2021-02-10T14:52:17-04:00

Last updated on: February 10, 2021 at 2:52 pm   By

“The Gospel According to Saint Matthew” was written by atheist Vexen Crabtree in 2016. I will examine his “anti-biblical” arguments to see if they can withstand criticism. Vexen’s words will be in blue.

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The Gospel of Matthew is a later copy of the Gospel of Mark, using 92% of its text.

It’s grossly inaccurate to call Matthew simply a “copy” of Mark. Sure, it draws heavily from Mark, as almost all Christians would agree (though likely not it only), but it’s a different book. Probably the majority of biblical scholars today hold to the “two source hypothesis”: that is, the view that both Matthew and Luke independently drew from both Mark and “Q”: a lost collection of Jesus’ sayings. Mr. Crabtree recognizes this in writing, later: “historians are sure that a common source document was used for all of them. They call it ‘Q’ after the German word for ‘source’ “.

One Introduction to the New Testament summarizes the Synoptic situation:

[W]hat makes the synoptic problem particularly knotty is the fact that, alongside such exact agreements, there are so many puzzling differences. . . .

Each evangelist . . . omits material found in the other two, each contains unique incidents, and some of the events that are found in one or both of the others are put in a different order. (by D. A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo, and Leon Morris, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1992, pp. 26-27)

Nor are the three Synoptic Gospels to be seen as merely redundant testimony. Each provides its own slant, together providing a kind of stereoscopic depth that would otherwise be almost entirely missing. (Ibid., p. 84)

The same source refers to the “combination of exact agreement and wide divergence that characterizes the first three gospels” (p. 27). In any event, this reference book explains that the “wholesale takeover, without acknowledgment, of someone else’s literary work, with or without changes, was a common practice in the ancient world, and no opprobrium was connected with it” (p. 73).

Of course, anti-theist atheists routinely throw out the accusation of “dishonesty” and “lying” and fiction-creation by the biblical writers, but they show no real basis for such hostile conclusions, and almost invariably don’t understand key aspects of the culture of the time (such as this one about the practices of ancient writers utilizing existing materials).

It is anonymous and it wasn’t until about 150 CE that the author “Matthew” was assigned.

Carson et al stated that “we have no evidence that  these gospels ever circulated without an appropriate designation . . .” (p. 66). And they add:

[T]he argument that Matthew was understood to be the author of the first gospel long before Papias wrote his difficult words affirming such a connection seems very strong, even if not unassailable. (Ibid., p. 67)

Atheists simply throw out these dates because by then the books were widely known by certain titles. It doesn’t follow, however, that they were not before. They may have been, and more recent scholarship has trended in the direction of earlier use of titles than was previously supposed by the beloved omniscient “higher critics”.

Matthew [was] not written by an eye-witness of Jesus. We know this because it is a copy of Mark. No eye witness of such an important person would have needed, or wanted, to simply copy someone-else’s memories about him.

Well, we deny the premise that Matthew was only “plagiarism of Mark with a few details added.” That just doesn’t fly, upon close analysis. As to eye-witness testimony, J. Warner Wallace observed:

I’m sometimes surprised skeptics resist the claim (at least) that the gospels are written as eyewitness accounts. We can argue about whether or not the gospels are pure fiction, or whether or not they are accurate. But the idea that the gospels can be read as eyewitness accounts is rather unremarkable to me. The gospels record events from the perspective of writers who either saw the events themselves or had access to those who did. The author of John’s gospel describes a meeting between Jesus and his disciples. This meeting appears to include the author and he makes the following claim:

“This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and wrote these things, and we know that his testimony is true.” (John 21:24)

It certainly appears that the author considers himself to be both a participant in the narrative and a reporter (eyewitness) of the event. That seems rather unremarkable to me. Even if the author is someone other than John, the claim (at the very least) that the author is an eyewitness seems plain. In addition, the author of Luke’s gospel describes himself as a historian who had access to the eyewitnesses:

“Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word…” [Lk 1:1-2]

Even if the author of Luke was not himself an eyewitness, it does appear that he believed he was recording true history as delivered to him from eyewitnesses. Once again, this seems unremarkable. (“Can the Gospels be Defended as Eyewitness Accounts?”, Cold-Case Christianity, 1-26-15)

It is written in Greek and not in the native tongues of anyone who met and followed Jesus,

What difference does it make what language it was written in? As  a Jew in Palestine in the first century, Matthew would have spoken Aramaic. As a tax collector, he would also have known Greek and Hebrew.  It’s said that his style of Greek (less elegant than the Gentile Luke’s) is as if it has a strong Aramaic “accent.”

and it was written too late to reasonably be the memóires of an eye-witness.

It’s not too late at all insofar as it is a personal account, and/or well within range to consult many who were eyewitnesses or earwitnesses to the events. Oral traditions were much stronger in those times and information was routinely preserved in this manner with remarkable accuracy. Encyclopaedia Britannica (“Oral tradition”) explains this notion (very foreign to modern persons in developed and highly literate societies):

In the 1930s, for example, two American scholars, Milman Parry and Albert Lord, conducted extensive fieldwork on oral tradition in the former Yugoslavia. They recorded more than 1,500 orally performed epic poems in an effort to determine how stories that often reached thousands of lines in length could be recalled and performed by individuals who could neither read nor write. What they found was that these poets employed a highly systematic form of expression, a special oral language of formulaic phrases, typical scenes, and story patterns that enabled their mnemonic and artistic activities. With this information in hand, Parry and Lord were able to draw a meaningful analogy to the ancient Greek Iliad and Odyssey, which derived from oral tradition and obey many of the same rules of composition. The mystery of the archaic Homeric poems—simply put, “Who was Homer and what relation did he have to the surviving texts?”—was solved by modern comparative investigation. Whoever Homer was, whether a legend or an actual individual, the poems attributed to him ultimately derive from an ancient and long-standing oral tradition.

Other familiar works with deep roots in oral tradition include the Judeo-Christian Bible, the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh, and the medieval English Beowulf. The famous “begats” genealogy of the Bible’s book of Genesis and corresponding elements found in the four Gospels of the New Testament provide examples of how flexible oral-traditional systems can produce different but related products over many generations. Similarly, what survives in the fragmentary record of Gilgamesh is evidence of a broadly distributed tale in the ancient Middle East, one that passed easily from culture to culture and language to language before being inscribed on tablets. Beowulf, whose unique manuscript dates to the 10th century CE, circulated in oral tradition for centuries before Irish missionaries introduced the new technology of inked letters on parchment.

Bottom line? Even Mr. Crabtree holds that Matthew was written between 70-100 AD. That’s “nothing” in terms of an oral tradition being preserved with minute accuracy. No problem at all. And it’s early enough to be either from a direct witness (Matthew) or reported by same.

Matthew specifically set out to correct many mistakes in Mark’s gospel, especially regarding comments on Jewish customs and practices. 

Well, that was Mr. Crabtree’s goal: to show this. I think I systematically dismantled his case in my previous two papers along these lines:

Pearce’s Potshots #15: Gospel of Matthew vs. Gospel of Mark? [2-7-21]

Groundless Gospel of Mark Bashing Systematically Refuted (vs. Vexen Crabtree) [2-9-21]

In many cases he found a text, and because he did not know Jesus, felt free to invent details in order to make the Old Testament text he was reading appear as a prophecy.

Mr. Crabtree acts as if what Matthew did (i.e., what he actually did; not atheist caricatures of it) is unethical or dishonest. It wasn’t. On this question, see:

“Matthew’s Use of the Old Testament: A Preliminary Analysis” (Lee Campbell Ph.D., Xenos Christian Fellowship)

“New Testament use of the Old Testament” (Theopedia)

2.1. There Was No Virgin Birth

The Prophecy of the Virgin Birth appears in Matthew 1:22-23. Matthew wrote this seventy years after Jesus Christ was born (35-40 years after he died). Up until that point no other text mentions Jesus’ virgin birth. He quotes Isaiah 7:14 which was written 700 years before Jesus was born – thus claiming it was a sign, a prediction of the messiah’s virgin birth.

Yes, it was.

But there is a serious problem. Matthew states that, due to prophecy, it is true that Jesus was a male line descendant of King David, and presents a genealogy at the beginning of his gospel tracing Jesus’ lineage through Joseph. Matthew, apparently, like Luke and Paul and the rest of the early Christians, did not believe in a virgin birth. There are two theories that explain how this contradiction occurred. (1) A Septuagint mistranslation of the word “virgin” instead of “young woman” caused the discrepancy. The original prophecy is not that someone called Immanuel will be born of a virgin, but merely that someone called Immanuel will be born. In the original context of the story, this makes a lot of sense. (2) Matthew, writing for a Roman gentile audience in Greek, included popular myths surrounding sons of gods, who in Roman mythology were frequently said to be born of virgins. In either case, it is clear that Matthew’s prophecy of a virgin birth was a mistake, and modern Bible’s actually include a footnote in Matthew pointing out that the virgin birth is a Septuagint mistranslation. . . . 

It is only a later Greek mistranslation that makes Matthew say “called Immanuel, born of a virgin”, rather than “of a young woman”.

I’ve addressed these matters at great length:

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

Other Christians and Previous Christians Did Not Believe in the Virgin Birth

  • 50ce : The writer(s) of the gospel of Q were unaware of the virgin birth.
  • 64ce : Paul died without writing of the virgin birth.
  • 70ce : The writer of the Gospel of Mark does not mention it.

Not mentioning something is not the same as a denial. This should be self-evident to anyone. It’s a simple matter of logic. The Gospel of John and all of Paul’s epistles in the Bible never mention camels, either. Does it follow that both men denied their existence?

But a case can be made that Paul did allude to it. J. Warner Wallace contended:

Galatians 4:4-5 But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.

Paul says that Jesus was “born of a woman” and not “born of a virgin”. Critics have argued that this is proof that Paul was unaware of the virgin conception. But this is not necessarily the case. Many scholars have observed that the expression, “born of a woman, born under the Law” implies that Jesus had no earthly father because Paul curiously chose to omit any mention of Joseph in this passage. It was part of the Hebrew culture and tradition to cite the father alone when describing any genealogy, yet Paul ignored Joseph and cited Mary alone, as if to indicate that Joseph was not Jesus’ father. (“Why Didn’t Paul Mention the Virgin Conception?”, Cold-Case Christianity, 12-14-18)

2.2. The Guiding Star

One of Matthew’s plotlines is the three visitors from the East who visit the newborn Jesus. They say that a star came up in the East, however no other people in the story appear to notice this. It must have been a relatively unnoticeable event, a fairly faint star, only noticed by people who study the stars. The three visitors are called “Star Readers” in Matthew 2:1. However no other astrologers across the world at that time document this phenomenon. It appears Matthew made it up.

It so happens that I did a great deal of study on the star of Bethlehem last December:

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]

Star of Bethlehem: Refuting Silly Atheist Objections [12-26-20]

Star of Bethlehem: More Silly Atheist “Objections” [12-29-20]

2.3. Matthew 21:1-7 – The Prophecy of the 2 Donkeys

Mark wrote that Jesus rode triumphantly into Jerusalem on a donkey. Luke and John both stuck to this. Matthew was in the habit of “correcting” Mark’s errors and on this point of Jesus’ riding into Jerusalem, Matthew felt he should have been riding on two donkeys at the same time.

On all three times Matthew mentions this part (Matthew 21:1-7) he says the same thing, so it was not a transcription error. Why does Matthew alter the text in such a bizarre way? It seems he misread Zechariah 9:9: “mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey”. We have already seen from Matthew’s misinterpretation of the difference between the Hebrew word “Almah” and “Betulah” that he has a poor understanding of Hebrew. This passage also was misunderstood by Matthew.

“In Hebrew an emphasis is expressed by the doubling of a word or a phrase, like “and David’s enemies were dead, and yes, very dead,” so the original phrase does not mean two animals at all (as is also clearly shown by Jewish comments on the passage).”

Once again Matthew changed the meaning of the text to reflect what he thought it should say in order to make a prophecy come true, a conscious act of fraud in order to make the text fits his own personal opinion of the facts.

This is hogwash, I have dealt with this charge already:

David Madison vs. the Gospel of Mark #10: Chapter 11 (Two Donkeys? / Fig Tree / Moneychangers) [8-20-19]

2.4. Matthew 2:16-18 – King Herod: The Killing of Every Male Baby

Chapter two of Matthew tells us of King Herod’s anger at the three wise men and then of the killing of every child. Surely, the slaughter of every male child (Matthew 2:16-18) in Bethlehem, Ramah, and the surrounding area would have got mentioned in many places, such as Josephus’ detailed accounts of the times, in fact it would likely cause the downfall of such an immoral, monstrous leader who issued such orders!

Catholic apologist Trent Horn offers a superb rebuttal of this standard playbook accusation from atheists:

Such an act of cruelty perfectly corresponds with Herod’s paranoid and merciless character, which bolsters the argument for its historicity. Josephus records that Herod was quick to execute anyone he perceived to threaten his rule, including his wife and children (Antiquities 15.7.5–6 and 16.11.7). Two Jewish scholars have made the case that Herod suffered from “Paranoid Personality Disorder,” and Caesar Augustus even said that it was safer to be Herod’s pig than his son.

In addition, first-century Bethlehem was a small village that would have included, at most, a dozen males under the age of two. Josephus, if he even knew about the massacre, probably did not think an isolated event like the killings at Bethlehem needed to be recorded, especially since infanticide in the Roman Empire was not a moral abomination as it is in our modern Western world.

[prominent archaeologist William F. Albright estimated the population of Bethlehem at the time of Jesus’ birth to be about 300 people]

Herod’s massacre would also not have been the first historical event Josephus failed to record.

We know from Suetonius and from the book of Acts that the Emperor Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome in A.D. 49, but neither Josephus nor the second century Roman historian Tacitus record this event (Acts 18). Josephus also failed to record Pontius Pilate’s decision to install blasphemous golden shields in Jerusalem, which drove the Jews to petition the emperor for their removal. The Alexandrian philosopher Philo was the only person to record this event.

Sometimes historians choose not to record an event, and their reasons cannot always be determined. In the nineteenth century Pope Leo XIII noted the double standard in critics for whom “a profane book or ancient document is accepted without hesitation, whilst the Scripture, if they only find in it a suspicion of error, is set down with the slightest possible discussion as quite untrustworthy” (Providentissimus Deus, 20).

We should call out this double standard when critics demand that every event recorded in Scripture, including the massacre of the Holy Innocents, be corroborated in other non-biblical accounts before they can be considered to be historical. (“Is the Massacre of the Holy Innocents Historical?”, Catholic Answers, 12-26-19)

Many other myths, including more ancient Roman ones, had an event where all the male children were killed, and the famous Romulus and Remus story is (once again) a good, famous example. The story of Moses also contains a period of time when all Jewish male children are being killed by the King of the time, when Moses escapes in a basket pushed down a river by his mother. The princess who picked him out of the water called him Moses, which means “picked out”. . . . 

Matthew appears to have included, as part of Jesus’ history, the same story that accompanies many other myths in history. That of the darkening of the sun when an important person dies. . . . 

Graves continues to partially list major myths of the time that included such a darkening of the sun: The ancient pagan demigod Senerus, the Indian God Chrishna, the Egyptian Osiris, Prometheus, Romulus, even Caesar and Alexander the Great.

If we removed from Matthew all the stories about Jesus that were to be found to be part of Roman popular culture about sons-of-gods, then, we find that there is very little left! Some people theorize that all stories about Jesus are copies of other stories because Jesus himself never existed!

So what! How would this “logic” work? Let’s see: “if ever in history an event, x, occurred [Christians and Jews think the story of Moses is historical], which included in it sub-event y, then it follows that y can never ever happen again, since it already happened!” Huh? This would be scornfully laughed out of any course on logic anytime, anywhere.

By this logic, because President Lincoln was shot and killed by a pistol, it follows that Presidents Garfield and McKinley could not have been. Makes sense, huh? But Mr. Crabtree is actually being even more ridiculous than that. He is also arguing, “if in non-historical mythology, an event, x is described, which included in it sub-event y, then it follows that y can never ever happen in real life.”

Therefore, by his “reasoning” because the wicked witch was burned to death in her own oven, in the German fairy tale Hansel and Gretel, no one could ever actually be burned to death in an oven. The existence of the fairy tale / myth precludes the possibility of it ever occurring in real life.

Anti-theist atheists engage in this sort of logical ludicrosity time and again: apparently never stopping to think that it is perfectly absurd. Or if they know it’s logically absurd, they use it anyway if they perceive that it “works” in order to further their goal of painting Christianity and the Bible as worthy only of loathing and mockery.

2.5. The End of the World is Imminent

Jesus in the Christian Bible proclaimed many times that the world was about to end: judgement was about to come and he specifically said that this would happen in the same generation that he first appeared in. Obviously, there has been a delay. St Paul taught the same message, preaching the urgent admission of sins, because of the imminent end. The rest of the New Testament, especially the Book of Revelations, provides many more cryptic clues about when this will occur. This is what has spurred the endless stream of historical proclamations by studious Christians that the end is near. Matthew 24:27-44 is a lengthy commentary on when the Son of Man comes to end the world, but various hints and comments are scattered throughout the rest of New Testament. Some of the relevant comments in Matthew are:
  • The imminent end of the world will be obvious to all (Matthew 24:27). Jesus quotes Isaiah 13:10, 34:4, saying that the sun will go out and the stars will fall from the sky (Matthew 24:29, copied from Mark 13:20-26). The Son of Man will arrive in the clouds with great power and trumpets (24:30-31 copied from Mark 13:27). There will be signs just before the end although no-one knows in advance at what hour the end-times will come (Matthew 24:32-39, copied from Mark 13:28-33). The end of the world starts with the rapture, when approximately one in two men and one in two women will be raptured and taken into heaven, suddenly, by God (Matthew 24:40-41).
  • It is imminent: Jesus warns clearly that “this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. This world will pass away…” (Matthew 16:28, 24:34-35, Mark 9:1, 13:30 and Luke 9:26-27). In Matthew 10:23 Jesus warns his disciples to preach very rapidly in town after town, fleeing at the first sign of persecution, because they will not have enough time to go through all the towns of Israel before the end of the world occurs. In 1 Corinthians 7:27-31 St Paul says that time is so short, people should no longer bother getting married, mourn or bother with possessions: “Those who have wives should live as if they had none; … those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away”. Matthew 8:22 dismisses niceties of funeral arrangements “let the dead bury their own dead” because followers must join Jesus immediately, before it is too late!

I had dealt with this issue three times:

Debate with an Agnostic on the Meaning of “Last Days” and Whether the Author of Hebrews Was a False Prophet (9-13-06)

“The Last Days”: Meaning in Hebrew, Biblical Thought [12-5-08]

Dr. David Madison vs. Jesus #3: Nature & Time of 2nd Coming [8-3-19]

Then I was made aware of an online copy of a master’s thesis on this topic by a friend of mine, David Palm, entitled “The Signs of His Coming”: for Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois (1993). He wrote it as an evangelical Protestant, later became a Catholic, and recently noted that he would change nothing in it. I summarized his arguments in this paper:

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

Matthew contributed some very unlikely events to the Biblical account of the crucifixion and resurrection.

Whether an event is “unlikely” or not is irrelevant to whether it actually happened. Lots of “strange” things have happened throughout history.

For example, the Guards on the Tomb,

How is that “very unlikely”? Atheists have bandied about the story of the supposed stolen body of Jesus, in order to explain away the resurrection, for centuries. If they can “reason” like that, then it follows that the people of the time could have as well. The very prevalence of this skeptical motif renders it likely and plausible.

the empty Tomb,

Yeah, it’s very unlikely. But it didn’t mean it didn’t happen.

the Angel,

In the Bible there are such things as angels! We understand that atheists disbelieve in them. Again, mere disbelief is not proof of the non-existence of angels, anymore than it is for God’s existence.

the Earthquake

Now there is scientific evidence that an earthquake did indeed occur around the time of the crucifixion of Jesus. See:

The Christ Quake (documentary)

Crucifixion Quake (documentary)

and the 3 hours darkness at Jesus’ death

If this wasn’t a natural event (a lunar eclipse or a storm with very dark cloud cover, which can happen), then it could have been a supernatural darkness. If God exists and if indeed He is omnipotent, then this is entirely possible.

are all very likely to be wrong.

On what basis? Bald assertion is neither argument nor evidence.

Matthew exaggerates elements when copying Mark to the point of making it up, for example the young-boy who at Jesus’ tomb becomes a radiant angel who scares off the guards (Matthew 28).

Angels are often called men in Scripture. But there could easily have been more than one angel involved. The Gospels taken together, show that this is the case. Deliberate lying or deception is not a plausible or provable hypothesis.

These side-stories, although not essential to the idea of the resurrection, reinforce the feeling that Matthew was writing anything he could to make Jesus out to have existed, whether such things were true or not.

Mr. Crabtree has not cast serious doubt on these things; not by these arguments. That Jesus exists is the consensus of virtually all serious scholars. See: Seidensticker Folly #4: Jesus Never Existed, Huh? [8-14-18].

Mr. Crabtree then cites atheist Richard Carrier at length. His words will be in green:

Doesn’t the fact that the tomb was guarded make escape unlikely, even if Jesus survived?

Not if Jesus was resurrected, and if He was God (as Christians believe). A mere stone would then be irrelevant as to His “escape.”

Although one gospel accuses the Jews of making up the theft story, it is only that same gospel, after all, which mentions a guard on the tomb, and the authors have the same motive to make that up as the Jews would have had to make up the theft story: by inventing guards on the tomb the authors create a rhetorical means of putting the theft story into question, especially for the majority of converts who did not live in Palestine.

I already answered this above:

Atheists have bandied about the story of the supposed stolen body of Jesus, in order to explain away the resurrection, for centuries. If they can “reason” like that, then it follows that the people of the time could have as well. The very prevalence of this skeptical motif renders it likely and plausible.

I think atheists and the Jewish opponents of Jesus making such a story up is at least as plausible as the Gospel writers doing so.

An additional reason to reject Matthew’s story is that it contradicts all other accounts and is illogical: if the tomb was sealed until the angel came and moved the stone before the women and the guards, how did Jesus leave the tomb undetected? Did he teleport? For he wasn’t in the tomb: it was already empty. Even if he want to imagine that he did teleport, all the other Gospels record that the stone had already been moved when the women arrived (Mark 16:4, Luke 24:2, John 20:1). Thus, Matthew’s account is contradicted three times, even by an earlier source (Mark), and does not make a lot of sense. That is further ground for rejecting it: for Matthew alone must have the angel open the tomb when the women are present in order to silence the guards that he alone has put there.

I just got through writing an exhaustive two-part refutation of numerous anti-resurrection claims:

Pearce’s Potshots #13: Resurrection “Contradictions” (?) [2-2-21]

Pearce’s Potshots #14: Resurrection “Contradictions” #2 [2-4-21]

And I had done some before, too:

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

Dialogue w Atheist on Post-Resurrection “Contradictions” [1-26-11]

Seidensticker Folly #18: Resurrection “Contradictions”? [9-17-18]

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

 

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Photo credit: The evangelist Matthew and the angel (1661), by Rembrandt (1606-1669) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

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2021-02-10T12:00:16-04:00

Last updated on: February 10, 2021 at 12:00 pm   By

The Purposes and Goals of Contra-Atheist Christian Apologetics

“Sporkfighter” is a friendly and fair-minded atheist who asked me some good questions underneath my article, Groundless Gospel of Mark Bashing Systematically Refuted (2-9-21). Here are my replies, with a short second round as well. It became an excellent opportunity to explain the wider goals and motivations of apologetics. His words will be in blue.

*****

Question: Who are you writing for?

1) Christians: for their existing faith to be strengthened by seeing the weakness of opposing arguments and the strength of our own.

2) For Christians who are wavering in their faith (who would be adversely affected by the material I refute) and perhaps considering leaving it and/or becoming an atheist: to be strengthened by seeing the weakness of opposing arguments.

3) For those wondering about the doctrines of biblical inspiration and infallibility.

4) For fair-minded, honest atheists: to show that these atrocious arguments are embarrassing for atheists to put out: and ought to be rebuked from within their own community.

5) For the atheist who actually thinks these are unanswerable arguments.

6) For the atheist who might be on the fence and is considering forsaking atheism.

7) For atheists or anyone else who think that Christian theology is held only by gullible, infantile ignoramuses, who hate science and reason.

8) For anyone who thinks that Christianity is fundamentally irrational and opposed to reasonable explanation or defense.

9) For the sake of truth itself (i.e., what I, to the best of my ability, have come to believe is truth).

10) For the sake of open and honest discussion between opposing viewpoints: believing that dialogue is a means to obtain truth.

Are you writing to give Catholics support for their beliefs?

Inasmuch as Catholics are in the category of Christians, yes. But I’m also offering support for things where Protestants , Orthodox, and Catholics are in full agreement. I don’t argue about Catholic distinctives when defending Christianity against atheist attacks (I don’t consider it appropriate or prudent): unless they hit upon a specifically Catholic belief. Nothing in my reply here or in others like it should cause the slightest pause for any traditional, conservative (trinitarian / Nicene Creed) Christian. In fact, I could have written this when I was an evangelical Protestant (1977-1990).

Are you writing to convince non-Catholic Christians that Catholicism it one-true or the most-true path to salvation through Jesus?

No; per my previous reply. I do that in many other papers, but in this context it’s inappropriate. The word “Catholic” appears once in the entire article, and it is simply in referring to a “Catholic apologist” who made a general Christian apologetic point: precisely as I am doing here. So why do you keep bringing up Catholicism, as if it were relevant to my paper? It’s odd.

Are you writing to convince non-Christian theists that Christianity generally and Catholicism specifically is the path to the true God?

In a way, the first thing (in an indirect / roundabout sense), but it’s not my direct goal. The latter is addressed in hundreds of other papers of mine.

Are you writing to non-believers, trying to convince them that there is a God, that the Pope in Rome is his representative and the Catholic Church His…marketing arm?

See my previous two replies.

If it’s the first, okay. If it’s the second, okay. If it’s the third, I don’t see how your approach beginning and ending in the Bible can end up convincing anyone by never addressing their own traditions and their own reasons for believing.

It’s a specific argument; not the whole ball of wax. The question at hand is”: “Is Mark trustworthy as a document?, or is it so full of contradictions that the author has no credibility and no one (as a result) could possibly believe it was inspired by God.” I “defeat the defeaters, as Alvin Plantinga often says. It’s not defending the entire Bible (let alone all of Christianity or more specifically, Catholicism). It’s simply showing that these particular objections fall flat and achieve nothing whatsoever to tear down the Gospel of Mark.

If it’s the fourth, the best you’ll ever get a Bible full of events that could have happened without external evidence that they did happen.

Again, this is a “reactive” enterprise. I am showing how these objections fail. You’re way ahead of the game and have to realize the intent of any particular apologetics project. I’m happy to clarify.

I’m in the fourth group, and I just shake my head at the effort you go through to show the Bible can’t be proven false.

It’s not claiming the entire Bible can’t be proven false (though I do believe that). It’s showing how these arguments against Mark are a bunch of hot air and are irrational. It’s meant to give folks pause who are mightily impressed by these ludicrous pseudo-“arguments.” Then there are hundreds of other possible arguments and objections to address (most of which I have dealt with, in my 3180 articles on my blog, and 50 books). The argument for Christianity and the Bible is a cumulative one, consisting of scores and scores of individual arguments, adding up to the conclusion that Christianity is true and atheism false.

Does it really matter if you can explain why apparently differing details in the four Gospels don’t leave the Bible hopelessly internally contradictory?

Yes, but it’s just one piece in a large puzzle. Does it really matter to you that your fellow atheists make such terrible arguments? Are you able to admit that any in this piece are in fact, disproven by my replies? You haven’t said one word about my actual arguments. Instead, it’s all “meta-analysis.”

At best, you have a fantastic tale that “could have happened” with no evidence that it did happen.

People are convinced by an accumulation of considerations, which they feel all point in one direction: the truth of Mark or the Bible or of Christianity. If I make them curious here and persuade them of anything, then they will be game for future attempts at persuasion: all the way up to a possible conversion to Christianity or Catholicism specifically, or to a serious doubting of atheism, or a strengthening of a weak or wavering Christian faith. It’s all good. It’s what I was put on this earth to do (what we call a “calling” or “vocation”).

If you want to convince people outside your tradition, first, why, and second, you need evidence from outside your tradition.

Exactly! I am using reason as that common ground that both sides accept. I never say, “accept x, y, or z simply because Christians / the pope / Christian tradition says so.” I say, “accept it because it appears by virtue of reason to be true,” or “it may be true, given the weakness of opposing arguments” or “it appears to be more plausible than atheist alternatives.”

If you want to convince people inside your tradition, why? They’re already convinced.

It’s strengthening their existing faith, and providing support in reason for their faith, so it can be held more boldly and confidently, and more efficiently and successfully shared with others. Christians are under attack from all directions. There is a need for certain folks in our community to help support the faithful through efforts like this and many others of a different nature (such as social service or prayer, etc.).

If you find the academic challenge interesting, that would be the answer that makes the most sense to me.

I do enjoy that as well. But I find these atheist “objections” so weak, I would hardly even classify them as “academic.” They purport to be academic or semi-academic. Most of them would be laughed off of the stage of any truly academic setting. I’m not an academic or scholar. But I do claim to engage in semi-academic / “thinking man’s” lay apologetic endeavors. And I have held my own in dialogue with many scholars.

Excellent and comprehensive reply. I’m still looking for evidence that any supernatural realm of any kind exists before I wrestle with the details. Picking apart Christianity as a way to support my position would be pointless, because there’s always another tradition or faith to knock down, and another, and another.

Glad you like it. I would say that it sure looks like — according to cutting-edge science — an immaterial “spirit” of some sort, something wildly different from what we have up till now understood as “matter”, exists (to the tune of 95% of the entire universe). Most atheists have been telling us for centuries that it didn’t. You may have seen my recent paper on this: Seidensticker Folly #71: Spirit-God “Magic”; 68% Dark Energy Isn’t?

In other words, even science is leading us rapidly into new realms of “spirit” or “whatintheworldisthis?” stuff. Perhaps that is your gateway into the “supernatural realm of any kind.”

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Photo credit: geralt (2-1-21) [Pixabay / Pixabay License]

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2021-02-09T11:23:50-04:00

Last updated on: February 9, 2021 at 11:23 am   By

I just finished yesterday an exhaustive (over 8,000-word) point-by-point refutation of a wholesale attack on the Gospel of Mark, written by atheist Steven Carr: Pearce’s Potshots #15: Gospel of Matthew vs. Gospel of Mark?. That piece was actually part of a longer diatribe, entitled The Gospel According to Saint Mark: written by another atheist: Vexen Crabtree in 2006. Now I will examine his piece, too, to see if it is any more worthy of belief than Carr’s relentlessly erroneous analysis. Vexen’s words will be in blue.

*****

This anonymous gospel was the first to be written, around 80 CE, by an unknown Roman convert to Christianity.

Many early Christian writers state that Mark (or John Mark) is the author. The most important “witness” is Papias, a bishop of Hierapolis in Asia Minor (Turkey) until about 130 AD. His statement is recorded in in Eusebius’ History of the Church, written in 325:

14. Papias gives also in his own work other accounts of the words of the Lord on the authority of Aristion who was mentioned above, and traditions as handed down by the presbyter John; to which we refer those who are fond of learning. But now we must add to the words of his which we have already quoted the tradition which he gives in regard to Mark, the author of the Gospel.

15. “This also the presbyter 960 said: Mark, having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately, though not in order, whatsoever he remembered of the things said or done by Christ. 961 For he neither heard the Lord nor followed him, but afterward, as I said, he followed Peter, who adapted his teaching to the needs of his hearers, but with no intention of giving a connected account of the Lord’s discourses, 962 so that Mark committed no error while he thus wrote some things as he remembered them. For he was careful of one thing, not to omit any of the things which he had heard, and not to state any of them falsely.” These things are related by Papias concerning Mark. (Book III, 39:15)

The “presbyter John” referred to may be the apostle John himself. If so, the identification of Mark as the author goes back (via oral transmission) to the first Christians. Other early witnesses to Mark’s authorship include Irenaeus (c. 130-c. 202), Clement of Alexandria (150-c. 215),  Tertullian (c. 155-c. 240), and Origen (c. 184-c. 253). No one can be found in the early Church who dissents from this opinion of authorship.

That this Mark referred to by these early Christians is also the same as “(John) Mark” (mentioned in Acts 12:12, 25;  13:5, 13; 15:37; Col 4:10; Philem 24; 2 Tim 4:11; 1 Pet 5:13) is almost certain.

The author of Mark was not an eyewitnesses of Jesus, and wasn’t friends with any of the disciples nor any other witnesses who could have easily corrected many of his mistakes.

Papias states otherwise: that he drew from Peter, and we have no compelling reason to doubt his report.

The evidence is that (1) the author uses a lot of existing stories (both Hebrew and Greek) and wrote them into the text with Jesus as the centre of the story, instead of the original characters.

A common theme in atheist biblical skepticism is to simply assert these sorts of wild claims, while not presenting any evidence why anyone should accept them. Joe Blow atheist asserting x, y, z skeptical claims about supposed Gospel “fictions and fairy tales” — provided by no evidence whatsoever — has exactly no plausibility or ability to persuade any fair-minded, objective thinking person. Why should we believe them (even before getting into the question of the unreliability of “hostile witnesses”)? But the early Christian tradition is agreed that the author was Mark and that he drew from an eyewitness, Peter.

(2) He didn’t speak Aramaic (Jesus’ language) 

How does he know this? The Gospel of Mark came down to us in Greek, but there is no proof that Mark didn’t speak Aramaic. Professor of New Testament Language Larry Hurtado wrote that “Mark has more Semitic words/expressions (mainly Aramaic) than any of the other Gospels.” As to whether Mark spoke Aramaic, see “Aramaic in Mark” by Dr. Benjamin Shaw (who earned a Th.M. from Princeton Theological Seminary, with an emphasis in biblical languages: Greek, Hebrew, Old Testament and Targumic Aramaic, as well as Ugaritic), 2021.

Ben Witherington in The Gospel of Mark: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (pp. 18-9) documents a number of stylistic traits of Mark’s Gospel:

  1. Historical present tense verbs
  2. Repetition of phrases
  3. Impersonal plural verb followed by a singular verb
  4. First-person plural narrative
  5. Parenthetical clarifications
  6. γάρ–clauses
  7. Anacoluthon
  8. Paratacticκαί
  9. Aramaic phrases
  10. Unusual words or constructions
  11. Chreia

In sum, these traits point to an author who struggles to express himself in the language he is writing. . . . So the text itself suggests the author of Mark was, in fact, an Aramaic speaker. [source]

Kenneth Kuziej, in his article, “The Aramaic Logic of Jesus in Mark and Matthew,” Consensus: Vol. 2 : Iss. 3 , Article 5 (1976) provides very helpful information:

Mark’s Greek is rough, strongly Aramaic, and not surprisingly, full of grammatical errors. At the same time, however, it is language which is lively and appealing, like that of an enthusiastic young immigrant. . . . Luke’s Gospel preserves no Aramaic words of Jesus. Neither does the Gospel of John, which, though accented with Aramaic, has such a simple vocabulary it almost seems as if this evangelist chooses not to make his work hard to understand for readers who understood no Aramaic.

The question is why did Matthew’s and Mark’s Gospels preserve those Aramaic words and phrases of Jesus? It’s only a guess, but perhaps, like many people who are new to a language, when stumped, fall back on their native words. This almost could be the explanation for the word Mammon (loosely translated “money” but meaning all material things) and Raka (which is an obscure term of abuse loosely translated “you fool”).

and wrote in Greek, not Hebrew, 

The manuscript came down to us in Greek. No one disagrees with that. So why mention it? But the evidence presented above strongly suggests that Greek was not his first language; Aramaic very likely was.

even having Jesus quote a Greek mistranslation of the Old Testament. . . .

All of his quotes from the Old Testament are from the faulty Septuagint translation, in Greek.

Catholic apologist Jason Evert explains the New Testament use of the Septuagint: Greek translation of the Old Testament:

Of the places where the New Testament quotes the Old, the great majority is from the Septuagint version. Protestant authors Archer and Chirichigno list 340 places where the New Testament cites the Septuagint but only 33 places where it cites from the Masoretic Text rather than the Septuagint (G. Archer and G. C. Chirichigno, Old Testament Quotations in the New Testament: A Complete Survey, 25-32).

For those who may not know, the Septuagint was the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament. The common abbreviation for it—LXX, or the Roman numerals for 70—come from a legend that the first part of the Septuagint was done by 70 translators.

By the first century, the LXX was the Bible of Greek-speaking Jews and so was the most frequently used version of the Old Testament in the early Church. For this reason, it was natural for the authors of the New Testament to lift quotes from it while writing in Greek to the Church.

But, while the New Testament authors quoted the LXX frequently, it does not necessarily follow that Christ did. We know for certain that Jesus quoted the Hebrew Old Testament at times, since he read from the scrolls in the synagogue. But Jesus could have only quoted from the Hebrew, and the New Testament authors later used the Greek translation to record the fact.

Some details such as what Jesus said in his personal prayers is made-up. . . . 

How did Mark know what Jesus said in his private prayer in Mark 14:32-36? Jesus specifically goes out of his way to leave the disciples behind, taking only James, John and Peter with him. Then, he departs from them for such a distance that they are asleep by the time he returns – and this happens twice. The occasional academic is not afraid to voice the obvious truth: “So how did Mark know? He ‘knew’ because he made it up” – Price.

On what basis is this to be believed? It’s simply the usual irrational, hostile atheist skepticism. Jesus could have simply communicated what He was praying to Peter, who passed it on to Mark. The Bible doesn’t claim to be absolutely exhaustive, as to what Jesus taught His followers. Indeed, one long conversation in one evening by Jesus would contain far more words, by far, than all of His words recorded in Scripture. And that’s just one night. He was constantly with the disciples for three years, day and night. Mark 6:34 notes in one instance, even with the crowds, not just the disciples: “he began to teach them many things” (RSV, as throughout my reply) None of them are recorded. Mark 4:34 adds: “privately to his own disciples he explained everything.”

So some of this “everything” could have easily been what Jesus prayed. All Jesus had to do was tell Peter, “last night I prayed [so-and-so]” (maybe in response to the ever-zealous Peter asking Him) just as we have cases where He revealed what He prayed in Scripture: “I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail” (Lk 22:32; spoken to Peter). Then Peter could tell Mark about one of these prayers, and that’s how Mark could have “known” about Jesus’ private prayers. It’s not rocket science to envision such a scenario. It’s absolutely not impossible.

He included multiple copies of the same story (but often with different details – evidence that he was using passed-on stories that had diverged over time). This often results in internal contradictions and inconsistencies.

Another bald claim. Mr. Crabtree has to provide more specifics, then the Christian can respond to the accusation (just as I did with Steven Carr’s hit-piece: systematically refuting every “anti-Mark” argument that he made). Christian apologists don’t have time to chase vague phantoms of anti-theist atheists’ unbridled imaginations.

The unfamiliarity with Jewish ways of life. There was no-one to correct his blunders such as misquoting the 10 commandments, attributing God’s words to Moses, and having Jews buy things on the Sabbath.

I thoroughly refuted all of these bogus charges last time, along with many others. They are born of rank ignorance, and it’s embarrassing to see how woefully inadequate and downright silly they are, once scrutinized.

Many of the Gospel of Mark’s mistakes were edited and corrections were attempted by Matthew and Luke when they made their own copies of Mark (together there are only about 30 verses that they didn’t copy).

Once again, specifics would have to be given, for me to reply. When such alleged “corrections” of Matthew were posited by Mr. Carr, I showed in every instance that they were groundless.

Because of its influence, some historians have argued that Mark’s text it the primary material that created the legend of Jesus: “Bruno Bauer believed Mark had invented Jesus, just as Mark Twain created Huck Finn”.

Saying that a real Jesus didn’t exist at all, or if He did, it was nothing like the Gospel portrayal, is intellectual suicide (hence, I spend little time with it, just as I rarely waste my time wrangling about a flat earth or a 10,000-year-old earth. See: Seidensticker Folly #4: Jesus Never Existed, Huh? [8-14-18]

Mr. Crabtree cites Robert M. Price stating about the time of Jesus: “there is no evidence for synagogues in Galilee.” Nonsense. The text Price was dealing with (Mark 3:1-5) was about an incident in Capernaum (see Mk 2:1 for the context regarding place). Capernaum had a synagogue. It’s located in Galilee on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. I visited it myself in 2014, and it was noted that the present one was built on top of an older one, whose foundation could still be seen at the bottom of the structure (much darker basalt rocks). Where do people like Price get off saying stupid things like this? A UNESCO page: “Early Synagogues in the Galilee” gives the real story:

The remains of as many as 50 different synagogues were identified in the Galilee, one of the most concentrated sites for synagogues in the world at that time. These early synagogues included Meron, Gush Halav, Navorin, Bar Am and Bet Alfa and Korazim, and Capernaum by the Sea of Galilee. The earliest synagogue remains in Palestine date to the late first century BCE, or by the early first century CE. By this time the synagogue was a developed central institution throughout the Jewish world.

Len Ritmeyer noted in his article, “The Synagogue of Capernaum in which Jesus taught” (3-15-18):

Digging deeper down in 1981, walls made of basalt stones and a basalt floor turned up 4 feet below the surface. These walls were located underneath the walls of the white synagogue and also under the stylobates (low walls that support a row of columns). It was initially thought that these walls were foundation walls, but when 1st century material was found on and below the basalt floor, it became evident that these basalt walls belonged to a synagogue of the 1st century, i.e, the synagogue in which Jesus taught.

Some of the trenches have been left open and the remains of this early synagogue can be seen today. [the article has a photo of that]

 The Times of Israel reported on 8-19-16 about another synagogue in Galilee from Jesus’ time, that He very well may have visited:

Israeli archaeologists in northern Israel have uncovered the ruins of a rural synagogue that dates back some 2,000 years.

The remains of the synagogue were found during an archaeological dig at Tel Rekhesh, near Mount Tabor in the lower Galilee, in what was an ancient Jewish village.

The find could lend weight to the New Testament narrative that Jesus visited villages in the area to preach.

Mordechai Aviam, an archaeologist at Kinneret College on the Sea of Galilee who led the dig, estimated the synagogue was built between 20-40 AD and was used for a hundred years. . . .

“The site is 17 km (10 miles) as crow flies east of Nazareth, and 12 km from Nin (Naim), and although we don’t have its name in the New Testament, it is in the area in which Jesus acted,” said Aviam.

Mark 1:30 And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues . . .

Mark 6:6 And he went about among the villages teaching. [i.e., “villages” near Nazareth: see 6:1]

I could easily find more about this, but these counter-examples suffice. So goes “bust” another atheist myth: disproven by archaeology and historiography . . .

We have seen already that Mark was not known as a Gospel of ‘Mark’ for over a hundred years. 

That’s of no relevance. All that matters is whether there were reliable oral traditions, based ultimately on eyewitness testimony. These eventually made their way into the written accounts.

When Christians came to name the Gospels, they picked ‘Mark’, who they thought should be a disciple of Peter, who in Greek mythology was associated with the Egyptian god Petra, the gate guardian of Heaven. Nowadays, Christians nowadays consider ‘Peter’ to be a genuine historical person, but it seems that even if he was real, Mark didn’t know him. 

This is simply groundless, arbitrary, downright stupid speculation from atheists: as usual backed up with nothing substantial at all, let alone scholarly. Readers can see, on the other hand, how my replies consistently have scholarly backing. Mr. Crabtree is ridiculous enough to start doubting the historicity of Peter as well.

Peter certainly could have corrected any of Mark’s errors in Jewish knowledge, and it is ludicrous to assume that Mark wrote this text without showing Peter (or any other Jew).

Again, I think I disposed of many of the supposed examples of Mark’s “lack of Jewishness” in my previous reply along these lines. I flatly deny the premise.

It is clear that Mark didn’t know any Jews. 

This is an extraordinary claim. What’s the evidence for it?

All three other gospels refer to Peter (Matthew 16:17-20, Luke 22:28-32 and John 21:15-17) and give him authority, whereas Mark doesn’t. 

Mark mentions “Peter” 19 times. Matthew mentions him 23 times, with 12 more chapters to do so. So, proportionately, Mark has more emphasis on Peter. Luke mentions him 18 times, with eight more chapters than Mark. But then we have to add the use also of “Simon”: his earlier name. That’s ten more times in Mark for a total of references to Peter of 29 times. Matthew adds five more references with “Simon” for 28 total. Luke adds 14, for a total of 32. So the grand totals are:

Mark: 29 in 15 chapters (average of 1.9 times per chapter).

Matthew: 28 in 28 chapters (average of one time per chapter).

Luke: 32 in 24 chapters (average of 1.3 times per chapter).

So Mark mentions Peter (“Peter” or “Simon”) almost twice as much per chapter as Matthew does and almost three times to every two times that Luke does. That’s hardly an underemphasis on Peter.

Moreover, Mark shows him as preeminent, just as the others do, by showing that he is the most mentioned of the disciples and their leader. Peter’s name invariably occurs first in all lists of apostles, including in Mark (3:16). Mark implies that he is the leader, in citing an angel stating, “tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee” (16:7). Singling him out in such a way, over against the rest of the disciples, is clearly expressing his leadership. This occurs again in Mark 1:36 (“And Simon and those who were with him pursued him,”). He’s a spokesman for the other disciples (Mk 8:29). He’s listed first of the “inner circle” of disciples: Peter, James, and John (Mk 5:37; 14:37). He’s the central figure in dramatic stories: for instance, Jesus walking on the water (Mk 10:28).

I think Mark knew Peter was not real; but merely a piece of Roman mythology used symbolically in a way all Romans would have understood.  Later authors (such as the Jewish author of the Gospel of Matthew), who copied Mark’s text, did not know this, therefore they elevated him.

This is just manifestly ridiculous, and not worthy of any attention. It’s self-refuting.

Sandals and Staff: Jesus sends his disciples out to preach, but in Mark [6:8-9] they are told to wear sandals (contradicting Matthew [10:9-10] ), and are told to take a staff (contradicting Luke [9:3]). Only one of these three authors could have really been there (if any).

At least this appears at first glance to be a real contradiction (unlike virtually all atheist proposed ones I’ve ever seen: and I’ve dealt with several hundred). So it deserves a serious treatment. Protestant apologists Eric Lyons and Brad Harrub (on a site that specializes in alleged biblical contradictions) grant the difficulty of interpreting these passages harmoniously in writing that they were “Perhaps the most difficult alleged Bible contradiction that we have been asked to ‘tackle’ . . . A cursory reading of the above passages admittedly is somewhat confusing.” Then they proceed to explain the apparent discrepancies:

The differences between Matthew and Mark are explained easily when one acknowledges that the writers used different Greek verbs to express different meanings. In Matthew, the word “provide” (NKJV) is an English translation of the Greek word ktesthe. According to Bauer’s Greek-English Lexicon, the root word comes from ktaomai, which means to “procure for oneself, acquire, get” (1979, p. 455). Based upon these definitions, the New American Standard Version used the English verb “acquire” in Matthew 10:9 (“Do not acquire….”), instead of “provide” or “take.” In Matthew, Jesus is saying: “Do not acquire anything in addition to what you already have that may tempt you or stand in your way. Just go as you are.” As Mark indicated, the apostles were to “take” (airo) what they had, and go. The apostles were not to waste precious time gathering supplies (extra apparel, staffs, shoes, etc.) or making preparations for their trip, but instead were instructed to trust in God’s providence for additional needs. Jesus did not mean for the apostles to discard the staffs and sandals they already had; rather, they were not to go and acquire more.

They continue by tackling the additional information from Luke:

As is obvious from a comparison of the verses in Matthew and Luke, they are recording the same truth—that the apostles were not to spend valuable time gathering extra staffs—only they are using different words to do so.

“Provide (Greek ktaomi) neither gold nor silver…nor staffs” (Matthew 10:9-10, emp. added).

“Take (Greek airo) nothing for the journey, neither staffs” (Luke 9:3, emp. added).

Luke did not use ktaomi in his account because he nearly always used ktaomi in a different sense than Matthew did. In Matthew’s account, the word ktaomai is used to mean “provide” or “acquire,” whereas in the books of Luke and Acts, Luke used this word to mean “purchase, buy, or earn.” Notice the following examples of how Luke used this word.

“I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get” (ktaomai) [Luke 18:12, emp. added, NAS]

“Now this man purchased (ktaomai) a field with the wages of iniquity (Acts 1:18, emp. added).

“Your money perish with you, because you thought that the gift of God could be purchased (ktaomai) with money!” (Acts 8:20, emp. added).

The commander answered, “With a large sum I obtained (ktaomai) this citizenship” (Acts 22:28, emp. added).

*
[Luke 21:19 is the only place one could argue where Luke may have used ktaomai to mean something other than “purchase, buy, or earn,” but even here there is a transactional notion in it (Miller, 1997)].When Luke, the beloved physician (Colossians 4:14), used the word ktaomai, he meant something different than when Matthew, the tax collector, used the same word. Whereas Luke used ktaomai to refer to purchasing or buying something, Matthew used the Greek verb agorazo (cf. Matthew 14:15; 25:9-10; 27:6-7). Matthew used ktaomai only in the sense of acquiring something (not purchasing something). As such, it would make absolutely no sense for Luke to use ktaomai in his account of Jesus sending out the apostles (9:3). If he did, then he would have Jesus forbidding the apostles to “purchase” or “buy” money [“Buy nothing for the journey, neither staffs nor bag nor bread nor money….”]. Thus, Luke used the more general Greek verb (airo) in order to convey the same idea that Matthew did when using the Greek verb ktaomai.

Just as ktaomai did not mean the same for Luke and Matthew, the Greek word airo (translated “take” in both Mark 6:8 and Luke 9:3) often did not mean the same for Luke and Mark (see Miller, 1997). [Understanding this simple fact eliminates the “contradiction” completely, for unless the skeptic can be certain that Mark and Luke were using the word in the same sense, he cannot prove that the accounts contradict each other.] Mark consistently used airo in other passages throughout his gospel to mean simply “take” or “pick up and carry” (2:9; 6:29; 11:23; 13:16). That Luke (in 9:3) did not mean the same sense of airo as Mark did (in 6:8) is suggested by the fact that in Luke 19:21-22 he used this same verb to mean “acquire.” [see also the visual chart in the article that is very helpful]

Now, the anti-theist atheists (who love bringing up things like this) typically respond that “well, see how hard you had to work to solve the contradiction?! It shouldn’t have to be that hard!” We agree that it shouldn’t be so hard, if one understood Greek in the first place. But for those of us who don’t know Greek, it appears contradictory, because the difference hinges upon different Greek words and even different meanings of the same Greek words (in context): just as English words usually have several definitions.

Therefore, it takes a considerable bit of explaining to clarify for the non-Greek speaker. Once that key difference is understood, the so-called “contradiction” is shown to not be one at all, because the writers are using different Greek words and meaning different things. And there are many alleged “biblical contradictions” that are resolved in this same fashion.

Making Up Details on How Many Were Fed: The scribes who put together the Gospel of Mark included two versions of the same story of Jesus feeding crowds of people with only a small number of loaves of bread and fish. The two copies are at Mark 6:32-44 and Mark 8:1-10. “They are essentially the same in every detail except the precise numbers of people present and food left over. Such figures are, of course, the easiest details to lose and confuse” as the stories were passed on from person to person. This is more proof that Mark wasn’t an eye-witness (or even close to one). 

This is untrue, and easily shown to be so. The two events took place in two entirely different locations, as the text states. The feeding of the 5,000 was near Bethsaida, which was on the north side of the Sea of Galilee (Mk 6:45; cf. Lk 9:10-17). The feeding of the 4,000, however, was a completely different story that occurred in a different place, as opposed to the fairy-tale of “essentially the same in every detail except the precise numbers of people present and food left over“ that the foolish skeptic Robert Price invented, and Mr. Crabtree accepts uncritically.

It occurred in “the region of the Decapolis” (Mk 7:31), which was east of the Sea of Galilee, and included the town of  Hippos, which was literally on a hill overlooking it. Immediately after the miracle, Jesus “immediately . . . got into the boat with his disciples, and went to the district of Dalmanu’tha” (Mk 8:10). Matthew 15:39, the parallel verse, states: “he got into the boat and went to the region of Mag’adan.” That would have been directly across the Sea of Galilee, and some archaeologists believe that Dalmanutha has been found, very close to Magadan, or Magdala, as I recently wrote about at length. There is evidence that the place where the feeding of the 4,000 occurred was near the archaeological site of Kursi. In any event, it’s clearly an entirely different place being described in the two feedings.

The two copies certainly do not represent two different events, as the disciples are surprised all-over-again in the second copy.

The disciples were continually surprised by any miracle Jesus did. This is a more-or-less common theme in every Gospel story of a miracle. They lacked faith and thought “carnally’ as Christians say, because they didn’t yet have the grace of the Holy Spirit dwelling with them (that came after Jesus’ death on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2).

It seems that the story didn’t start out as a story about Jesus anyway, as it looks like a Greek rewrite of 2 Kings 4:42-44, where Elisha also multiplies food.

Similarity to something else doesn’t prove that the second event is merely fictitious.

Mark 7’s Long Story About Unclean Food Practices Contradicts Book of Acts. Mark 7 has Jesus teach the disciples at length that the Jewish laws on food go too far. The obsession with washing hands before eating, and many other precise rules and regulations about cleanliness and uncleanliness, are not actually important. And yet, in Acts 10:14, the Disciples have forgotten the entire thing. Mark might have made-up these stories or (more likely) copied them from stories about other prophets, and rewritten them as with Jesus at their centre instead.

I dealt with this last time too:

Jesus indeed declared the principle that Peter would later publicly declare (after receiving a revelation) that all foods were clean (Acts 10:9-16): a thing shortly afterwards codified at the Jerusalem Council as applicable to all Gentile Christians (Acts 15:19-20). The difference is that Jesus did it only with His disciples (Mark 7:17-23). He wasn’t Himself proclaiming “all foods clean” in so many words (let alone publicly). He simply taught the principle underlying that thought, and Mark made his “theological” comment about it.

I would add now that the disciples didn’t (as far as the text informs us) hear Jesus specifically say in this incident recorded by Mark: “all foods are clean.” It was simply the narrator (Mark) making note of the broader point Jesus had made, summarizing it as “Thus he declared all foods clean.” This would explain why Peter was surprised to hear it more explicitly taught, in Acts 10:14. He was probably unaware that what Jesus had said in the earlier incident had the implication of changing Jewish food laws. So there is no contradiction here.

Galilee or Judea? The gospels describe where Jesus taught. Mark contradicts both Luke’s and John’s accounts:

The different Gospels simply emphasize different things and omit some things others include. There is no inexorable contradictions here. Harmonies of the Gospels (here’s an online version by A. T. Robertson) show how a non-contradictory scenario can be constructed of all of Jesus’ journeys.

Mark contradicts Luke and John on the issue of how Jesus was sentenced:

“According to Matthew and Mark, Jesus was both tried and sentenced by the Jewish priests of the Sanhedrin. Luke has it that Jesus was [not] sentenced by them. Yet according to John, Jesus does not appear before the Sanhedrin at all.” [“The Jesus Mysteries” by Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy (1999) ]

The ultimate sentence of crucifixion could not have been made by the Jews in any event. Only the Romans could put a man to death in that place at that time (see Jn 18:31). So Matthew records that the Sanhedrin concluded that Jesus “deserves death” (26:66), but they couldn’t sentence him. That’s why they had to send him to the Roman governor Pontius Pilate (Mt 27:1-2), who “delivered him to be crucified” (27:26). So Freke and Gandy are dead wrong in their assessment of what Matthew taught in this regard. The story in Mark is precisely the same. The Sanhedrin unanimously “condemned him as deserving death” (14:64), sent him to Pilate (15:1), who alone could sentence Him, and Pilate “delivered him to be crucified” (15:15). So the “interpretation” (to be charitable) above is dead wrong again.

Luke is no different. The Sanhedrin judged Him (as supposedly a blasphemer) in effect by saying, “What further testimony do we need? We have heard it ourselves from his own lips” (22:71). They “brought him before Pilate” (23:1), and we see them still trying to get Him killed (23:2, 5, 10, 14, 18, 21, 23). But Pilate decided (23:24-25). No essential difference whatsoever, and no contradiction. So the atheists, undaunted, and unconcerned with mere reason and never dissuaded from their aim of tearing down the Bible, simply move on to the Gospel of John, in their never-ending mocking crusade to find yet another biblical “contradiction.” What do we find there?

John reports that Jesus was first questioned by Annas: “the father-in-law of Ca’iaphas, who was high priest that year” (Jn 18:13), who “questioned Jesus about his disciples and his teaching ” (Jn 18:19). Annas “Annas then sent him bound to Ca’iaphas the high priest” (18:24). Then “they [implied: the Sanhedrin] led Jesus from the house of Ca’iaphas to the praetorium [where Pilate was]” (18:28). And “They answered him, “If this man were not an evildoer, we would not have handed him over” (18:30). Note that Caiaphas was present at the judgment and “monkey trial” of the Sanhedrin, as indicated by Matthew 26:57, 62, Mark (not named, but mentioned as the “high priest”: 14:53-54, 60, 63, 66), and Luke (“high priest”: 22:54).

So it’s all the same overall story, told by four storytellers, with the expected differences in detail and emphases that we would expect in any four different accounts of the same incident. Matthew and John refer directly to Caiphas the high priest as being involved (Matthew mentions also the assembly, whereas John doesn’t (directly), but still indicates their presence by the two uses of “they” in describing the Jewish leaders leading Jesus to Pilate. Mark and Luke don’t name him, but note that the “high priest” was involved, which is no contradiction.

So we see that Freke and Gandy have misrepresented the nature of all four Gospels in this regard. It’s nothing new, folks. It happens all the time, and I am demonstrating it over and over in this paper. Atheists don’t care what the biblical accounts state, because they think they are a pack of lies written by liars and propagandists, and they approach the Bible like a butcher approaches a hog. There’s no rhyme or reason in any of it; only irrational hostility: which alone can explain how they can consistently be factually and logically wrong, every time.

This is my fourth lengthy paper in the last seven days (links: one, two, three), exhaustively demonstrating that they get everything wrong when they attempt to do biblical exegesis and hermeneutics. Their efforts may look mighty impressive and convincing at first: until a biblical scholar or apologist like myself (who specializes in dealing with anti-theist / anti-biblical polemics) examines what they write and provides another side.

The gospel of Mark does not describe the history of Jesus or his virgin birth.

It doesn’t have to. Mark simply decided to start the story with John the Baptist, whom the Old Testament predicted (as a prototype of Elijah) as the forerunner of the Messiah. In other words, Mark presents the story as most people at that place and time would have witnessed or experienced it: Jesus suddenly appearing out of nowhere at His baptism and commencing His three-year ministry.

These parts of the New Testament’s stories were added by Matthew, 30 years later, who assimilated other myths into the legends.

It’s simply an atheist fairy-tale, with no basis. If they want to make ludicrous claims like this, the burden of proof is on them. But they have nothing. It’s just wild skeptical speculation.

“The accounts of Matthew, Mark and Luke contradict each other, even on the parts of Christian mythology which Christians consider to be the most important: The crucifixion and resurrection. They give different sets of final words, confusingly different accounts of the empty tomb (one of them including an earthquake), and wildly different accounts of the resurrection. They’re all making it up!” [“The Crucifixion Facade” by Vexen Crabtree (2002) ]

The final words of Jesus on the cross are completely harmonious and non-contradictory, as A. T. Robertson shows in his Harmony and as many others have demonstrated. It’s not difficult to synthesize them. It just take s a little work on the chronology.

I just demonstrated in two lengthy papers that all the accusations about contradictory accounts of the empty tomb and Jesus’ resurrection are bogus and a bunch of hot air.

Mr. Crabtree then tries to establish a contradiction between Matthew 20:29-34, where it is said that Jesus healed two blind men, and Mark 10:46-52, where He is said to heal one. Gleason Archer in his Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1982, p. 333) wrote:

Matthew was concerned to mention all who were involved in this episode . . . Matthew is content to record that actual scene of healing, whereas Luke gives particular attention to the entire proceedings, from the moment that  Bartimaeus first heard about Jesus’ arrival — a feature only cursorily suggested by Mark 10:46 — because he is interested in the beggar’s persistence in request before the cure was actually performed on him. As for the second blind beggar, neither Mark nor Luke find him significant enough to mention; presumably he was the more colorless personality of the two.

No contradiction; no problem at all. Mark and Luke decide to focus on one blind man, whereas Matthew mentions a second as well. So what?

Mr. Crabtree produced a few more challenges, but I replied to 95% of his paper, and I am out of both energy and patience with tomfoolery at this point, having worked on this all day, so I will leave it here.

***

Photo credit: Saint Mark (1450), by Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

***

 

 

2020-11-30T18:43:00-04:00

Last updated on: November 30, 2020 at 6:43 pm   By

Ann, an atheist, commented on my article, Golden Calf & Cherubim: Biblical Contradiction? (11-23-20, vs. Dr. Steven DiMattei), and we got into a serious exchange (though never — by my definition — a true dialogue). Her words (complete from my blog) will be in blue.

*****

This article is a good example of the difference between “Biblical scholarship” (Dr. Steven DiMattei) and “Bible study” (Dave Armstrong.)

“Bible study” tries to prove that its assertions about the meaning of a Bible passage can be proved correct by pointing to another Bible passage.
It takes it for granted that the words of the Bible are factually true, historically spoken, and it just wants to defend one particular interpretation.

“Biblical scholarship” seeks to uncover the origins of the Bible passage and how it demonstrates “the way the contemporary people were thinking.”
There is no special idea that the assertions of the Bible are literally true or describe actual historical events.
Instead, Biblical scholarship sees the passage as a reflection of the historical evolution, the thoughts, the concepts, the philosophy of the people who wrote it.

DiMattei and Armstrong are talking past each other.

It’s a long discussion. You pass over the many internal inconsistencies I point out in his work, and questions about the arbitrary assertions he makes. Since he won’t respond (what a surprise), of course we will be talking past each other. It’s his choice, not mine. I’m confident in my positions; he seems not to be confident in his positions. I’m all in favor of dialogue. Most folks today are not. They want to preach to the choir.

I think there is still something you are not recognizing.

DiMattei does not have a “position” in the way that you do.
He is not preaching for the adoption of his point of view.
Instead, biblical scholarship lays out its research findings among ancient documents as we have them so far.
Then a scholar deduces what the historical significance of those findings may be.
He then presents his deductions to the wider community of fellow scholars in order to introduce this new concept.

These results are necessarily always tentative because more documentary evidence may materialize in the future, or a better scholar may interpret the ones we already have with more learning or a more subtle historical understanding.

In your case, you have come to a conclusion about what God means, and your support is in other parts of the Bible.
New information will not be added in the future, unlike the resources of Biblical scholarship.
Your conclusions are not based on “evidence” — only on “argument.”

There are “many internal inconsistencies” in his work — and that is fine with him — because the documentary evidence he is relying on makes inconsistent claims, which he incorporates into his historical analysis.
He isn’t “preaching” like you are — trying to convince others that (based on the Bible itself), your reading of the words of the Bible is the one God intends.

DiMattei is simply laying out the contents of the documents (in the Bible and elsewhere) that he has researched so far, and describing to other scholars his suggestions about what they they signify historically.

You are talking past each other, not because he does not respond, but because you two are talking about two different topics.

He doesn’t have “believers,” or True Believers™ , or followers.
He has fellow scholars who share or don’t share his proposed suggestions about what the evidence shows so far about what the people of those times used to think and believe.

It’s liberal / skeptical “biblical” scholarship — not the entirety of “biblical scholarship” and its goal is to try to prove that the Bible is not inspired revelation at all, but rather, merely a human document like any other. Those of us who are Christians do not believe that to be the case. But it’s not simply “blind faith” (the liberal caricature of belief) but rather, faith + evidence in a host of ways, in many fields.

If you claim his goal is not to “tear down” the Bible, then tell me: why the extreme emphasis on supposed “contradictions” in the Bible? Why is that so super-important, and where else do we find such efforts? When I refute these, I’m not simply appealing to blind faith. I show internal logical contradictions, which rather defeats his purpose: his attempts at making the Bible contradict itself in every other sentence leads to himself doing so.

Logic is something we can all agree on. He (and many others of his ilk: like Bob Seidensticker, whom I have refuted 65 times, and Dr. David Madison: another 50 or so) have no interest in dialogue because they are not (in my opinion) honest, objective thinkers. If they were serious thinkers, they would grapple with critiques just as all thinkers do. I love to receive serious critiques. I wish I received a ton more than I do.

Rather, they are mere propagandists.

If Dr. DiMattei is such a renowned scholar, where is he teaching now? Where are his articles in peer-reviewed journals? They may exist, but he seems to give no information about them. Does he have more than one book published?

I don’t know this particular person at all, so I am speaking about “Biblical scholarship” as it is distinct from “Bible study.”

Biblical scholarship does not have any “goal” at all — never mind a “goal to try to prove that the Bible is not inspired revelation … but merely a human document like any other.”

Biblical scholarship TAKES IT FOR GRANTED that the Bible actually is merely a human document like any other, and study it (and the preceding legends and myths that it is based on) as an historical phenomenon with historical interest but irrelevant in its religious claims.

The reason that Biblical scholars take it for granted that the Bible is merely a human document like any other is that they study the actual early versions of the myths and legends preceding the versions in the Bible.

We can find exactly similar historical evolution of other kinds of human documents — early versions of fairy tales (and their morphing into the current versions), early developments of Arthurian legends, previous sources of Shakespeare’s plots, early (and increasingly refined) versions of maps …

(Finding early maps as they evolved accuracy is interesting to scholars because it helps locate the dates and places of, for example, expeditionary armies, who return with improved information, thus suddenly changing the maps.)

Naturally if you believe that the Bible is a unique document emanating from an infallible source, you will misperceive the goals of people who blandly refer to documents that contradict your beliefs (such as previous versions of a Bible story in Sumerian documents.)

The interest on the contradictions and errors in the Bible is not an attack on its supernatural origins.
Because they are so familiar with its human origins, no Biblical scholar imagines for a moment that it even had a supernatural origin.

Instead, contradictions and revisions are used as evidence of the historical evolution of the fables of the Bible and how and why they assumed their present form.

For example. the contradictory comments about the spherical nature of the earth are revealing.
Bible passages that know that the earth is a sphere indicate that the author had a Greek education because the Greeks had already discovered that (and even measured the size of the globe.)

Other passages that do not know that the earth is a globe demonstrate that these authors did not have the benefit of a Greek education.
This information is useful in helping the scholars locate the composition of the passage in time and place.

Another example is the story of the walls of Jericho, which was in ruins for centuries before the earliest date the Bible story could have been written.

I am well aware of the nature of liberal / skeptical biblical scholarship. I’ve dealt with it for forty years. It’s you and I who are talking past each other. Steven and I are not because I am talking and he isn’t.

I could write a great deal about conservative / orthodox biblical scholarship and address the many bum raps you have thrown out, but I’m more interested in Steven’s case and his defense of it. With most of the critiques I have made, it matters not if I am a three-toed, green-eyed Rastafarian or an Indian shaman or a Taoist or Buddhist. My critiques deal with internal contradictions in his presentation.

Let me give you an example from another of my recent critiques of Steven’s arguments:

God in Heaven & in His Temple: Contradiction?:

He claimed:

the Deuteronomists would have vehemently disagreed with the Priestly writer’s ideology that Yahweh dwelt among the people. For the Deuteronomist, Yahweh dwelt in heaven. To preserve the holiness of the Temple dwelling, the Deuteronomist claimed that merely Yahweh’s name resided there, not his glory nor presence . . .

I then provided 15 passages from Deuteronomy: all of which contradicted his claim above. Then I wrote about what this would force him to do, to salvage his theory:

He is forced now to say, “well, those are simply non-Deuteronomist portions later added to the book of Deuteronomy . . .” It’s the “answer” to everything (hostile or contrary interpolated texts). But when a particular ploy or theory or fiction is used for every conceivable difficulty, it is soon seen that it is in fact the solution of no difficulty. A thing can explain too much as well as too little. It’s just not plausible. It’s on the level of a conspiracy theory.

This is just one of many problems and difficulties I have raised that Steven — if he is a thinker confident of his convictions — would have to grapple with. He refuses. Those who are of his general opinion almost always refuse to address criticisms. In the case of one guy recently, who writes at the same site I do (Patheos), he threatened to sue me because I critiqued him three or four times.

Nothing you say ameliorates his intellectual duty to address such criticisms.

Most proposed biblical “contradictions” are not at all, by the laws of logic: not some “fundamentalist” prior objection. They don’t hold water. I have dealt with scores and scores of them. You raise a few yourself and bring up other misconceptions. Conservative Bible scholars who accept biblical inspiration are not averse at all to discussing elements of prior stories from regions near Israel that seem similar to biblical ones. One look at my large personal library would quickly disabuse you of that notion. I’ve written (or hosted) several papers that discuss how Christianity “baptizes” many non-Christian beliefs and customs and incorporates them into its beliefs (as did Judaism before it):

Is Catholicism Half-Pagan? [1999]

Is Easter Pagan & the Word a “Pagan Compromise”? [1999]

Halloween Joys & the “Baptizing” of Pagan Customs (Guest Post by Rod Bennett and Mark Shea) [11-1-06; expanded on 10-31-16]

Is Catholicism Half-Pagan, & a Blend of Gospel & Lies? [2007]

You say the Bible teaches a spherical earth in some places and a flat earth in others. This is simply untrue. It doesn’t teach a flat earth at all:

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

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

It simply doesn’t teach it. One can be an orthodox Christian like myself or an atheist or anything else, and understand that this is the case: provided they actually study Hebrew culture, how the ancient Hebrews thought and reasoned, and some of the words involved. We are just as interested in finding out what the Bible actually teaches, as the skeptics are (if not more so).

You say (or imply) we are biased and unable to be trusted because we believe in biblical inspiration. That’s like saying that Einstein was biased when writing about relativity because he believed in it, or Newton about gravity or Copernicus about heliocentrism (which is almost as false as geocentrism because the sun isn’t the center of the universe, either), or Madame Curie about radioactivity: because they all firmly believed in those things.

We can just as rightly show that many proposed biblical contradictions are not at all, and that many skeptical claims about what the Bible teaches are equally false and invalid, due to various degrees of illogic, non-factuality, or unfamiliarity with the biblical worldview and proper biblical exegesis and hermeneutics, or various other false premises or wrong turns in reasoning chains.

Bottom line: I have provided plenty of legitimate, serious criticisms of Steven’s work. He ignores them. I let him know that I made them (if he even checks his Twitter page). Instead, you are here defending his general enterprise of biblical skepticism. I enjoy talking with you, but he has the duty to defend his own views, too. If he can’t, then they aren’t worth much: whatever one might be inclined to think of them.

Did you ever notice the “throw-away” bits in The Terminator which demonstrate that dogs recognize Terminators and hate them?

There’s the scene where John and the Terminator call his foster home and hear his dog going ape in the background because a bad Terminator is in his house.
There’s a quick shot of the soldiers in the bunker with a pair of German Shepherds as allies in the fight against Terminators.
There’s the scene where the Terminator is approaching the motel cabin where Sarah is hiding out and a wee little dog is in hysterics barking at the Terminator’s foot (bigger than the whole dog.)
——————–

And here is a scenario that I invented, so please forgive me for not knowing anything about physical geodesy.

Let us imagine that a research post-doc got access to some ultra high accuracy images of earth taken from the ISS.
Following a long effort of the most painstaking precision, he discovers something new about the dimensions of the planet.
(As you many know, earth is not a perfect sphere. It is an “oblate spheroid” for some reason known to the experts.)

In my imaginary story, the researcher is excited because his studies demonstrate that one of the measurements commonly used is actually incorrect by 87 km ± 3 km, and he publishes his findings in a professional journal.
——————–

Now the Terminator is way cooler than I am, so when he got yapped at by a wee little doggie, he didn’t even notice.
Now me — I would have noticed and been amused.

That’s how I imagine the scientist would feel if he was berated by a Flat Earther who conceived of the scientific research paper as an attack on the cult of a Flat Earth — surprised and faintly amused. Not amused enough to respond to the charge that his work was invalidated because it is only withing a tolerance of 3 km, but briefly amusing anyway before he moved on with his science and forgot all about the challenge from the Supernatural realm.
—————–

Your pious beliefs refer to things that are not objectively, empirically, demonstrably true.
In fact, they are objectively, empirically, demonstrably untrue.

Researchers in the area of the dissemination of ancient myths might be interested in tracing the development, the evolution, the spread of the THREE stories of the parting of the waters (Moses, Elijah, Elisha).

Maybe they are interested in the meaning, the reason for writing the two irreconcilable genealogies of Jesus, the point they ancient writers were making.

But the concept that these myths have demonstrable, empirical, objective antecedents cannot be denied.
The evidence exists as physical objects that you can hold in your hand.

Being a “life-long atheist”, it comes as no surprise to me that you take the positions you do. So, for example, obviously you can’t believe the Bible is an inspired infallible revelation from God because there is no God there to form a necessary piece of that puzzle. You may say that causes no bias in you, but it does form a premise that is in stark opposition to the premises I start with — due to reasoning (existence of God; thus the possibility of revelation from Him).

That being the case, you obviously have to adopt by default a position whereby the Bible is not a whit different from any other ancient literature. Ah, but it is massively different, as I have shown in many articles, and many other Christian apologists, theologians, archaeologists, and historians have shown in hundreds of ways.

Here is but one example of many from my paper, Seidensticker Folly #59: Medieval Hospitals & Medicine:

Hippocrates, the pagan Greek “father of medicine” didn’t understand the causes of contagious disease. Nor did medical science until the 19th century. But the hygienic principles that would have prevented the spread of such diseases were in the Bible: in the Laws of Moses. . . .

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

Mosaic Law and Hebrew hygienic practices, dating as far back as some 800 years before Hippocrates, were far more advanced:

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

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

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

The Bible is no different from any other ancient document? This is but one example. To show that the Bible is not unique here, you would have to show other ancient cultures that had such an in-depth understanding of hygiene and contagious disease. Good luck.

The same sort of thing occurs in many areas: whether it is the sophisticated biblical understanding of creation (ex nihilo) compared to Greek mythology et al, or the spherical earth, or timelessness, etc. The Big Bang theory finally caught up with the biblical teaching of an earth created out of nothing in the 20th century: and that was first introduced by a Catholic priest!

Your pious beliefs refer to things that are not objectively, empirically, demonstrably true. In fact, they are objectively, empirically, demonstrably untrue.

This is a bald assertion; not an argument. If you wish to refute my papers on how the Bible doesn’t teach a flat earth, feel free. If not, mere statements do not sway me because I have actually studied the issue in some depth.

I dealt with the “contradictory genealogies” claim over against atheist JMS Pearce three years ago:

Again, if you wish to dissuade me you’ll have to get into the thick and thin of it and actually interact with my arguments. Bald statements don’t cut it with me. They prove nothing.

Dave, it is my fault that I am not making myself clear.

1) The assertion that the Bible full of claims and anecdotes that are not true is not a BALD assertion.
It is an assertion that is demonstrated with hard physical EVIDENCE.

2) My anecdote about a Flat Earth was intended as an analogy — not an accusation that you believe in a flat earth.
Nevertheless, there are some passages in the Bible that do demonstrate a knowledge that the earth is a sphere, and some passages that show the writer thought the earth was flat.

But it’s silly to get hung up on this error to prove that the Bible is choked full of errors and self-contradictions when there is sooo much low-hanging fruit.

3) I don’t know what you mean by “dealt with” the contradictory genealogies claim, but you certainly did not dissolve the problem by trying to show that it follows the genealogy through the female line or some such thing as that.
If nothing else (and there is a lot else), the very NUMBER OF GENERATIONS cannot be reconciled.

3) You’re correct to point out that “bald statements” prove nothing.
You just don’t admit that ARGUMENTS don’t prove anything either.
Any fool can “prove” anything he wants with “argument.”
That’s why it is not allowed in a court of law.

The only thing that demonstrates anything is EVIDENCE.

4) I don’t want to get into a debate with you that I have been through hundreds of times.
My only interest in posting here is the one I stated in the beginning:
> You are using “Bible study” ARGUMENTS to try to defeat “Biblical scholarship” EVIDENCE.

You say in effect, “When the Bible says XYZ, it means “myXmyYmyZ”, and I know that this is the true interpretation because the Bible says so.”

Biblical scholarship says “This legend originated in Babylon, and here is the physical evidence that shows it.”

I’m puzzled that you’re unable to see the difference.

You’re just repeating yourself now (over and over) and deliberately avoiding any direct interaction with my arguments (which of course include much evidence) so we’re done. I take a very dim view of engaging in exchanges which are not dialogues at all, but mutual monologues. I dialogue, and this is no dialogue.

***

Photo credit: Book of Kells (c. 800), Folio 292r, Incipit to John [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

***

2020-11-23T14:33:51-04:00

Last updated on: November 23, 2020 at 2:33 pm   By

vs. Dr. Steven DiMattei 

Dr. Steven DiMattei is a biblical scholar and author, formally trained in the New Testament and early Christianity, with M.A degrees in Classics and Comparative Literature as well. Rumor has it that he is an atheist, but I haven’t been able to confirm that on his site. He put up a website called Contradictions in the Bible. It seems inactive now (or he has lost interest or moved onto other things: who knows?), but the themes are things I really enjoy discussing and debating, and his articles are still online for all to see; thus fair game for critique — and stimulating food for thought, too. There is almost nothing I like to discuss and think about more than the interpretation of the Bible. Steven wrote in a post dated 5-7-16:

One of my reasons in choosing the word “defend” to describe my aims as a biblical scholar and author was in part to attract Christian apologists to my work and hopefully to get them to read these ancient texts on their terms and from within their own cultural contexts and to create a conversation around the biblical texts, their authors, and their competing beliefs, messages, worldviews, theologies, etc. As you can imagine this has proven quite difficult, nay impossible. Many Christian apologists and fundamentalists just cannot read, or simply identify, the text on its own terms separate from the beliefs and assumptions about the text handed-down through this collection of ancient literature’s title, “the Holy Book.”

Here  I am: an apologist quite willing to engage in conversation. It takes two. So we’ll see if Steven is willing to follow through on his stated desire. I have had my own long history (in almost 40 years of apologetics) of “difficult, nay impossible” attempts to discuss matters with many people who tend to be of a few particular belief-systems, though I have no problem talking with anyone who is civil and can stick to a topic. I don’t just say this, I have a demonstrable record of doing it, which is evident on my blog, with its 1000+ dialogues. But as I said, dialogue takes two, and I would add that it also requires a degree of at least minimal mutual respect. Steven’s words will be in blue.

*****

I am critiquing two related articles of his, on alleged “biblical contradictions”:

#159. The Golden Calf OR the Golden Cherubs? (Ex 32:4 vs Ex 25:18-20, 37:7-9)

#157. Is the festival associated with the Golden Calf a festival to Yahweh OR to other gods? (Ex 32:5 vs Ex 32:1, 32:4, 32:8)

I shall deal with #159 first, because its errors are more basic, groundless, and indefensible.

What is the difference between these golden cherubs and the golden calf? Why is it permitted to fabricate golden cherubs and not the golden calf? 

Short answer: because one was intended to be gross idolatry (the calf) and the other was a permitted non-idolatrous religious image, sanctioned by God. I have written about the details of the outrageous and blasphemous idolatry of the golden calf and the nature of idolatry as the Bible defines it:

Is the Mass Equivalent to OT Golden Calf Worship? [1996]

Biblical Idolatry: Authentic & Counterfeit Conceptions [2015]

On the other hand, there are many examples of permitted images in Old Testament worship, including the temple and ark of the covenant (in other words, not all images were forbidden “graven images” or idolatrous):

Veneration of Images, Iconoclasm, and Idolatry (An Exposition) [11-15-02]

Bible on Holy Places & Things [1-8-08]

Bible on Physical Objects as Aids in Worship [4-7-09]

Biblical Evidence for Worship of God Via an Image [6-24-11]

The Bronze Serpent: Example of Proper Use of Images [Feb. 2012]

“Graven Images”: Unbiblical Iconoclasm (vs. John Calvin) [Oct. 2012]

Worshiping God Through Images is Entirely Biblical [National Catholic Register, 12-23-16]

Statues in Relation to Bowing, Prayer, & Worship in Scripture [12-26-17]

Biblical Evidence for Veneration of Saints and Images [National Catholic Register, 10-23-18]

Crucifixes & Worship Images: “New” (?) Biblical Arguments [1-18-20]

Is Worship of God Through an Image Biblical? (vs. Luke Wayne) [11-10-20]

The ark of the covenant, which included the two golden cherubim on top, was never intended to be a representation of God. One can search the Bible in vain and never find the slightest hint of any such thing. God gave elaborate instructions for the construction of the ark and its use. I recently engaged an anti-Catholic Protestant who correctly noted that these two cherubim were not to be worshiped, but that God appeared in the space between the two of them (as the Bible states several times). But there was a permitted image involved (a cloud), as I detailed:

Luke makes a clever and interesting argument that the space between the mercy seat on top of the ark of the covenant, where God says He is present and to be worshiped (despite being surrounded by carved cherubim [angels]) is “empty space” and “imageless space” and “with no image.” But this is untrue, as the Bible informs us:

Leviticus 16:2 and the LORD said to Moses, “Tell Aaron your brother not to come at all times into the holy place within the veil, before the mercy seat which is upon the ark, lest he die; for I will appear in the cloud upon the mercy seat.

This cloud was visible, just as in other passages above, like Exodus 13:21; 19:18; 24:16; 33:10 (“the people saw the pillar of cloud”), and others like Numbers 16:42 (“the cloud covered it, and the glory of the LORD appeared“) and Deuteronomy 31:15 (“And the LORD appeared in the tent in a pillar of cloud“). The very word “appear” in Leviticus 16:2  and the last two passages also proves it. God doesn’t just say that He will be “present”, but that He will “appear” in this cloud.

The Bible draws a big distinction between a permitted, non-idolatrous image and idolatrous images deliberately intended to be idols.

Aren’t they both idols? Furthermore, why would Yahweh’s most Holy of Holies contain two golden cherubs? Were these representations of the god? Was the golden calf a representation of the god?

These are remarkable questions: asked by one who is highly educated in Bible study. It’s amazing to have to answer such questions at all. But here I go. I dealt with the golden calf in depth 24 years ago. Here are some highlights:

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In Exodus 32:1, the NRSV reads, “Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us……” (cf. 32:23)

Exodus 32:4-5 informs us:

    He took the gold from them, formed it in a mold, and cast an image of a calf; and they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation and said, “tomorrow shall be a festival to the LORD.”

It is, therefore, clear that this is idolatry and otherwise sinful, on many counts:

1) It represents not even the one God, but “gods,” so that it falls under the absolute prohibition of polytheism which was known to any observant Hebrew (see, e.g., Ps 106:19-23; cf. Hab 2:18).

2) Nowhere are the Jews permitted to build a calf as an “image” of God. This was an outright violation of the injunctions against “molten images” (Ex 34:17; Lev 19:4; Num 33:52; Dt 27:15: all condemn such idols, using the same Hebrew word which appears in Ex 32:4, 8, 17: massekah).

3) Aaron built an altar before what the people regarded as “gods,” thus blaspheming the true God.

4) Lies were told and believed about “gods,” not God, liberating the Hebrews from Egyptian slavery.

6) NASB and NKJV read “god” at Ex 32:4 (not even capitalized), so that is clearly not intended as a reference to the one true God, YHWH, according to the accepted practice of all Bible translations. NRSV, KJV, RSV, NIV, NEB, & REB have “gods.” In either case, the view is not monotheistic, nor is it at all analogous to the belief and practice of those Christians who accept the Real Presence.

[as to even the early portions of the Bible (and all portions) being monotheistic, see:

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

Seidensticker Folly #20: An Evolving God in the OT? [9-18-18]

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

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

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

Exodus 32:1 (cf. 32:23),. . . is revealing as to the state of mind of these idolaters. They ask Aaron to “make” them “gods.” Obviously, they could not have YHVH in mind at that point, since I imagine they at least knew that He is not “made by hands” and is eternal. Then they say these gods “shall go before us.” In my opinion, , the most straightforward interpretation of that is the golden calf being carried before them. How could they think (even in their debased state of mind) that YHVH Himself could be compelled to “go before them?” Therefore, they must have regarded the calf as a pure idol of their own making, not as a mere representation of the true God, because these contextual verses make clear that they didn’t have YHVH in mind.

If the above data isn’t sufficient, surely Psalm 106:19-21 nails down my case (NRSV):

    They made a calf at Horeb and worshiped a cast image. They exchanged the glory of God for the image of an ox that eats grass. They forgot God, their Savior, who had done great things in Egypt.

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If the biblical writers regarded the golden calf as an idol and condemned propitiating it or any image, then why is not the same upheld for these golden cherubs?

See the above. Short answer: the cherubim were never conceived as representative of God (or even “gods”), let alone worshiped as such. God said that He appeared between their wings, in a cloud. The golden calf, on the other hand, clearly was conceived as, and worshiped as an idol, in place of the true God.

Steven attempts to argue that Jeroboam’s similar idolatry could be seen as some kind of permissible worship by ancient Hebraic standards (partly derived from practices of surrounding or prior cultures):

It is quite possible that the calf altars that Jeroboam constructed, of which the golden calf story is a parody (#157), were throne seats as well. There is ample evidence from the ancient Near East of deities seated upon bulls. Scholars have certainly started to envision Jeroboam’s calf altars as just that—not representations of Yahweh, but his thrones. In this case, the calf-altar cult of the north rivaled the southern temple in Jerusalem. The depiction of the golden calf as an idol, or as gods, was part and parcel to the propaganda and polemic of the pro-Jerusalemite scribes who wrote it. In the end, however, these cultic symbols were no different than the cherubim that stood in the Holy of Holies and also served to represent the deities presence.

This is all arbitrary speculation, of course (as is much of documentary theory, which has long since been discredited). The actual biblical texts show quite otherwise. Ahijah spoke the word of the Lord concerning Jeroboam’s sin:

1 Kings 14:9 (RSV) . . . you have done evil above all that were before you and have gone and made for yourself other gods, and molten images, provoking me to anger, and have cast me behind your back.

Also:

1 Kings 12:28, 32 So the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold. And he said to the people, “You have gone up to Jerusalem long enough. Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.” . . .

. . . and he offered sacrifices upon the altar; so he did in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves that he had made.

Note: this is not intending “Yahweh to be worshiped through” the graven images, as you claim, but rather (according to God Himself, Who knows all things) “other gods.” Jeroboam himself refers to “gods”: a rank polytheism and idolatry indeed. We know that he sacrificed to these stupid molten images. It couldn’t be more clear than it is.

The New Bible Dictionary (edited by J. D. Douglas, 1962), in its article on Jeroboam, noted:

They threatened true religion by encouraging a syncretism of Yahweh worship with the fertility cult of Baal and thus drew a prophetic rebuke. (p. 614)

Likewise, in its article on “Idolatry”:

[I]t is a most significant thing that when Israel turned to idolatry it was always necessary to borrow the outward trappings from the pagan environment . . . The golden calves made by Jeroboam (1 Ki 12:28) were well-known Canaanite symbols, and in the same way, whenever the kings of Israel and Judah lapsed into idolatry, it was by means of borrowing and syncretism. (p. 552)

Albright, in his discussion of the bulls of Jeroboam, noted:

So Jeroboam may well have been harking back to early Israelite traditional practice when he made the “golden calves.” It is hardly necessary to point out that it was a dangerous revival, since the taurine associations of Baal, lord of heaven, were too closely bound up with the fertility cult in its more insidious aspects to be safe. The cherubim, being mythical animals, served to enhance the majesty of Yahweh, “who rides on a cherub” (II Sam. 22:11) or “who thrones on the cherubim” (II Kings 19:15, etc.), but the young bulls of Bethel and Dan could only debase His cult. (From the Stone Age to Christianity, 2nd edition, Garden City, New York: Doubleday Anchor, 1957, 301)

The brilliant biblical scholar F. F. Bruce draws a similar comparison and contrast:

It may be asked whether there was any difference in principle between the use of bull-calf images to support Yahweh’s invisible presence and the use of cherubs for the same purpose in the holy of holies at Jerusalem. The answer probably is that the cherubs were symbolical beings (representing originally the storm-winds) and their images were therefore not “any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth” [note: Ex. 20:4; Deut. 5:8], whereas the bull-calf images were all too closely associated with Canaanite fertility ritual. It appears from the ritual texts of Ugarit that El, the supreme God of the Canaanite pantheon, was on occasion actually hypostatized as a bull (shor), and known as Shor-El.  (Israel and the Nations, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1963; reprinted 1981, 40-41)

I move on now to Steven’s paper alleging a “biblical contradiction” #157:

[T]he people clamor for gods who “will go in front of us” since Moses has apparently disappeared. Aaron abides by their wishes, and melting the peoples’ gold jewelry down he “fashioned it with a stylus and made a molten calf,” and then proclaimed: “these are your gods Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.” As our first textual anomaly, we notice that one calf is made, yet the text proclaims “gods” in the plural. Why?

Now Steven is making the orthodox Christian argument for us. Thanks!

Second, and largely illogical in the larger narrative context, merely days after the Horeb revelation, the giving and acceptance of the laws by the people, one of which stipulated no images, and apparently only a short time after witnessing Yahweh’s “signs and wonders” in his destruction of Egypt, their land, livestock, plants, and all firstborns, and the parting of the sea of Reeds, it is these new gods who are proclaimed as the gods “who brought you out of Egypt.” There is much that initially does not make any sense here.

Idolatry and rebellion against God never does: yet it is the constant, continual pattern of the Old Testament.

Lastly, Aaron builds an altar before the molten image and proclaims “a festival to Yahweh tomorrow!” And then we’re told that “they got up early the next day and made burnt offerings and brought over peace offerings”—that is, common sacrificial offerings to Yahweh. So, what or who exactly is being celebrated: Yahweh, the golden calf, or the “gods” who apparently brought Israel out of Egypt? Additionally, what is the relationship, that the text firmly implies, between Yahweh, the Golden Calf, and the “gods” of which it speaks?

It was an heretical mixture of orthodox and heterodox elements (as heretical departures invariably are). Aaron refers to “gods” as supposedly the ones who liberated the Hebrews from Egyptian slavery, builds an altar to the calf who represents them, then speaks of a “festival to the LORD” (Yahweh): Exodus 32:4-5. It’s classic heterodox syncretism: that Judaism and Christianity have been “blessed” with since time immemorial.

Even more puzzling, this all occurs right on the heels of the Exodus, the miraculous crossing of the Red sea, the witnessing of Yahweh’s ten terrifying signs and wonders by which means he destroyed Egypt and redeemed the children of Israel. The story of the Golden Calf makes no sense within this literary context. Even granting the people’s inclination, if you like, toward disobedience, it still makes no sense following the array of Yahweh’s awesome signs, wonders, miracles, and theophany, as well as their own verbally expressed consent to be Yahweh’s people and uphold his covenant. Like so many of the murmuring stories in Exodus and Numbers, the stories have little historical semblance and make no sense in their literary contexts . . . 

Again, rebellion and heterodoxy never do make any sense; and they don’t because they aren’t rational to begin with, and originate in grace-deprived hearts filled with disbelief, lack of faith in and gratefulness to God, and rebellion. Steven doesn’t get it because he himself suffers from the acceptance of scores of false presuppositions and false conclusions drawn from same.

Rather, the Golden Calf episode was written as an independent story with a specific message to a specific audience. It was later inserted, rather poorly it must be said, into its current literary context in Exodus.

Faced with this evidence of irrational behavior of the ancient Jews, Steven does what all biblical skeptics do: he starts to construct imaginary interpolations into the text, from different writers in different times. There’s no proof (I dare bring up!) of any such thing. It’s all completely arbitrary speculation.

So what is the purpose and message of the Golden Calf narrative?

Don’t forsake the true God with blasphemous and downright silly and foolish idolatrous beliefs and practices . . .

Here is an example of the ridiculous speculation that adherents of the documentary theory habitually make:

The statement in 1 Kings 12:28 is claimed to have been said by Jeroboam I, the northern kingdom’s first king after its secession from Solomon’s tyranny. It must also be borne in mind that this is what the author, most likely the pro-Solomonic southern Deuteronomist, says Jeroboam says. It’s certainly a discriminating remark, and was used despairingly to depict Jeroboam as an apostate. This was, no doubt, the Deuteronomist’s intention.

Note that (as always), he attempts to provide no actual evidence or proof of these contentions. None is needed in this mindset. Baseless speculation reigns supreme!

Both the Golden Calf incident as well as the Deuteronomist’s account portray Jeroboam and his Aaronide lead cult as apostates. 

Perhaps (I merely suggest) this is because (duh!) they actually were that!

The only question remaining is: why is Aaron depicted as the one leading the Israelites into sin?

Maybe — just maybe — because he actually did?!

This is a perfect example of how ancient scribes wrote archaized stories as polemical attacks on contemporary rivals.

And how does one prove such a thing in biblical particulars? We hardly if ever see such explanations in the skeptical / atheist anti-biblical polemical narrative fictions.

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Photo credit: BrunoMarquesDesigner (5-15-20) [Pixabay / Pixabay License]

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2020-11-16T12:14:20-04:00

Last updated on: November 16, 2020 at 12:14 pm   By

Doubting Jesus’ Sanity? / Inconsiderate (?) Young Jesus in the Temple / “Woman” and the Wedding at Cana

Jason Engwer is a Protestant apologist who is also an anti-Catholic polemicist (as presently). This is a response to his article, “Some Early Sources On The Sinlessness Of Mary” (9-7-06). His words will be in blue.

*****

The Biblical view of Mary seems to be that she was a believer who sometimes sinned. Like John the Baptist, Peter, and other New Testament figures, she’s sometimes an example of faithfulness to God and sometimes an example of how “we all stumble in many ways” (James 3:2). The belief that Mary was a sinner apparently goes back to scripture itself, . . . 

It’s not the biblical view — I would contend — once the full implication of Luke 1:28 (Hail Mary, full of grace”) is understood. I have made an entirely biblical argument for Mary’s sinlessness based on that passage and other ones related to grace and its antithetical relation to sin in the New Testament:

Luke 1:28 (“Full of Grace”) & Immaculate Conception [2004]

Dialogue: Luke 1:28 & Immaculate Conception [7-11-06]

The Bible: Mary Was Without Sin [4-1-09]

Mary’s Immaculate Conception: A Biblical Argument [2010]

Annunciation: Was Mary Already Sublimely Graced? [10-8-11]

Sinless Mary: Dialogue w OT Professor (Dr. Jonathan Huddleston) [12-8-14]

“Armstrong vs. Geisler” #6: Sinless Mary [3-1-17]

Scripture, Through an Angel, Reveals That Mary Was Sinless [National Catholic Register, 4-30-17]

Biblical Support for Mary’s Immaculate Conception [National Catholic Register, 10-29-18]

I should also note that the passages discussed below are representative examples. Other relevant passages from the New Testament and the ante-Nicene sources could be cited.

In the gospels, Mary is often associated with Jesus’ unbelieving brothers, not just in terms of being with them, but also in terms of joining them in their opposition to Jesus:

“Not only the religious leaders ([Matthew] 12:24, 38), but Jesus’ own family doubted him (Mk 3:21-31, bracketing the Pharisees’ attack; cf. Jn 7:5)….Relatives normally sought to conceal other relatives’ behavior that would shame the whole family, hence their concern in Mark 3:20-21 (cf. Malina 1993: 80). Their opposition to or disbelief in Jesus is less clear in Matthew than in Mark, perhaps because of the shame of the family’s unbelief, especially after Mary’s experiences in Matthew’s infancy narratives” (Craig Keener, A Commentary On The Gospel Of Matthew [Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999], pp. 369-370)

I have dealt with this false claim many times:

“Who is My Mother?”: Beginning of “Familial Church” [8-26-19]

“Who is My Mother?” — Jesus and the “Familial Church” [National Catholic Register, 1-21-20]

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]

Dialogue on Whether Jesus’ Kinfolk Were “Unbelievers” (vs. Dr. Lydia McGrew) [5-28-20]

On Whether Jesus’ “Brothers” Were “Unbelievers” [National Catholic Register, 6-11-20]

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]

Here is the heart of my argument in my article dated 7-2-20 above:

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Mark 3:21-22 (RSV) And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for people were saying, “He is beside himself.” [22] And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Be-el’zebul, and by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.” (cf. Jn 10:20-21)

Note the italicized and bolded word. Other translations (including, unfortunately, KJV, NKJV, NIV, NASB) make it sound like Jesus’ family were agreeing and/or saying that Jesus’ was mad, but in fact the text is saying that “people” in general were doing so (just as the Pharisees did).

But if the text doesn’t refer to them, it can simply be construed as His family coming out to remove Him from the crowds, who were massively misunderstanding Him, accusing, and perhaps becoming violent (as at Nazareth, when they tried to throw Him over a cliff). Hence, there would be no necessary implication of His family’s (let alone Mary’s) disbelief in Him. They were concerned for His safety. Other translations convey the true sense of the passage (which is interpreted by 3:22 indicating that the “scribes” were saying Jesus was crazy):

NRSV When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.”

Good News / (TEV) When his family heard about it, they set out to take charge of him, because people were saying, “He’s gone mad!”

Moffatt . . . . . . for men were saying, “He is out of his mind.”

Phillips . . . for people were saying, “He must be mad!”

NEB . . . for people were saying that he was out of his mind.

Even in the translation that has “they were saying.” etc., it’s a question of who “they” refers to. It can still be read as others besides the family. The 1953 Catholic Commentary, edited by Dom Bernard Orchard, has some very good commentary on the passage:

The usual interpretation is that relatives (or followers) of Christ, disturbed by reports, came out to take charge of him. The following points are to be noted. (1) The phrase οἱ παρ’αὐτοῦ does not necessarily mean relatives (friends). It has a wider usage which would include disciples, followers, members of a household. It is not certain that the persons designated by this phrase are the same as ‘his mother and brethren’, 31. Even if they are, there is no reason for thinking that our Lady shared in the sentiments of the others, though she would naturally wish to be present when the welfare of her divine Son was in question. (2) ‘For they said’, rather, ‘For people were saying’. If this be correct, then 21b refers to reports which reached Christ’s friends, not to an expression of opinion by them.

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Suffice it to say that there is no direct evidence that Mary thought her son was out of his mind. It appears to be applied to the passage because of a bias or predisposition (which is eisegesis), as opposed to the idea actually being present in the passage.

A group of some of the leading Catholic and Lutheran scholars in the world, while addressing Luke 2:48-50, commented that “Mary’s complaining question in v. 48 seems to be a reproach to Jesus” (Raymond Brown, et al., editors, Mary In The New Testament [Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1978], p. 160). Darrell Bock writes:

“Mary, speaking for both parents, wants to know why he [Jesus] has done such a seemingly insensitive thing. Jesus’ reply in the next verse addresses both of them as well. The form of Mary’s question may have OT roots (Gen. 20:9; 12:18; 26:10; Exod. 14:11; Num. 23:11; Judg. 15:11). This is the language of complaint….Bovon 1989: 159 notes that the idiom suggests the questioner’s [Mary’s] belief that an error has been made.” (Luke, Volume 1, 1:1-9:50 [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 1994], p. 268 and n. 18 on p. 268)

Luke 2:42-50 And when he was twelve years old, they went up according to custom; [43] and when the feast was ended, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents did not know it, [44] but supposing him to be in the company they went a day’s journey, and they sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintances; [45] and when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem, seeking him. [46] After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions; [47] and all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. [48] And when they saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been looking for you anxiously.” [49] And he said to them, “How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” [50] And they did not understand the saying which he spoke to them.

I don’t think “why have you treated us so?” is necessarily (wholly apart from theology and viewed logically and grammatically) an accusation of sinfulness on Jesus’ part at all. Mary and Joseph were simply (undeniably) perplexed, but it doesn’t follow that they were therefore accusing Jesus of sin. After all, all Christians believe that God is sinless, yet we are often perplexed by His words or actions or lack of answers to prayers, etc. None of that automatically means that we accuse God of sin.

We’re simply confused and lacking answers and full knowledge, while we accept certain mysteries in faith and the fact that God’s ways are much higher than ours. So they asked, “why have you treated us so?” They didn’t understand. And I’m sure they would have been the first to admit that they wouldn’t always fully understand God the Son.

The 1953 Catholic Commentary, edited by Dom Bernard Orchard, noted:

Mary and Joseph are also amazed. . . but Lk gives the reason in 48b: Jesus has never behaved so to Mary before. It is to be remembered that with her, as with others, Jesus had conducted himself as a normal child; his divinity was to her, as to us, an object of faith and not vision. . . . 51b also throws light on the point. ‘They learnt only gradually what his Messiahship involved (cf. 2:34–35) and this is one stage in the process. From the point of view of her subsequent knowledge, Mary recognized that she and Joseph had not understood’ (Plummer ICC on 2:51).

Pope St. John Paul II offers further explanation:

Several early Fathers of the Church, who were not yet convinced of her perfect holiness, attributed imperfections or moral defects to Mary. Some recent authors have taken the same position. However, the Gospel texts cited to justify these opinions provide no basis at all for attributing a sin or even a moral imperfection to the Mother of the Redeemer.

Jesus’s reply to his mother at the age of 12: “How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (Lk 2:49), has sometimes been interpreted as a veiled rebuke. A careful reading of the episode, however, shows that Jesus did not rebuke his mother and Joseph for seeking him, since they were responsible for looking after him.

Coming upon Jesus after an anxious search, Mary asked him only the “why” of his behaviour: “Son, why have you treated us so?” (Lk 2:48). And Jesus answers with another “why”, refraining from any rebuke and referring to the mystery of his divine sonship. (“Mary Was Free from All Personal Sin,” 6-26-96)

Regarding John 2:4, Craig Keener writes:

“Jesus’ answer in v. 4 is a rebuff, but like the rebuff of 4:48, is more a complaint than an assertion that he will not act….Jesus is establishing a degree of distance between himself and his mother, as did the Jesus of the Synoptic tradition….The rebuff element is increased in Jesus’ next words [‘What is there between us?’], however. In both OT and Gospel tradition (e.g., Mark 1:24; Luke 4:34), as well as Greco-Roman idiom, a phrase like ‘What is there between us?’ would imply distancing or hostility….But the primary reason for the rebuff must be that his mother does not understand what this sign will cost Jesus: it starts him on the road to his hour, the cross.” (The Gospel Of John: A Commentary, Vol. 1 [Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 2003], pp. 504-506)

John 2:3-4 When the wine failed, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” [4] And Jesus said to her, “O woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come.”

I dealt with this false claim that Jesus was rebuking His mother, who supposedly sinned, in my article dated 7-2-20:

***

The next misguided criticism is directed towards the wedding of Cana: the old, tired, fundamentally silly argument that Jesus was supposedly disrespectful of His mother. This silly trifle was disposed of by Catholic apologist Jimmy Akin, citing three Protestant commentators:

The Protestant commentator William Barclay writes:

“The word Woman (gynai) is also misleading. It sounds to us very rough and abrupt. But it is the same word as Jesus used on the Cross to address Mary as he left her to the care of John (John 19:26). In Homer it is the title by which Odysseus addresses Penelope, his well-loved wife. It is the title by which Augustus, the Roman Emperor, addressed Cleopatra, the famous Egyptian queen. So far from being a rough and discourteous way of address, it was a title of respect. We have no way of speaking in English which exactly renders it; but it is better to translate it Lady which gives at least the courtesy in it” (The Gospel of John, revised edition, vol. 1, p. 98).

Similarly, the Protestant Expositor’s Bible Commentary, published by Zondervan, states:

Jesus’ reply to Mary was not so abrupt as it seems. ‘Woman’ (gynai) was a polite form of address. Jesus used it when he spoke to his mother from the cross (19:26) and also when he spoke to Mary Magdalene after the Resurrection (20:15)” (vol. 9, p. 42).

Even the Fundamentalist Wycliff Bible Commentary put out by Moody Press acknowledges in its comment on this verse, “In his reply, the use of ‘Woman’ does not involve disrespect (cf. 19:26)” (p. 1076).

Did Jesus “rebuke” His mother at this wedding? No: . . . The Navarre Bible explains the passage:

[The sentence rendered “What have you to do with me?” (RSV) is the subject of a note in RSVCE which says “while this expression always implies a divergence of view, the precise meaning is to be determined by the context, which here shows that it is not an unqualified rebuttal, still less a rebuke.” The Navarre Spanish is the equivalent of “What has it to do with you and me?”] The sentence “What has it to do with you and me?” is an oriental way of speaking which can have different nuances. Jesus’ reply seems to indicate that although in principle it was not part of God’s plan for him to use his power to solve the problem the wedding-feast had run into, our Lady’s request moves him to do precisely that. Also, one could surmise that God’s plan envisaged that Jesus should work the miracle at his Mother’s request. In any event, God willed that the Revelation of the New Testament should include this important teaching: so influential is our Lady’s intercession that God will listen to all petitions made through her; which is why Christian piety, with theological accuracy, has called our Lady “supplicant omnipotence.”

Dom Bernard Orchard’s 1953 Catholic Commentary adds more insightful interpretation:

Concerning the second: the Master’s question which literally reads: ‘What to me and to thee?’ has to be understood from biblical and not modern usage. Therefore it does not mean: ‘What concern is it of ours?’ or ‘There is no need for you to tell me’. In all the biblical passages where it occurs, Jg 11:12; 2 Kg 16:10, 19:22; 4 Kg 3:13; 2 Par 35:21; Mt 8:29; Mk 1:24, the phrase signifies, according to circumstances, a great or lesser divergence of viewpoint between the two parties concerned. In 2 Kg 16:10 it means total dissent; in Jg 11:12 it voices a complaint against an invader. In our passage, also, divergence must be admitted. In a sense our Lord’s answer is a refusal, but not an absolute refusal, rather, a refusal ad mentem, as a Roman Congregation would say, and the Blessed Virgin understood her Son’s mind from the tone of his voice. His first public miracle belonged to the divine programme of his Messianic mission into which flesh and blood could not enter. His answer is therefore an assertion of independence of his Mother, similar to the word he spoke in the temple about his Father’s business. The Blessed Virgin’s subsequent action shows that the tone of our Lord’s protest on this occasion was neither a curt nor an unqualified refusal.

It all comes down to language, culture, idiom, context . . . theological liberals / heterodox and many other people (including way too many orthodox Catholics) so often don’t get that. But doesn’t Jesus’ fulfillment of His mother’s request for more wine (by performing a miracle — His first recorded one — to provide more) suggest that He didn’t intend to rebuke her in the first place? He did what she requested. One would think so, it seems to me. Much ado about nothing . . .

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Photo credit: Saint Raphael Catholic Church (Springfield, Ohio) – stained glass, Wedding at Cana – detail (Nheyob: 11-22-14) [Wikimedia Commons / Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license]

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2020-10-20T13:52:46-04:00

Last updated on: October 20, 2020 at 1:52 pm   By

Last night I watched a fascinating documentary through Amazon Prime: a NOVA episode entitled “Einstein’s Quantum Riddle”. It was about advances in the area of quantum mechanics; specifically what is called “quantum entanglement.” Wikipedia has a long, complicated article about it. But the gist of it (which the TV special summarized for the layperson) is as follows:

Quantum entanglement is a physical phenomenon that occurs when a pair or group of particles are generated, interact, or share spatial proximity in a way such that the quantum state of each particle of the pair or group cannot be described independently of the state of the others, including when the particles are separated by a large distance. . . .

Such phenomena were the subject of a 1935 paper by Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky, and Nathan Rosen,[1] and several papers by Erwin Schrödinger shortly thereafter,[2][3] describing what came to be known as the EPR paradox. Einstein and others considered such behavior to be impossible, as it violated the local realism view of causality (Einstein referring to it as “spooky action at a distance“)[4] and argued that the accepted formulation of quantum mechanics must therefore be incomplete.

Later, however, the counterintuitive predictions of quantum mechanics were verified experimentally[5][6][7] in tests in which polarization or spin of entangled particles were measured at separate locations, statistically violating Bell’s inequality. In earlier tests, it couldn’t be absolutely ruled out that the test result at one point could have been subtly transmitted to the remote point, affecting the outcome at the second location.[7] However, so-called “loophole-free” Bell tests have been performed in which the locations were separated such that communications at the speed of light would have taken longer–in one case 10,000 times longer—than the interval between the measurements. . . .

Quantum entanglement has been demonstrated experimentally with photons,[10][11 ]neutrinos,[12] electrons,[13][14] molecules as large as buckyballs, [15][16] and even small diamonds. [17][18]

Bottom line (beyond all the technical mumbo-jumbo of modern physics), is that — even assuming that this phenomenon is true and a fact — scientists have no explanation for how it could happen as it does. It’s one of those things where the knowledge of science comes to an end: like the origin of life, the causes of the origins of the Big Bang, DNA, and higher intelligence, and dark matter.

Einstein, as is well-known, had serious problems with quantum mechanics, with regard to its seemingly random and irrational nature, in relation to traditional notions of cause-and-effect. He famously stated, “God doesn’t play dice.” Einstein’s “god” was a pantheist one at best, but he was no atheist, and recognized that the universe had an unexplainable higher order and beauty of design that any thinking person couldn’t deny. I have argued that this was a broad, bare-bones version of the classic theistic teleological (design) argument.

This brings me in a roundabout way to my main point: science often gets to a place where it is completely baffled, but because it methodologically excludes God (which has essentially been the case since Darwin), and so often doesn’t recognize its own inherent philosophical limitations (empiricism being only one form of knowledge among many), it rules out what is as plausible an explanation as anything else: God.

The most obvious example of this is Big Bang cosmology. This theory was formulated by a Catholic priest-scientist, Fr. Georges Lemaître. It expressed in scientific detail what had already long since been present in the Bible: creatio ex nihilo (“creation from nothing”). I’ve written many times about the Big Bang theory and its relation to God:

Atheism: the Faith of “Atomism” [8-19-15]

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

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The theory of evolution runs into the same insuperable difficulties when it comes to describing exact sequences and causes for evolutionary change: especially across large gaps, such as the origins of life and DNA and of large classification groups to other ones. It’s entirely possible as a method that God used to create (theistic evolution), but without the inclusion of God, science cannot explain many key aspects of it.
I developed this line of thinking in the article of mine where I last dealt with the theory of evolution: entitled, “Why I Believe in ‘Non-Miraculous’ Intelligent Design” (6-20-19). I will later tie it into the discussion of quantum entanglement:

Dr. [Michael] Behe stated that Intelligent Design (ID) did not necessarily require additional “intervention” by God after His initial act of creation. I found that interesting because I had thought that ID required that.

All Christians, it seems to me (who believe in the inspiration of revelation: the Bible), have to believe that 1) God created (Genesis, etc.), and 2) that God in some sense “sustains” or “upholds” His creation, according to Hebrews 1:3 (“upholding the universe by his word of power”: RSV) and Acts 17:28 (“In him we live and move and have our being”). . . .

[It is a] belief in a non-material or immaterial force or power or spirit, if you will, that profoundly influences the material universe and its creative processes, and which itself seems ultimately beyond purely scientific or empirical analysis (precisely because it is non-material). . . .

[I]n this view, which can be synthesized with Intelligent Design (and is similar in many ways to theistic evolution), God designed or foreordained that complex structures would evolve, and life and consciousness, etc., by some unknown non-material, overarching, guiding principle that transcends science, or concerning which science can give us no clues or answers. He not only created scientific laws that work essentially on their own (hence can be observed and studied scientifically), but also “supervises” or ordains the entire “project”: though not in an interventionist or supernatural / miraculous way. The processes and potentialities were there from the beginning, as a manifestation of His omnipotence and omniscience. It’s just that some of them are supra-scientific.

I submit that the same explanation that suggests itself with regard to the Big Bang and the unexplained mysteries of evolutionary process: the creative and “upholding” / omnipotent power of God, is applicable and plausible also as the explanation of how quantum entanglement is possible at all. I mentioned a relevant few verses above. Here are all of the ones along these same lines:

Job 38:33 (RSV) Do you know the ordinances of the heavens? Can you establish their rule on the earth?

Nehemiah 9:6 . . . “Thou art the LORD, thou alone; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and thou preservest all of them; . . .”

Wisdom 11:25 How would anything have endured if thou hadst not willed it? Or how would anything not called forth by thee have been preserved?

Acts 17:28 . . . ‘In him we live and move and have our being’;

Colossians 1:17 . . . in him all things hold together.

Hebrews 1:3 . . . upholding the universe by his word of power . . .

This is inspired revelation from God. God either does these things: establishes, preserves, holds together, allows to endure, and upholds all of His creation (which He brought into being from nothing) or He does not. Christians — if they are consistent — cannot disbelieve this. And God’s power is as plausible an explanation of quantum entanglement as anything else: if only “methodologically atheist” science will allow Him to be discussed at all.

If scientists seek the vaunted “unified theory” in physics, it’s right in front of them: the central unifying, overarching factor or cause is God Himself. The Bible has taught it these past 2000 or more years. Modern science keeps indirectly verifying it, in effect, by its inability to explain origins or (as in our present example) the basis and ultimate causes of experimentally verified quantum mechanics.

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Photo credit: sciencefreak (1-20-15) [Pixabay / Pixabay License]

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2020-08-27T18:53:03-04:00

Last updated on: August 27, 2020 at 6:53 pm   By

This discussion came about underneath my post, Seidensticker Folly #41: Argument from Design. gusbovona is a lifelong atheist. His words will be in blue.

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First of all, science, as presently defined and self-understood, cannot state one way or another whether God (assuming His existence for the sake of argument) designed anything or not, since its subject and object of study is matter, and God (again by definition) is not material.

1. Bob’s statement, to which the quote above is a response, said nothing about God, merely a designer. He was asking not whether God designed something, but whether something is designed (by anyone), at all.

2. I’m not sure what other criteria we could use to determine if something is designed or not other than the nature of the thing designed itself.

In fact, Bob mentions “God” five times in his article, and seven times in the previous related one, four days earlier. It’s understood that the argument from design is the old teleological argument, which is one of the classic theistic proofs: and those deal with God as defined in theism, or (at the very least) a Humean deist-god: who sets the universe in motion and then proceeds to have no further interest in it. I don’t recall ever seeing any other kind of “argument from design.” But maybe they’re out there somewhere.

Also, the terms “creationism” and “intelligent design” both refer to schools of thought in which it is thought that God is the Creator in some fashion (it could be through evolution as the method). So when Bob tries to shoot down various arguments that such advocates produce, he’s dealing with proposed arguments for God’s existence.

Any way we look at it, God is being discussed. My point above was to note that consistent materialist science ought not mention God at all, either fer or agin’. To do so is (technically) philosophy and no longer science as presently defined.

Sure, we can look at the things themselves, but how is it that we “know” whether they are as they “should” be, or have any expectations at all? If God is super-intelligent or omniscient, surely, most if not all things He created would be beyond our comprehension, either totally, or to a significant extent: just as no one would expect a guinea pig to be able to read and comprehend this reply.

Determin[ing] whether something is designed is logically prior to identifying who the designer is. (That’s because identifying a designer of something necessarily presumes that something was designed.) Bob’s statement, “Does life on earth look designed by an intelligence?” merely refers to the first step. It’s fine that Bob mentions God in the rest of the article, and whether something is designed can be part of a discussion about a god, but that is a separate issue from determining whether something is designed, in and of itself.

Good discussion.

I like it, too, and I’m glad you do.

You seem to keep missing my points and my intentions in argument, but it’s stimulating argumentation. I was simply noting that the teleological argument was always about whether a God exists Who is the Designer.

This might be a fundamental way we’re not seeing things the same way. I am trying to talk about a much smaller point than you are. I’m just talking about one thing Bob said that concerned only an intelligent designer, and not a god. They are logically and intellectually separable issues, and that’s what my original comment was trying to talk about.

Secondly (as a good socratic), I delved deep into the premises that Bob assumed, and wondered aloud why he thinks he can determine whether something is ‘junk” or not, and why he can’t figure out that science continues to explain what were formerly mysteries, and will continue to do so. A little intellectual humility is in order.

It is hypothetical thinking any way you look at it: whether in a scientific or philosophical / religious sense. If the speculation has to do with God, it is a relevant consideration to note that God, as classically understood in theistic philosophy and orthodox Christianity, is an omniscient being.

It could be aliens who designed life, no? That can’t be ruled out hypothetically. Also, why should the designer of life necessarily also be the designer of the universe?

Strictly speaking, no (it could also have been “the flying spaghetti monster”), but according to scientific evidence, we have none whatsoever for the existence of aliens. If you’re gonna play the game within a [materialistic] scientific paradigm, then you need to consistently do that.

Sure, it’s only a hypothesis, but you said that you didn’t recall any other option for a designer besides god, so I just offered one. That’s all that was.

But talking about possible aliens and then turning around taking the usual potshots at God (“Resorting to a cause that is beyond our comprehension creates an unfalsifiable hypothesis – anything can be explained by the same move: no matter how insane an explanation might be”) is self-contradictory and “rhetorically unfair and unjust.”

It’s not a potshot, it was a substantive critique of an unfalsifiable hypothesis.

Science does not make the move of appealing to an unfalsifiable hypothesis like appealing to the incomprehensibility of a god. And, a scientific hypothesis is not the same as unfalsifiability. The hypothesis that aliens might have created life is certainly falsifiable, and one big step towards falsifying it would be to discover a naturalistic way to create life. That’s not a proof, but Occam’s Razor would then favor the naturalistic hypothesis over aliens and a god.

Appeals to possible alien life, minus any scientific evidence whatsoever for such a thing, is contradictory within the materialistic scientific paradigm. It’s nonsensical.

I don’t know why aliens creating life is an appeal: it was a hypothesis that provides an option besides a god for the creation of life. That’s all. It merely allows us to say, “Some god is not the only option for an intelligent designer of life.” What is nonsensical about the hypothesis that aliens created life (on Earth, as we know it)? Note that this says nothing about whether it is true or not.

But appeal to the existence of God in a philosophical / religious framework is perfectly reasonable and consistent, since empirical evidence is not necessarily required within that way of thought.

I don’t know what an appeal is. Substantively, all you have a hypothesis or a claim for which there is either sufficient support to adopt or not, or we don’t yet know if we have sufficient support for it yet. How does an appeal fit into that? Is an appeal equal to a hypothesis? If so, then I understand and agree. One can certainly hypothesize that a god created life.

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As long as some god has an effect within our universe, science certainly can try to determine whether such an effect exists by studying those effects just like any other effect in our universe. If science finds that the effect doesn’t exist, that effect can’t be used as evidence that some god caused it.

Whether things are as they “should” be is changing the topic, I was talking about the argument from design. It’s about whether something was designed by an intelligence rather than occurring naturally. “Should” has nothing to do with that; that’s a different topic.

Resorting to a cause that is beyond our comprehension creates an unfalsifiable hypothesis – anything can be explained by the same move: no matter how insane an explanation might be, when it’s insanity or logical problems are revealed, one could – by using that move – wave it away by saying it was accomplished by some entity that is beyond our comprehension.

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The discussion is getting more and more abstract and minute (which in my mind equates to being less useful or constructive, but that’s just my own preference). I’m seeking answers to the relevant, premise-level questions I asked Bob:

[W]hat makes us (whether theist or atheist) think in the first place that we can figure out what nature should or ought to “look like”?

How does Bob know that this is the case? How can he prove it? How does he “know” that God would “never” deliberately incorporate what he (ultimately arbitrarily) defines as “junk”?

[U]nder the hypothesis of a super-intelligent, ultimately incomprehensible, omniscient God, why would we expect anything at all? What makes us think we can figure out all His designs (pun intended) and purposes and methods, etc.: anymore than an ant or a catfish would understand all of ours?

By what criterion do we determine if something is “bizarre”?

I answer my own rhetorical questions:

I’m contending that a more nuanced form of the argument holds that nature (or, creation, if there is a Creator) need not “look like” what our paltry little brains think it “should” look like: that whatever the truth is, it’ll be full of surprises, and we shouldn’t “expect” anything, except to be blown away and surprised by the marvelous complexity entailed. What we have already discovered fully bears that out.

Note that I think this point applies to a materialistic and a theistic universe.

I continue to seek answers to the questions I asked in my post. So far, no takers, but it has been stimulating discussion, and I most appreciate the fact that it is congenial and with mutual respect (unlike at least 95% of Christian-atheist discussion these days).

I don’t think the discussion is exhausted, particularly if we are talking about what flows from my original comment, and not your wider disagreement with Bob about God. What remains to be addressed is this: inferring design from the characteristics of an object is an empirical question, so whatever math, logic, and philosophy have to contribute to that question has to ultimately be verified by an empirical process, correct?

I don’t see that it’s only an empirical question. I think it’s ultimately philosophical, just as physical science itself reduces to philosophy because it is a species of philosophy. In fact, I think the question of whether there is a Designer transcends science because I think it is the point at which science can no longer offer explanatory answers. Therefore, it’s permissible to enter into philosophical speculation as to what could have caused the observable design and complexity.

It’s the point of irreducible complexity. Science /empiricism has yet to adequately explain the origin of the Big Bang, of life, and of things like DNA, and even most of the major transitions in evolution (not even close), so I reserve the “epistemological right” to posit a non-physical God Who is the Designer. Science has to recognize its limitations.

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Related Reading

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Photo credit: Nebulae, Hubble space telescope [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

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2020-07-09T18:13:49-04:00

Last updated on: July 9, 2020 at 6:13 pm   By

Matthew 17:15, 18 (RSV) “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and he suffers terribly; for often he falls into the fire, and often into the water.” . . . [18] And Jesus rebuked him, and the demon came out of him, and the boy was cured instantly.

This is interesting, since it implies that epilepsy is caused by a demon, whereas we know that it has natural causes. This translation and many others (as we shall see) insinuate that it is the equivalent of demonic possession. For example, the Moffatt, 20th Century, and Weymouth versions have “epileptic” here, while KJV, Rheims, and Young’s Literal have “lunatic[k].”

The older translations got it right, I think. But “lunatic” is a very unfashionable word. Of course, it derived from observable patterns of change of behavior based on the lunar cycle, which actually has some basis (we know that the moon affects the ocean tides as well).

I would argue, then, that the older and more literal (and Catholic) translations are more consistent with both biblical and scientific thinking, while those that select “epileptic” here are less coherent on both scores.

The Greek word in question is Strong’s #4583: seleniazomai. Strong’s Concordance defines it as “crazy; lunatic.” Thayer’s Lexicon does mention “epileptic,” stating that it was influenced by the moon. But then that is more evidence of natural cause, which is different from demonic cause, and in this instance, a demon was cast out.

A. T. Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament wants to have it both ways:

Epileptic. . . Literally, “moonstruck,” “lunatic.” The symptoms of epilepsy were supposed to be aggravated by the changes of the moon (cf. John 4:24 ).

Vincent’s Word Studies also curiously omits mention that a demon was cast out, curing this boy:

Is lunatic ( σεληνιάζεται )

Rev., epileptic. The A. V. preserves the etymology of the word (σελήνη , the moon) but lunatic conveys to us the idea of demented; while the Rev. epileptic gives the true character of the disease, yet does not tell us the fact contained in the Greek word, that epilepsy was supposed to be affected by the changes of the moon. See on Matthew 4:24.

Vine’s Expository Dictionary states similarly. All these standard sources can be read online. The famous commentator Matthew Henry (Presbyterian) offers a fascinating (and, in my opinion, superior) “mixed” view:

The nature of this child’s disease was very sad; He was lunatic and sore vexed. A lunatic is properly one whose distemper lies in the brain, and returns with the change of the moon. The devil, by the divine permission, either caused this distemper, or at least concurred with it, to heighten and aggravate it. The child had the falling-sickness, and the hand of Satan was in it; by it he tormented then, and made it much more grievous than ordinarily it is. Those whom Satan got possession of, he afflicted by those diseases of the body which do most affect the mind; for it is the soul that he aims to do mischief to.

Catholic Commentary (Orchard, 1953), likewise, calls the boy a “possessed epileptic” (I suppose he could have two problems simultaneously). I was curious about other translations:

lunatic: KJV, Rheims, Young’s Literal, NASB, Phillips, Jerusalem, NAB, Confraternity, Knox

epileptic or epilepsy: RSV, Moffatt, 20th Century, Weymouth, NEB, REB, NIV, NRSV, ASV, NKJV, Amplified, Williams, Beck, Goodspeed, Wuest, Barclay, Lamsa

subject to fits: Kleist & Lilly

The pattern, then, is older Bibles and Catholic Bibles using “lunatic” and Protestant and more recent Bibles using “epileptic.” The exceptions are Phillips and NASB: Protestant versions from the 50s and 60s. I prefer “lunatic”: on the basis that it is closer to the notion of  “demon-possessed” than “epileptic” is.

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Related Reading

Seidensticker Folly #36: Disease, Jesus, Paul, Miracles, & Demons

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Photo credit: The Possessed Man in the Synagogue, by James Tissot (1836-1902) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

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2020-05-16T13:01:45-04:00

Last updated on: May 16, 2020 at 1:01 pm   By

This is a follow-up comment to my Reply to Atheist Ward Ricker Re “Biblical Contradictions” (5-15-20). He replied with a 5 1/2 page article. And now I counter-reply. Ward’s words will be in blue.

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I have just read your reply, and it convinces me that constructive dialogue between us will not be possible, for several reasons:

1) You doubt my good will, good faith, and sincerity (a charge I do not reciprocate): which qualities are absolutely essential to assume in an opponent if constructive dialogue is to occur. Failing these, it never ever is possible, as I know full well from long experience. I have never seen an exception to this dynamic. Examples:

Why would you twist the meaning around as you do? Your “suggestions” contradict the clear “words of god”. Why would you do so?

You are simply unwilling to accept what the Bible says . . .

One wonders if you are just trying to confuse.

2) You fundamentally dislike my writing style and/or methodology:

At the risk of offending, in going through your writings I have noted how convoluted your arguments tend to be. Indeed, I find it difficult to respond even to the few that I respond to here, because your arguments are rather convoluted, confusing and unclear. Your lack of clear, concise statements makes it difficult to write a response. It makes for a lot of work (and, indeed, I have other things to do with my life), so if you wonder why you have trouble getting people to respond to you, you might take that into consideration.

That’s your right, of course (it’s a free country), and such things are largely subjective (and because they are, many people believe exactly the opposite of what you think about my writing). “Different strokes for different folks” / “can’t please everyone,” etc. But it means that you and I will not be able to constructively dialogue, because (from where I sit), you don’t even comprehend (at least some) of my arguments in the first place, and because of that, fall back on a complaint that the problem must be on my end: that I am unacceptably and unfortunately muddled, confused and unclear. It also leads to straw men in such a scenario. You don’t get what I am saying and so wind up fighting straw men that are simply not what my argument was.

3) We have vastly different conceptions as to what dialogue itself is. You don’t want to go point-by-point, as I almost always do (socratic method). You’ll do it for a time, for carefully selected passages, but you ignore others. You selected passages from my Seidensticker series, but never showed a willingness to comprehensively deal with any particular one (which is what I am looking for).

This never works. In my opinion, true dialogue must take into account the opponents’ entire argument, and not pick-and-choose some stuff, while arbitrarily ignoring others. And you can always fall back on your opinion that my writing is frustratingly unclear (#2 above). That means there is no hope for us to constructively engage. I wish it were otherwise, but this is the only conclusion I can reasonably draw, based on your reply.

I lay out my conception of such a serious, philosophical-type discussion here: Good Discussion: Back-and-Forth Dialogue vs. “Mutual Monologue”.

Don’t feel too bad. Virtually no one of any persuasion ever does this, these days (and I endlessly bemoan that fact). But being the idealist and socratic that I am, I will keep seeking it (heaven help me).

4) It appears (as is often the case with atheists) that your past fundamentalism still profoundly affects your present attempts to interpret the Bible, due to relentless false premises, leading to (of course) false conclusions. Examples abound:

a) you clearly don’t understand the very different ancient Hebrew modes of thinking; particularly the “both/and” approach, which is very difficult for modern sensibilities to grasp: with our excessive false dichotomies and “either/or” mentalities. As long as you don’t get this aspect, you’ll never understand many Bible passages, especially ones about God. And it causes you to assert many “contradictions” that in fact are not.

b) you don’t think through the notion of God being a judge. It’s not difficult to find many human analogies to judging and punishing: human judges passing sentences on criminals, the Allies “judging” and defeating the Nazis in World War II, our superiority over animals; parents’ chastising and punishing of children (an analogy to God that the Bible itself makes), police exercising lethal force as the situation warrants. Failing this understanding leads you to conclude that God is engaged in evil, wicked acts of “violence” when He is justly judging. It’s like saying we were “evil” and “ruthless” and “bloodthirsty” when we wiped out the Nazis.

c) you don’t have the slightest clue about anthropomorphism and anthropopathism (I would guess that you probably never even heard the words till now). If you did, you would understand how language is very diversely used in Scripture, and often is non-literal and you would understand things like God “repenting.” This leads you to make inane observations like, “But that’s not what it says. It says that he repented . . . “ [my italics added] Of course, that’s what it “says.” That’s not at issue. The question is whether it is literal or metaphorical. This is what you don’t get.

There are many different genres in the Bible (consider, for example, Jesus’ parables and the proverbs and books like Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon). But because you are a former fundamentalist (most atheists who play the “Bible contradiction” game were), you always have to interpret literally (or so it sure seems so far). That was wrong and dumb and hermeneutically clueless when you were a Christian, and it remains so now. It caused you to arrive at false conclusions then, and it does now. This is an elementary component of biblical interpretation.

d) you object to consulting the original languages: which is essentially necessary in all proper exegesis of the Bible.

e) your wooden hyper-literalism is again sadly evident in how you treat the question of OT references to “many gods”. Clearly the OT teaches that these are not real “gods.” Only God (YHWH) is real. But you can’t see that, out of your (as usual) inapplicable literalism of interpretation. How I explain this makes perfect logical and rational sense. But you can’t see it, because your false premise won’t allow you to. Seidensticker and Madison and Loftus and other Bible-bashing atheists make these same mistakes. It’s nothing unique to you.

But this shows that I wouldn’t have any more success in achieving true dialogue with you than I have with them. You’re willing to talk (good and admirable itself), but because of these factors it’ll never work, and my patience would last no more than a day. All good dialogue can only proceed if there are some premises held in common.

f) you are equally out to sea in examining the traits of omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence; some passages concerning these are also non-literal, and you (predictably by now) think they are literal. So you come to the wrong conclusion. It’s because you have very little inkling of how ancient Hebrew thought about things. They weren’t stupid; just very different from us, as we would expect. Our type of thinking (linear / either/or rationalism and syllogistic logic) comes from the ancient Greeks. We have to realize that this is a framework and understand that the Hebrew framework is a different one. We can’t be like a fish in a tank, not knowing that it is.

5) Your conclusion sums up your problem in approaching a Christian apologist like myself, seeking dialogue:

Why would you want to defend a book in the first place that teaches acceptance of murder, slavery, genocide, rape, racism and many of the other evils that still plague our planet today?

Quite obviously (as seen in my replies to Seidensticker), I don’t think it condones any of these things. Your proper task is not to ask asinine, insulting “when did you stop beating your wife?” types of questions, but rather, to try to understand why I come to the opposite conclusion of yours. I’m perfectly sincere and operating in good faith just as I believe you are. In a constructive, mutually respectful dialogue, you would never frame your question in these terms, but rather, would say something like:

“Why is it that you think that the Bible doesn’t advocate murder, slavery, genocide, rape, racism and many other evils, as it seems to in my reading (at least prima facie)? I want to understand your reasoning — borne of your 39 years of apologetics research and writing –, so I can best be in a position to rationally come to the correct conclusion about biblical teaching.”

6) All of this said, I may still take on several of your proposed contradictions, just so I can have opportunity to show how very wrong atheist contentions are (which is one thing Christian apologists do). But dialogue of the sort I seek is clearly impossible between us.

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Related Reading

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“Three Days and Nights” in the Tomb: Contradiction? [10-31-06]

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Death of Judas: Alleged Bible Contradictions Debunked (vs. Dave Van Allen and Dr. Jim Arvo) [9-27-07]
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Gadarenes, Gerasenes, Swine, & Atheist Skeptics (vs. Jonathan MS Pearce) [7-25-17]
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Atheist Inventions of Many Bogus “Bible Contradictions” [National Catholic Register, 9-4-18]
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Photo credit: George Redgrave (11-16-14) [Flickr / CC BY-ND 2.0 license]

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