Jesus saying that He came to save not just Jews, but the world (Jn 6:33, 51; 8:12 [“I am the light of the world”]; 9:5; 12:46 [“I have come as light into the world . . .”]; 12:47 [“to save the world”]; ). The Evangelists in the Gospels, and John the Baptist state the same (Jn 1:29; 3:16-17, 19).

A seventh example is Jesus praying for His disciples in their missionary efforts: “As thou didst send me into the world, so I have sent them into the world” (John 17:18).

An eighth example is the parable of the weeds, which showed a universal mission field fifteen chapters before Matthew 28: “He who sows the good seed is the Son of man; [38] the field is the world, and the good seed means the sons of the kingdom; . . .” (13:37-38).

A ninth example is Jesus’ statements that “all men” can potentially be saved (Jn 12:32; 13:35).

The book of Acts recounts St. Peter and St. Paul massively reaching out to Gentiles. I need not spend any time documenting that.

As anyone can see, the evidence in the Bible against this ridiculous atheist critique is abundant and undeniable. Jesus never says (nor does the entire New Testament ever say) that He came to “save Israel” or be the “savior of Israel.” Anyone who doesn’t believe me can do a word search (here’s the tool to do it). Verify it yourself. He only claims to be the “Messiah” of Israel (Jn 4:25-26): which is a different thing. When Jesus says who it is that He came to save (i.e., provided they are willing), He states explicitly that He came “to save the lost” (Lk 19:10) and “to save the world” (Jn 12:47).

Likewise, St. Paul states that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15). Last I checked, sinful human beings were not confined solely to the class of Jews or Israelis.

***

Photo credit: The Woman of Canaan at the Feet of Christ (1784, by Jean Germain Drouais (1763-1788) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

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David Madison: Synoptics vs. John Re Jesus’ Will & Passion?

August 22, 2019 By Dave Armstrong

Dr. David Madison is an atheist who was a Methodist minister for nine years: with a Ph.D. in Biblical Studies from Boston University. He believes we are not at all sure whether Jesus in fact said anything recorded in the Gospels. The atheist always has a convenient “out” (when refuted in argument about some biblical text) that Jesus never said it anyway and that the text in question was simply made up and added later by unscrupulous and “cultish” Christian propagandists.

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

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

His words below will be in blue.

*****

He wrote an article called, ” ‘This Howling Conflict between Mark and John’: Yet so many Christians don’t seem to have a clue” (10-26-18).

Even if there wasn’t a Beloved Disciple, there is a Beloved Gospel—and that would be John, in which Jesus has a superhuman commanding presence. Well, as seen through the eyes of adoring faith. For those who aren’t so adoring, that ‘commanding presence’ looks more like bragging, insufferable egregious egotism. Which is what can happen—as in John’s case—when the author isn’t even trying to depict a real human. . . . Mark was schooled in Greek tragedy . . . and constructed his Jesus story accordingly, i.e., he made Jesus a real human who agonized over his fate; Mark assumed that even the Son of God could do that.

But John would have none of it; a human Jesus was out of the question. As an exercise to shock Christians out of faith-complacency, I suggest that they read Mark and John back-to-back. It should jump out at them, . . . If they aren’t puzzled—if they aren’t alarmed—then they’re not paying attention. Someone is lying about their Jesus. . . .

John . . . doesn’t even mention—as do Matthew, Mark, and Luke—that Jesus was distraught [during the time when His Passion was imminent], . . .

Really? Not human, and not distraught?:

John 11:32-33, 38 (RSV) Then Mary, when she came where Jesus was and saw him, fell at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” [33] When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled; . . . [38] Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb; . . .

John 12:27 “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? `Father, save me from this hour’? No, for this purpose I have come to this hour.”

John 13:21 When Jesus had thus spoken, he was troubled in spirit, and testified, “Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.”

Dr. Madison cites Louis A. Ruprecht, Jr.:

• “The Synoptic story of Gethsemane raised two critical questions that are nearly impossible to answer. First, if Jesus was alone when he prayed, then how can anyone know exactly what he said? Second, if Jesus was on such intimate terms with God, then how can their wills be so dramatically out of sync at the very end of the story? John’s evangel cuts the complicated Gordian knot of such questions with a very simple answer: Jesus didn’t pray that way.” (p. 74)

• “If the Synoptic story of Gethsemane is a story about praying in the face of temptation prior to betrayal, then John’s is no longer the same story at all.” (p. 74) . . .

• “…John had to erase the dramatic episode that Mark located in Gethsemane—a powerful story about prayer and temptation, about the sheer humanity of Jesus’s doubts and the awful depth of his suffering. Mark’s tragedy hinges on the fact that we are witnesses to the collision between two wills, a tragic struggle for self-definition in which we are invited to participate and to recognize as our own. John simply cannot tell a story like that because his theology cannot allow for a collision of wills between Father and Son or for a divided picture of Jesus.” (p. 76) Remember these key words: his theology cannot allow. . . .

Ruprecht makes it starkly clear that Mark and John thought very differently about Jesus. . . .

• “… we modern people must work very carefully, with more finally developed historical habits, to be able to feel the shock that John’s evangel might have created in an ancient Christian audience that knew and admired Mark’s version. The power of Marks performance has something to do with Jesus’s passionate humanity, something to do with compassion in the face of unimaginable suffering, and it has everything to do with tragedy. John turned all this upside down by writing an anti-tragic evangel in which Jesus’s humanity is muted and all compassion, much like the wavering disciples, has fled.” (p. 101) . . .

“Gethsemane admits a level not just of humanity, but of actual doubt, and that Luther finds completely unacceptable in the Savior of humankind.” (p. 174) . . .

Unbeknown to most of the folks in the pews, the New Testament is a minefield of conflicting, contradictory theologies—as well as portraits of Jesus that cannot be reconciled. Oblivious to all this, they show up to worship. It’s comforting to hear nice verses read from the Good Book on Sunday morning. So there was a howling conflict between Mark and John? That would be too much information.

There is no supposed “collision of wills between Father and Son” in the Synoptic Gospels. Jesus made it clear (as recorded in those three Gospels) that His will was fully in line with the Father’s will that He suffer and die for the sake of all men. There is no hint that He disagrees with that or that he “doubts”; only that He is agonized over what is to come (as any human being would be):

Matthew 26:36-42 Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsem’ane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here, while I go yonder and pray.” [37] And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zeb’edee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. [38] Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” [39] And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.” [40] And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping; and he said to Peter, “So, could you not watch with me one hour? [41] Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” [42] Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, thy will be done.”

Mark 14:32-36 And they went to a place which was called Gethsem’ane; and he said to his disciples, “Sit here, while I pray.” [33] And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly distressed and troubled. [34] And he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch.” [35] And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. [36] And he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible to thee; remove this cup from me; yet not what I will, but what thou wilt.”

Luke 22:39-42 And he came out, and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives [where Gethsem’ane is located]; and the disciples followed him. [40] And when he came to the place he said to them, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.” [41] And he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed, [42] “Father, if thou art willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.”

Likewise, the unity of the wills of Jesus and God the Father was also expressed by Jesus in John’s Gospel: “And he who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what is pleasing to him” (Jn 8:29); “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? `Father, save me from this hour’? No, for this purpose I have come to this hour” (Jn 12:27); “I lay down my life, that I may take it again. [18] No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again; this charge I have received from my Father” (Jn 10:17-18)

Moreover, Jesus shows no inclination whatsoever to not willingly suffer and die for the purpose of redemption, and indeed, rather casually predicted what was to come, over and over: as seen in all four Gospels:

Matthew 16:21 From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.

Matthew 17:22-23 As they were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them, “The Son of man is to be delivered into the hands of men, [23] and they will kill him, and he will be raised on the third day.” And they were greatly distressed.

Matthew 20:17-19 And as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside, and on the way he said to them, [18] “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man will be delivered to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death, [19] and deliver him to the Gentiles to be mocked and scourged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day.”

Matthew 26:1-2 When Jesus had finished all these sayings, he said to his disciples, [2] “You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of man will be delivered up to be crucified.”

Matthew 26:31-32 Then Jesus said to them, “You will all fall away because of me this night; for it is written, `I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’ [32] But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.”

Mark 8:31 And he began to teach them that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.

Mark 9:31 for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of man will be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him; and when he is killed, after three days he will rise.”

Mark 10:32-34 And they were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them; and they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. And taking the twelve again, he began to tell them what was to happen to him, [33] saying, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death, and deliver him to the Gentiles; [34] and they will mock him, and spit upon him, and scourge him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise.”

Mark 12:1-11 And he began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard, and set a hedge around it, and dug a pit for the wine press, and built a tower, and let it out to tenants, and went into another country. [2] When the time came, he sent a servant to the tenants, to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. [3] And they took him and beat him, and sent him away empty-handed. [4] Again he sent to them another servant, and they wounded him in the head, and treated him shamefully. [5] And he sent another, and him they killed; and so with many others, some they beat and some they killed. [6] He had still one other, a beloved son; finally he sent him to them, saying, `They will respect my son.’ [7] But those tenants said to one another, `This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ [8] And they took him and killed him, and cast him out of the vineyard. [9] What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants, and give the vineyard to others. [10] Have you not read this scripture: `The very stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner; [11] this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?”

Luke 9:22 . . . “The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”

Luke 9:44 “Let these words sink into your ears; for the Son of man is to be delivered into the hands of men.”

Luke 18:31-33 And taking the twelve, he said to them, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written of the Son of man by the prophets will be accomplished. [32] For he will be delivered to the Gentiles, and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon; [33] they will scourge him and kill him, and on the third day he will rise.”

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

John 3:14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up,

John 8:28 So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of man, then you will know that I am he, . . .

John 10:15, 17-18 . . . I lay down my life for the sheep. . . . [17] For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again. [18] No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again; this charge I have received from my Father.”

John 12:23-24 And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of man to be glorified. [24] Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

John 12:31-33 “Now is the judgment of this world, now shall the ruler of this world be cast out; [32] and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.” [33] He said this to show by what death he was to die.

John 13:1 Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. (cf. 14:18-19, 27-29)

John 16:5 But now I am going to him who sent me; . . . (cf. 16:7, 16-22, 28; 17:13)

There is no imagined “difference” or “contradiction” in these respects (or any other) between Mark and John, or Matthew and Luke, and John. It’s simply one of many “Madison myths.”

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Photo credit: Christ in Gethsemane (1886), by Heinrich Hofmann (1824-1911) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

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David Madison vs. the Gospel of Mark #8: Ch. 9 (“Mean” Jesus)

August 19, 2019 By Dave Armstrong

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

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

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

*****

[Dr. Madison’s critique of chapter 8 was so silly, repetitive, insubstantial, and non-exegetical that it deserved no reply, so I passed over it]

Dr. Madison called this installment: “Jesus the Cult Fanatic, At It Again: Christians pretend not to notice…” (11-16-18)

Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, suddenly disappears, verse 42: “If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea.” Wow. Anyone who obstructs belief in the cult leader deserves a grim fate. This is script for the fanatic who was Mark’s hero.

Huh? All He’s saying is that if one messes with the innocent, trusting faith of little children, they are in a very bad spiritual place. My RSV reads: “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin . . .” It’s protecting children: hardly a “controversial” notion or example of Dr. Madison’s so-called “bad Jesus.” This would arguably cover pedophilia and other forms of child abuse, too. This kind of polemics is over-the-top ridiculous. Dr. Madison seems to make ever-more lousy arguments as he goes along.

But it gets worse. Priests and preachers wave off the next few grim verses (43-48) as metaphor or hyperbole, but couldn’t a compassionate Jesus have chosen his words more carefully? Unless you chop sin out of your life—literally—you aren’t a good bet for making it into the Kingdom.

“If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and to be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into hell, where their worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched.”

It’s my guess that if many Christians ran into a street preacher shouting these words, they would cross the street to get away. But why is it okay when Jesus says these things, solemnly recited as part of the white noise on Sunday mornings?

The self-mutilation metaphor cannot be considered appropriate for sane religion; moreover, Jesus declines to specify exactly what he has in mind, i.e., the sins that hands, feet, and eyes can commit to deserve severe punishment. This has given license for preachers for centuries to fill in the details, according to their own personal biases about sin.

This is, of course, non-literal hyperbole, or extreme exaggeration to make a point. I dealt with it as a common phenomenon in Scripture in my paper, Dr. David Madison vs. Jesus #1: Hating One’s Family?

Please don’t tout Jesus as greatest ethicist who ever lived if he taught that, for their mistakes, fallible human beings could end up in a place where the punishing fire never ceases. Our role models for morality cannot be mean and vindictive.

An eternal hell can easily be defended as a just notion, and I have done so many times:

Replies to Some Skeptical Objections to the Christian Doctrine of Hell (“Religion Is Lies” website) [5-24-06]

Biblical Annihilationism or Universalism? (w Atheist Ted Drange) [9-30-06]

Dialogue w Atheists on Hell & Whether God is Just [12-5-06]

Hell: Dialogue with a Philosophy Graduate Student [12-26-08]

Dialogue: Hell & God’s Justice, Part II [1-2-09]

Can Hell Actually be Defended? My Shot … [10-7-15]

Atheism & Atheology (Copious Resources, including on hell) [11-5-15]

A Defense of Hell: Philosophical Explanations of its Plausibility, Necessity, and Factuality [12-10-15]

Exchanges with an Atheist on Hell & Skepticism [12-17-15]

How to Annihilate Three Skeptical Fallacies Regarding Hell [National Catholic Register, 6-10-17]

Hell as a Deterrent: Analogy to Our Legal Systems [10-3-18]

As I mentioned earlier, Jesus had given his disciples the ‘authority’ to cast out demons (one aspect of magical thinking found in the gospel). But it turns out that they weren’t always up to the task. In the heart of chapter 9 we learn about a demon that resisted their magic. A father had brought his mute, deaf son to be healed; Jesus was furious that they had failed. Instead of calming asking what might have gone wrong, he lashed out: “You faithless generation, how much longer must I be among you? How much longer must I put up with you? Bring him to me.” (v. 19)

We can see that the text never says that Jesus was “furious.” That’s simply wishful thinking on Dr. Madison’s part: always desperately and vainly looking for “bad Jesus.”

The father reported that his son had been like this since childhood: “It has often cast him into the fire and into the water, to destroy him…”

Now comes one of the most poignant texts in the gospel. The desperate father pleads, “…but if you are able to do anything, have pity on us and help us.” Jesus had snarled at the disciples,

He merely rebuked them for lack of belief (and He later explains why: “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer”: 9:29). And so Dr. Madison calls this reply of Jesus, “a smug, smart-ass answer.” Really? There are times when Jesus gets truly angry (righteously indignant), such as his encounter with the moneychangers at the temple and with the Pharisees (Matthew 24). This is not one of them; nor is it “proof” that Jesus was sinfully angry at all. It’s just one of the innumerable “Madison myths.” Dr. Madison adds:

Gee, the disciples hadn’t tried that [prayer, to remove the demon]?

Probably, but just not enough: is also a reasonable interpretation. To offer an analogy, it would be like saying that “getting over the death of a loved one comes through crying.” There is momentary crying and there is extended, anguished soul-level weeping and wailing. All of us who have experienced great tragedy, including loss and grieving know the difference well. That’s how prayer is, too. It’s a matter of degree. And this seems to be a plausible take on this incident. The disciples needed to pray more, and with more faith. But they lacked it; hence Jesus’ chastising rebuke (just as all good parents do with children, where necessary for their own good).

now he belittled the father. Jesus said to him, “‘If you are able!—All things can be done for the one who believes.’ Immediately the father of the child cried out, ‘I believe; help my unbelief!’” The poor guy might have wondered if his own lack to belief could have been a factor in his son’s disability. He wants to make amends, “Help my unbelief!”

Again, how is this belittling the father? Dr. Madison is apparently quite the mind-reader: and most of what he seems to observe are alleged “negative” thoughts. The man asked Jesus, “if you can do anything, have pity on us and help us” and Jesus replied, “If you can! All things are possible to him who believes” (9:22-23). I have noted repeatedly in these replies how faith is tied in with healing in Scripture: not always, but probably the great majority of times. So Jesus was saying that it was not merely a matter of His own divine power, but also of the faith of the man (and with use of more hyperbole).

There are two pieces of bad advice—actually bad theology—in this story which have no doubt caused much Christian anguish for centuries.

• Belief is a key to overcoming illness—it just has to be strong enough: “All things can be done for the one who believes.” Jesus condemned “this faithless generation.”

• Add some prayer to that, and the magic will work: the demon could be vanquished “only through prayer.”

The devout who actually do read the gospels for guidance on how to live and survive, and assume that Jesus is telling the honest truth, sense that these are unreasonable expectations. They know that, far too often, belief and prayer don’t work in the face of chronic suffering, and they beat themselves up for failing. This is not healthy religion. Shame on Jesus for this bad advice.

I have dealt with the repetitive, droning theme in Dr. Madison’s overall polemic (which doesn’t become any more true merely by repeating the same tired lies): Madison vs. Jesus #10: Universal Answered Prayer & Healing?

Mark’s gospel is saturated with miracle, magic, superstition, and fantasy: Jesus glowed on a mountaintop while having a chat with long-dead heroes. Such stories emerge from imaginations fired by religious zeal. If only Christians could read the gospels carefully, meticulously, critically—and wise up that they’ve been conned.

[I pass over further slanders and blasphemies against Jesus and the Holy Bible, such as these. One has only so much patience — even by God’s supernatural enabling grace — with this sort of bilge. I ain’t Job]

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Photo credit: Christ driving the money-changers from the Temple (1610), by Cecco del Caravaggio (1588-1620) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

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“Would Jesus Get Vaccinated?”: Reply to Cynical Atheists

September 24, 2021 By Dave Armstrong

This took place on the atheist A Tippling Philosopher blog, under a post by Bert Bigelow, entitled, “Would Jesus Get Vaccinated?” (9-23-21). Word of eric will be in blue.

*****

No; for at least two reasons:

1) He wasn’t scared to death of catching a disease; hence, He touched even lepers (and healed them).

2) He could heal Himself if He got it, anyway, being omnipotent. No need for “preventive medicine.”

Well, that was partly tongue-in-cheek, but only partly . . .

All that said, He might, and He might not.

I could see Him saying, “do your best to be as healthy as you can, and don’t abuse your body, the temple of the Holy Spirit. But if you feel you aren’t healthy enough to avoid catching COVID and passing it on to others, get a vaccination, as a loving thing to do.”

He would, of course, also oppose governments tyrannically forcing people to do what they feel is either unnecessary in their own case, or against their conscience in some manner. Perhaps He would have some such reason Himself to refrain from receiving it. We don’t know for sure.

[the immediately foregoing is, of course, the Catholic position: no wrong in getting vaccinated, even though baby parts were used in research (it’s exceedingly remote cooperation with that evil, hence permissible) and many should do so out of love. On the other hand, everyone has a right to conscientiously object if that is what they feel, and no one should be forced]

***

“Jesus, should I get vaccinated?”

“Why haven’t you done as I bid and forsaken your families and all your possessions? Why do you retain all your wealth? Why do you keep your job, your computer, all these worldly things? Give all of that up, walk penniless with me preaching my word, then you and I will talk about vaccination.”

This is just clueless, as I have written about:

Who Must Renounce All Possessions to Follow Jesus?

Dr. David Madison vs. Jesus #1: Hating One’s Family?

Madison vs. Jesus #5: Cultlike Forsaking of Family?

Needless to say, Madison never responded, as has been his constant practice, now 46 times with me.

Then there’s the Mark 16:18 problem. On the one hand, a true Christian probably shouldn’t get Covid.

Nonsense. Job was called by God the most righteous man on the earth, and he had plenty of health problems. St. Paul asked God three times to take away his malady (thought by many to be an eye disease). God said no three times and said His grace was sufficient. Paul healed some people, but he couldn’t heal Timothy of his stomach problems and told him to take wine for his stomach. Etc., etc.

On the other hand, a true Christian shouldn’t worry about hypothetical side effects from the vaccine either. On both hands, the vast majority of Christians don’t actually live as if they believe that verse to be true (which, for the record, I think is a good thing).

Mark 16:18 (RSV) they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.

No “problem” at all. I’ve written about that too:

Madison Malarkey #45: Biblical Proverbial Language: Mark 16:17-18 and the Various Sign Miracles

Madison vs. Jesus #10: Universal Answered Prayer & Healing?

Biblical Prayer is Conditional, Not Solely Based on Faith

The vast majority of Christians actually live as if they believe that verse to be proverbial (which, for the record, I think is a good thing).

***

Photo credit: Johaehn (4-23-21) [Pixabay / Pixabay License]

***

Summary: Would Jesus Get Vaccinated? I say “He might, & He might not.” Unlike cynical atheists playing games about what they ridiculously think is myth, I don’t presume to know all about Jesus.

Pearce’s Potshots #11: 28 Defenses of Jesus’ Nativity

January 9, 2021 By Dave Armstrong

Featuring Confirmatory Historical Tidbits About the Magi and Herod the Great

Atheist anti-theist Jonathan M. S. Pearce’s “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 Jonathan’s article, “Mental Contortions Required of Christians to Believe the Nativity Accounts” (12-23-19). Although he likely has made each argument in his book on the Nativity and elsewhere, nevertheless, this particular article is in the form of a “gish gallop”: an unsavory argumentative technique or strategy often decried by atheists. Wikipedia explains:

The Gish gallop is a term for an eristic technique in which a debater attempts to overwhelm an opponent by excessive number of arguments, without regard for the accuracy or strength of those arguments. The term was coined by Eugenie Scott; . . . It is similar to a methodology used in formal debate called spreading. . . .

During a Gish gallop, a debater confronts an opponent with a rapid series of many specious arguments, half-truths, and misrepresentations in a short space of time, which makes it impossible for the opponent to refute all of them within the format of a formal debate. In practice, each point raised by the “Gish galloper” takes considerably more time to refute or fact-check than it did to state in the first place.

This is not a formal debate, with timing and structure, etc., so I can take all the time I like to refute each point, but the technique itself remains dubious. It was disparaged on Jonathan’s blog by fellow blogger there, Aaron Adair (3-8-13):

. . . putting out a large number of statements in quick succession that his opponent almost certainly could not refute in the time allotted. This has become known as the Gish Gallop, and it has been noted as a technique used by others in a debate: throw out many arguments, your opponents will be able to deal with only so many and not adequately, and you can claim one of your un-refuted arguments stands and that means you are right.

So — again — this is not a formal debate, and Jonathan has written about this stuff elsewhere and can theoretically defend any of those arguments against criticism (I’m not denying that he has done so or that he would be willing to do so). But this paper of his uses the technique. If a Christian did this in any major atheist forum we would be laughed to scorn and mocked (we always are anyway in those places).

I should note, however, that the delightful, informative RationalWiki page, “Gish Gallop” by no means confines the tactic to oral, formal debate. It refers to readers and written exchanges several times, and even includes an entire section called “in written debate”.

Jonathan throws out no less than 28 objections to the biblical Nativity narratives in Matthew and Luke: most only one-sentence long. I’ll play along and make (mostly) short replies (as my time is not unlimited) or provide a relevant link: as I have written quite a bit about Christmas controversies with atheists as well.

As I write, there are still three of my recent papers in reply to Jonathan that he has chosen thus far not to reply to:

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

Demons, Gadara, & Biblical Numbers (vs. JMS Pearce) [12-18-20]

Jesus the “Nazarene” Redux (vs. Jonathan M. S. Pearce) [12-19-20]

I think there are several older critiques of mine from 2017 that he has not replied to, either. I have offered ten critiques of his material altogether, not including this one. I hope he has not now decided to take the “flee for the hills” / “hear no evil” approach of his fellow anti-theist atheists Dr. David Madison (whom I’ve refuted 44 times with no reply), Bob Seidensticker (69 times without any peep back), and John Loftus (10 critiques of his “magnum opus” book, which he has utterly ignored). If he decides to go this route, I will continue critiquing his material, as I desire. No skin off my back. His choice . . .

Suffice to say that, in order for the Christian to harmoniously believe the Nativity accounts, they have to jump through some seriously demanding hoops. In my humble opinion, there is no satisfactory way that they can coherently harmonise these contradictory accounts found in only two of the Gospels.

The situation is this. I maintain that, to hold to the notion that the accounts are historical, one has to mentally gerrymander to the extreme. . . .

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

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

[in my replies below, I have added numbers to his gish gallop claims. His original words didn’t have the numbers; it had bullet points]

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

1) Special plead that the virgin birth motif is actually true for Christianity but is false for all other religions and myths that claim similarly.

This is true, but it is neither special pleading nor, I contend, controversial at all. Exclusive claims that logically rule out other competing contradictory claims are made in all belief-systems. It’s foolish and irrelevant to single out Christianity for doing this, as if it is objectionable in and of itself. For example, the current consensus in scientific cosmology / astronomy is that the universe had a beginning and that it is not eternal or without a beginning. There were scientists who resisted this for decades (even Einstein did for a time), until the Big Bang Theory became consensus in the 1960s (or 70s at the latest).

There are atheists who resist it today, and argue for a cyclical universe or “multiverse” (minus any compelling evidence). And there are various religious beliefs as to how the universe began. Of course, the Christian view is completely harmonious with the Big Bang. The universe began out of nothing, or ex nihilo, as the old theological phrase had it. Current science and Christianity teach this (though we add God in there as the cause of the Big Bang and science precludes that in its current methodological naturalism). So much the worse for those who disagree (as far as the Big Bang and the beginning of the universe). They’re wrong.

2) Deny that “virgin” is a mistranslation.

It’s not. I have dealt with this issue twice: both in response to Jonathan. He hasn’t replied to the second paper yet:

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]

3) Give a plausible explanation of from whence the male genome of Jesus came from and how this allowed him to be “fully man”.

It was (obviously, in Christian belief) a miraculous intervention of God. It can’t be explained naturally, by the nature of the case. Now, of course, for an atheist who denies that both God and miracles exist, it’ll be implausible (what else is new?). But that doesn’t prove that it’s untrue. If one offers rational evidences for God’s existence and also of miracles, then it’s entirely possible and able to be believed in by rational thinkers, as an actual event, as God’s revelation claims.

4) Be able to render the two genealogies fully coherent without the explanation being contrived or ad hoc.

I did that, 3 1/2 years ago:

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

Atheists are fond of saying that everything we offer by way of evidence is “ridiculous” (on a kind day), or “ad hoc” or “implausible” or “special pleading.” And they do because of what I mentioned above: they deny the necessary presuppositions of God’s existence and (flowing from that) therefore the possibility and/or factuality of miracles and the supernatural. Once having denied the possibility or actuality of those two things, then of course they will immediately dismiss all Christian explanations as ad hoc or “implausible” etc.

It’s a way of trying to look impressive without offering any further arguments. But they have to deny such things, according to their atheist dogmas that literally disallow them from believing in anything that is inconsistent with atheism, or even to entertain a theoretical possibility.

5) Believe that the genealogies are bona fide and not just tools to try to prove Jesus’ Davidic and Messianic prophecy-fulfilling heritage.

This cynical sentiment simply flows from atheist hostility and bigotry against the Bible, Bible-writers, and Christians. Christians aren’t obliged to factor that into any of our apologetics or beliefs. We take the Bible at face value, just as we would any other such literature, rather than starting out inveterately hostile to it. That’s not an objective, scholarly approach. Besides, the Bible has had a mountain of evidence from history and archaeology that shows again and again that it is trustworthy in the details that it provides; therefore, can be trusted as a source. Those sots of independent verifications bolster our faith that the Bible is God’s revelation to humankind.

6) Be able to explain the inconsistency of the two accounts in contradicting each other as to where Joseph lived before the birth (without the explanation being contrived or ad hoc).

See:

Reply to Atheist Jonathan MS Pearce: Bethlehem & Nazareth “Contradictions” (Including Extensive Exegetical Analysis of Micah 5:2) [7-28-17]

7) Believe that a client kingdom under Herod could and would order a census under Roman diktat. This would be the only time in history this would have happened.

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

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

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

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

See:

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

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

12) Believe that Joseph could afford to take anywhere from a month to two years off work.

This is a foolish query. If necessary, he could save up for “off” months just as virtually all farmers and teachers do. Is that so inconceivable? Or, as a carpenter and likely stone mason as well, he had a skill that was “portable”: so that he could pick up odd jobs while traveling. This is the kind of stuff which vanishes as a supposed “difficulty” with just a moment or two of unbiased, objective thought.

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

I don’t know what “archaeological evidence” Jonathan is referring to, but there is more than enough to establish the existence of Nazareth as a town during the time of Jesus’ birth and infancy. I already recounted it in a recent reply to Jonathan:

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

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

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

The newly emerging picture of Roman-period Nazareth as a place of substantial religiosity does, however, resonate not only with the emergence of its most famous son, Jesus, but also with the fact that, in the mid-first or second century, it was chosen as the official residence of one of the high priests of the by-then-destroyed Temple in Jerusalem, when all 24 of those Jewish religious leaders were driven into exile in Galilee. (“New archaeological evidence from Nazareth reveals religious and political environment in era of Jesus”, David Keys, Independent, 4-17-20)

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

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

That’s science. Jonathan has to grapple with the actual findings and not just sit back and deny that there are any such. As it is, that was from one of my reply-papers that he has not found time to reply to these past 19 days (while replying to many others). Maybe he will in due course, since it was during the holidays.

14) Believe that the prophecies referred to Nazareth and not something else.

They do, but they were not from the Old Testament. See:

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]

15) Believe that the magi were not simply a theological tool derived from the Book of Daniel.

This is a variation of the undue cynicism which I skewered in my reply to #5 above. As such, it can be dismissed as a non sequitur. That said (in principled protest), the factuality of these accounts is completely plausible based on what we know from secular historiography: that there was a group called the Magi, who were were originally a Median (northwest Persian) tribe (Herodotus [Hist.] i.101). They performed priestly functions, perhaps due to Zoroaster possibly having belonged to the tribe (or belief that he did), and studied astronomy and astrology: in part likely learned from Babylon.

Historians note that in Yemen, for example, there were kings who adhered to Judaism from about 120 B.C. to the sixth century A.D. Possibly, then, the wise men were Jewish or at least were strongly influenced by Jews.

If Jonathan or those who think like he does don’t want to take my word for it, then perhaps they will be persuaded by the Encyclopaedia Britannica:

Magus, plural Magi, member of an ancient Persian clan specializing in cultic activities. The name is the Latinized form of magoi (e.g., in Herodotus 1:101), the ancient Greek transliteration of the Iranian original. From it the word magic is derived.

It is disputed whether the magi were from the beginning followers of Zoroaster and his first propagandists. They do not appear as such in the trilingual inscription of Bīsitūn, in which Darius the Great describes his speedy and final triumph over the magi who had revolted against his rule (522 BC). Rather it appears that they constituted a priesthood serving several religions. The magi were a priestly caste during the Seleucid [312-63 BC], Parthian [247 BC-224 AD], and Sāsānian [224-651 AD] periods; later parts of the Avesta, such as the ritualistic sections of the Vidēvdāt (Vendidad), probably derive from them. From the 1st century AD onward the word in its Syriac form (magusai) was applied to magicians and soothsayers, chiefly from Babylonia, with a reputation for the most varied forms of wisdom. As long as the Persian empire lasted there was always a distinction between the Persian magi, who were credited with profound and extraordinary religious knowledge, and the Babylonian magi, who were often considered to be outright imposters. (“Magus: Persian priesthood”)

A visit by such men to the west, based on astrological-type beliefs and star-gazing, using the route through the Fertile Crescent around the Arabian and Syrian deserts that has been taken for many centuries by the Royal Road and the King’s Highway and the Silk Road (as I have recently written about, not in reply to Jonathan) is completely plausible. There is no good reason to doubt the biblical account. Nothing in it (rightly understood in light of the many biblical genres) rings immediately untrue or questionable. Jonathan mentions the book of Daniel. Yeah: that’s accurate, too, as we know that the Magi were in Babylonia at that time as well, as the cited encyclopedia entry above alludes to.

16) Believe that Herod (and his scribes and priests) was not acting entirely out of character and implausibly in not knowing the prophecies predicting Jesus, and not accompanying the magi three hours down the road.

The second thing we can only speculate about, but if the Bible shows itself trustworthy again and again in a host of ways: confirmed by secular archaeology and historiography, then we can trust it regarding such an obscure item that it casually refers to. As to the first question: is it impossible that Herod might not know the prophecy of Micah 5:2? Not at all. He was a very secularized Jew, as a Jewish scholarly article noted:

In his recent book The Herodian Dynasty, Nikos Kokkinos portrayed Herod as Hellenized Phoenician whose Jewishness was superficial, resulting from the conversion of Idumaea by John Hyrcanus . . . Herod’s departure form the Jewish ethos is manifested by his own deeds contrary to Jewish laws and customs as well as his strong cultural inclination toward Rome. . . .

This impression is nurtured mainly by Josephus’s accounts. (“Herod’s Jewish Ideology Facing Romanization: On Intermarriage, Ritual Baths, and Speeches”, Eyal Regev, The Jewish Quarterly Review, Vol. 100, No. 2, Spring 2010)

That doesn’t strike me (to put it mildly) as the type of Jew who would be all that familiar with a messianic prophecy like Micah 5:2. Maybe he was. But if so, this has to be shown by some convincing argument. The above — as far as it goes (I couldn’t access the entire article) — certainly doesn’t suggest a high likelihood that he would have been. Matthew 2:4 (RSV) states: “assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.”

In light of the above information, I don’t find it implausible at all that he didn’t know this. And not knowing it, he did the logical thing a secular Jew would do: ask the religious Jews (priests) in his court circle about it (just as irreligious Jews today would ask a rabbi about some point of Judaism). It’s completely plausible. Yet Jonathan assumes it isn’t. I wonder why? Maybe because he “has to” be skeptical about everything in Scripture, even when there is no clear reason to be?

17) Believe that the magi weren’t also merely a mechanism to supply Herod with an opportunity to get involved in the story and thus fulfil even more prophecies.

18) Believe that the magi were also not a reinterpretation of the Balaam narrative from the Old Testament, despite there being clear evidence to the contrary.

These two represent more of the merely assumed bald speculation and silly undue cynicism against the biblical text (see my answers to #5 and #15 above). It deserves no more serious consideration. I refuse to play these games with atheists. The burden of proof for such hyper-skeptical / hostile claims is on them, not us.

19) Believe that a star could lead some magi from the East to Jerusalem and then to Bethlehem where it rested over an individual house and not be noted by anyone else in the world.

I delved into all this in great detail in the last three weeks:

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]

How Do We Understand the Star of Bethlehem Coming to “Rest Over the Place Where the Child Was”? [Facebook, 12-29-20]

20) Believe that the shepherds were not merely midrashic and theological tools used by Luke.

Yet more higher critical hogwash. See my replies to #5, #15, and #18 above. There is no solid reason to doubt this story, either. I recently wrote about one related question: the time of the year with regard to shepherding sheep near Bethlehem:

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]

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

Because I know of no such literary requirement (let alone logical or moral obligation) for each narrator of roughly the same story to include every and all details that the other narrators may have included. The fact that they emphasize different things and omit details that the others include is strong confirmation of authenticity from all four sources.

But there is a factual error here, too: Jesus was a toddler when the wise men visited (based on the Greek word used to describe Him). This didn’t occur at the same time as the birth and the visit of the shepherds. This is what Christians believe, based on the biblical text (which is one reason why our feast of epiphany is on a different day from Christmas: usually on or around January 6th).

Therefore, the wise men are not possible “first witnesses” and there is no conflict in the first place. The text doesn’t claim they were the first to visit Jesus. It’s simply another manufactured pseudo-“contradiction” from our friends, the atheists, who seem to make it their life’s goal to violate (or not comprehend?) elementary-level logic as often as they can.

22) Believe that, despite an absence of evidence and the realisation that it is clearly a remodelling of an Old Testament narrative, the Massacre of the Innocents actually happened.

See my replies to #5, #15, #18, and #20 above.

23) Believe that Herod would care enough about his rule long after his death to chase after a baby and murder many other innocent babies, a notion that runs contrary to evidence.

It’s perfectly in character for a tyrant who murdered two possible royal rivals (see the citation below). Herod was no choirboy. According to one secular source:

The first 12 years of Herod’s reign (37-25 BCE) saw the consolidation of his power. He built fortifications in Jerusalem, Samaria and at Masada, silenced all opposition to his rule and eliminated his Hasmonean rivals, Aristobulus and Hyrcanus II, the brother and the grandfather of his second wife, Mariamme. The former drowned in an arranged swimming pool accident and the latter was strangled.

Mariamme met a bitter end as well, and was executed (a la Anne Boleyn, for “adultery”) in 29 BC. So could Herod conceivably kill a bunch of young infants, out of jealousy over a possible kingly rival? Yes; it’s totally in character. No problem!

The above information was drawn from the record of two prominent historians:

Our chief informant is the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (37-c.100CE), who devoted most of Book I of his Jewish War and Books XIV to XVII of Jewish Antiquities to the life and times of Herod. Josephus uses as his main source the universal history of Nicolaus of Damascus, the well-informed teacher, adviser and ambassador of Herod.

24) Believe that God would allow other innocent babies to die as a result of the birth of Jesus.

This is not the place to enter into a full-fledged Christian explanation of the problem of evil. God grants free will. Otherwise we would be robots (and then this dialogue wouldn’t exist, because in that scenario God simply wouldn’t allow dumbfounded, groundless atheist opinions, and Jonathan would be a Christian because God willed and predestined it to be so, wholly apart from Jonathan’s free will which, of course, wouldn’t exist).

Most evil that human beings commit can at least be partially stopped by other human beings. But we refuse to do so before it’s too late. One man, Winston Churchill, warned for years in the 1930s about the German build-up of military might. No one listened to him. If they had, World War II (at least in Europe) could very well have been prevented.

Instead, it happened out of human irresponsibility and a head-in-the-sand mentality (President Kennedy wrote about this in his book, Why England Slept). And then after it did, one of the most popular arguments from atheists was: “why did God allow the Holocaust?” He allowed it, because He doesn’t control us like puppets, but it’s not His fault. It’s the fault of human beings who could have prevented it, but were too naive and stupid and negligent to do so. And so, when human beings fail miserably, what do they do? Blame other human beings or blame God . . . That’s the fool’s way out every time.

25) Believe that the Flight to and from Egypt was not just a remodelling of an Old Testament narrative in order to give Jesus theological gravitas.

See my replies to #5, #15, #18, #20, and #22 above.
*

26) Give a plausible explanation as to why the two accounts contradict each other so obviously as to where Jesus and family went after his birth.

Did that:

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

Reply to Atheist Jonathan MS Pearce: Bethlehem & Nazareth “Contradictions” (Including Extensive Exegetical Analysis of Micah 5:2) [7-28-17]

27) Explain the disappearance of the shepherds and magi, who had seen the most incredible sights of their lives, and why they are never heard from again despite being the perfect spokespeople for this newfound religion.

Why should they necessarily be heard from again? On what grounds? The Magi in particular simply returned to their distant home shortly afterwards (Mt 12:12). What were they supposed to do? Make a phone call? Have a Zoom conference to communicate their thoughts on the whole thing? It’s simply a trumped-up difficulty that is none at all. And it deserves no more consideration than to state its essential silliness (with some flabbergasted humor).

28) Provide a plausible explanation as to why Jesus’ own family did not think he was the Messiah, given the events of the nativity accounts.

There is no reason to believe that Mary and Joseph didn’t know this all along. As for His extended family, see:

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

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

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

Once the believer in the accuracy of these accounts can do all of the above, in a plausible and probable manner, then they can rationally hold that belief.

I’ve done so, and so I can rationally hold that belief (i.e., by the criterion of Jonathan’s internally contradictory and incoherent standards).

I would contest that it is rationally possible to ever hold such a belief.

I would contend that my (and many others’) replies to his objections render them null and void and of no impact or import. If Jonathan disagrees, then let him counter-reply.

. . . it has been shown that every single claim can be soundly doubted under critical examination . . .

Hogwash!

[W]e have no real evidence for the claims that Jesus is the Messiah and is derived from Messianic and Davidic heritage.

The Messiah: Jewish / Old Testament Conceptions [1982; revised somewhat on 2-19-00]

Isaiah 53: Ancient & Medieval Jewish Messianic Interpretation [1982; revised 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]

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]

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]

Isaiah Foretells the Gospel & the Suffering Messiah [8-20-19]

Next question?

***

Photo credit: cocoparisienne (9-15-16) [Pixabay / Pixabay License]

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Madison Malarkey #44: Gospel Gish Gallop Garbage

December 30, 2020 By Dave Armstrong

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here Jesus is portrayed as an apocalyptic prophet . . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mark also portrays Jesus as an exorcist.

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

Luke: 31

Mark: 30

Matthew: 21

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

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

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

Mark 1:22: unspecified

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

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

Mark 6:2: unspecified

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

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

Mark 9:15: unspecified

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I dealt with and disposed of this objection:

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

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

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

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

Dealt with already:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dealt with here:

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

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

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

Dealt with:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here’s another similar example:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Bible truly describes people like Dr. Madison:

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

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

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

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

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

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