As most atheists are well aware, fundamentalist Christians generally treat the Bible as a perfect, self-contained whole: missing nothing, containing no errors, and every word written by the infallible inspiration of God. Naturally, this belief leads them to fight to the bitter end against biology, geology, cosmology, and every other branch of science the findings of which imply that the Bible is not literally true. The ignorance and superstition created by this millennia-long war on human progress are still hobbling us today, so it\u2019s no wonder that atheists, skeptics and other freethinkers have strong motivation to oppose the fundamentalist belief in biblical inerrancy.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s not necessary to delve into evolution or cosmological physics to accomplish this goal. We don\u2019t need to go so far afield to show that Christian claims of inerrancy are false; nor do we need to undertake the Herculean task of trying to explain complex science to religious believers who are determined to reject it. On the contrary, the disproof of their claims is staring them in the face from the pages of their own holy book. The Bible is not the flawless, self-contained whole they imagine it to be: the text convicts itself of this, by repeatedly quoting and referring to other writings, evidently considered in their own day to be just as canonical as the surviving ones, but that are now long lost or have long since been rejected as pious forgeries. Nor were the Bible\u2019s authors the inspired, divinely guided saints of Christian myth; on the contrary, they were as fallible and forgetful as any other human being. We can see proof of this in the mistakes they made \u2013 mistakes that are preserved in the text as we have it today. Incredibly, these plain and obvious errors of fact have been passed down unchanged through the centuries, surviving many generations of recopying, redacting, and picking and choosing by church fathers and synods.<\/p>\n
There are three main categories of textual mistakes in the Bible, and this essay will discuss all three:<\/p>\n
The majority of these mistakes occur in the New Testament, since those authors were anxious to cite Old Testament prophecy in support of their claims \u2013 sometimes anxious enough to be sloppy, as we\u2019ll see \u2013 whereas the fulfillment of prophecy was less of a concern in OT times. Nevertheless, the Old Testament has problems of its own which will also be discussed here. Each entry listed below will highlight a particular biblical verse, explain what the mistake is, and where applicable, discuss and refute objections raised by apologists. In almost every case, these objections reduce to ignoring the clearest and most rational meaning of the words and insisting that the Bible\u2019s authors intended to convey something other than what was written.<\/p>\n
Oops!:<\/b> Joshua 10:13 describes one of the Israelites\u2019 miraculous military victories against their Canaanite enemies, then tells us where to go for more information. \u201cAnd the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher?\u201d Oops!:<\/b> It\u2019s bad enough that the previous entry refers to records that have been lost, but other verses in the Old Testament refer to whole books of prophecy<\/i> that we no longer possess. Take 2 Chronicles 9:29: \u201cNow the rest of the acts of Solomon, first and last, are they not written in the book of Nathan the prophet, and in the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite, and in the visions of Iddo the seer against Jeroboam the son of Nebat?\u201d Oops!:<\/b> Besides the book of Jasher and the visions of Nathan, Ahijah and Iddo, there are many<\/i> other references in the Old Testament to lost or unknown books. A more comprehensive list can be found at Wikipedia<\/a>, which cites these examples among others: \u201cthe book of the wars of the Lord\u201d (Numbers 21:14), the Acts of Solomon (1 Kings 11:41), \u201cthe book of Shemaiah the prophet, and of Iddo the seer concerning genealogies\u201d (2 Chronicles 12:15), the Book of Jehu (2 Chronicles 20:34), \u201cthe sayings of the seers\u201d (2 Chronicles 33:19), and more. Oops!:<\/b> One of the most glaring examples of the Bible misquoting itself appears at the very beginning of the New Testament. Mark 1:2 says this: <\/p>\n \nAs it is written in Isaiah the prophet, \u201cBehold, I am sending my messenger before your face, who shall prepare your way.\u201d\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n How They Messed Up:<\/b> There is no verse like this in the Book of Isaiah. The Old Testament verse whose wording comes closest is in a different prophet, Malachi 3:1:<\/p>\n \nBehold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u2026which implies that Mark, supposed author of a divinely inspired and inerrant gospel, remembered the quote correctly, but made a mistake and attributed it to the wrong prophet. (The next verse, Mark 1:3, is more clearly a quote of Isaiah 40:3, which may explain the confusion \u2013 apparently Mark garbled the two prophets together.)<\/p>\n No, Wait, It\u2019s Not a Mistake:<\/b> If you\u2019ve been following along, you may have noticed that the King James Bible gives this verse differently \u2013 it begins \u201cAs it is written in the prophets\u2026\u201d \u2013 which would encompass Mark\u2019s synthesis of Malachi and Isaiah. Oops!:<\/b> In Mark 2:26, Jesus answers the Pharisees, who demand to know why he\u2019s breaking the Sabbath prohibitions, by quoting the Old Testament. \u201cHave ye never read what David did\u2026 how he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and did eat the shewbread, which is not lawful to eat but for the priests?\u201d Oops!:<\/b> In John 7:38, Jesus quotes scripture to describe the rewards promised to his followers: \u201cHe that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.\u201d Oops!:<\/b> In Matthew 1:23, the gospel author writes that Jesus\u2019 birth fulfilled a famous prophecy from Isaiah. \u201cNow all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.\u201d Oops!:<\/b> In another prophetic misfire, Matthew claims that Jesus\u2019 living in Nazareth \u201cfulfilled [that] which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene\u201d (2:23). Oops!:<\/b> Matthew bungles again in 21:7, where his misinterpretation of the Old Testament causes him to say that Jesus entered Jerusalem riding two animals, an ass and a colt, simultaneously. He doesn\u2019t explain how this is possible, which leads to some amusing images (did Jesus have one foot on each animal\u2019s back like a stunt rider?). Oops!:<\/b> In one of the most blatant examples of biblical writers getting it wrong, Matthew forgets which prophet said what. After Judas throws down his thirty pieces of silver in the temple and commits suicide, Matthew writes in 27:9 that this event \u201cfulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value; and gave them for the potter\u2019s field, as the Lord appointed me.\u201d Oops!:<\/b> Yet again, Matthew has Jesus threaten the Pharisees: \u201cUpon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar\u201d (23:35). Oops!:<\/b> James 4:5 asks, \u201cDo ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?\u201d Oops!:<\/b> In verses 14 and 15, the Epistle of Jude quotes from an apocryphal work called the Book of Enoch, endorsing it as a true prophecy given by God: \u201cAnd Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them\u2026\u201d (compare to Enoch 1:9<\/a>). In closing, one thing I find striking is the great lengths to which Christian apologists must go to defend their claim of inerrancy. You would think that a truly inerrant book would stand on its own, needing no complex defense to justify it, with any question or doubt easily defeated by pointing to the explanations in the appropriate verses. Whenever one verse referred to another, the reference would be clear and the connection impossible to doubt. There would always be one obvious answer, and no reason to suggest several merely possible or speculative harmonizations. Instead, when apologists are challenged with these scriptural errors and misquotes, what stands out again and again is how malleable, how rubbery they assume the text can be, and how liberal and creative they are with their interpretations. Just consider some of the tactics discussed in this essay:<\/p>\n And if none of those tactics avail, there are all the other tricks in the apologists\u2019 expansive and well-equipped toolbox: retroactively redefine words to something other than their usual meaning; synthesize different accounts of the same event by assuming that each author must have intended to present only part of the story; extrapolate or invent new details freely on the basis that anything not explicitly contradicted by scripture can\u2019t be ruled out; assume that a verse which makes a certain claim is accurate if a different but somewhat similar claim is true; invent exceptions to a general rule or principle on the basis that such exceptions would have been \u201cobvious\u201d to the people of the time; and last but not least, that old mainstay: accuse skeptics of being motivated by prejudice and irrational hatred of your religious beliefs.<\/p>\n All this slipperiness and rhetorical fancy footwork shows that, for Christian apologists, infallibility is a \u201cterm of art\u201d: a word or phrase used by professionals to convey a specialized meaning, which may be very different from the way the general public understands the term. When the average, scripturally naive Christian layperson hears that the Bible is \u201cinfallible\u201d, they doubtless imagine a perfect-in-itself, unassailable book such as I described above. In reality, the apologist definition of \u201cinfallible\u201d is highly specialized, involves a great number of loopholes, qualifications and legalese exceptions in fine print, and rests on the bedrock assertion that the text\u2019s \u201cinfallible\u201d status should be maintained if any<\/i> harmonization can be invented for a given discrepancy, regardless of how far-fetched it is or how much violence it does to the meaning of the words. Of course, for a sufficiently creative interpreter, that\u2019s a test that\u2019s impossible to fail. By these lax standards, a claim of infallibility could be made for the Qur\u2019an, the Book of Mormon, or indeed, practically any<\/i> book. Naturally, this is a double standard that Christian apologists show no interest in delving into.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As most atheists are well aware, fundamentalist Christians generally treat the Bible as a perfect, self-contained whole: missing nothing, containing no errors, and every word written by the infallible inspiration of God. Naturally, this belief leads them to fight to the bitter end against biology, geology, cosmology, and every other branch of science the findings […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1308,"featured_media":0,"parent":5349,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-5651","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\n
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a02 Samuel 1:18 adds another endorsement of this mysterious book: \u201cAlso he bade them teach the children of Judah the use of the bow: behold, it is written in the book of Jasher.\u201d
\nHow They Messed Up:<\/b> There is no Book of Jasher in the Bible. Why does the text direct us to a source which we no longer possess?
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0There are only two ways to explain this, both unpalatable to modern fundamentalists. Either the Book of Jasher was a divinely inspired document, but it has been lost \u2013 which contradicts the Bible\u2019s claim, in Psalms 12:6-7, that God will preserve his words forever \u2013 or it was not<\/i> a divinely inspired document \u2013 which means that infallible scripture endorses as a reliable source a book that is neither infallible nor the word of God!
\nNo, Wait, It\u2019s Not a Mistake:<\/b> The easiest way out of this dilemma would be to find a document which could serve as the original Book of Jasher, and indeed, some parties claim to have such a thing, most notably the Mormons<\/a>. In reality, however, the book which the Mormons claim to possess is almost certainly a medieval forgery<\/a> which has no documented provenance prior to 1625 and is near-universally rejected by textual scholars. There is no document in existence that can credibly claim to be or to contain the true, original Book of Jasher.<\/p>\n
\nHow They Messed Up:<\/b> We have no surviving copies of \u201cthe book of Nathan the prophet\u201d, \u201cthe prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite\u201d, or \u201cthe visions of Iddo the seer\u201d. Yet the Old Testament clearly identifies these as divinely inspired prophets. This casts grave doubt on apologetic claims, made by sites like this one<\/a>, that \u201cGod would preserve all of His words\u201d for the benefit of every generation. (A disconcerting thought for premillennialists: Maybe the reason we keep getting the date of the Rapture wrong is because we\u2019re missing some vital verses that were in the lost prophetic books!)
\nNo, Wait, It\u2019s Not a Mistake:<\/b> Via a convoluted exegesis, this Christian site<\/a> (which also endorses the idea that God would not permit any inspired document to be lost) claims that these books are not lost, but rather are found in the last few chapters of 1 and 2 Samuel. Their argument is that, since Samuel began writing these books but died before the last events they record, God must have called other prophets to finish writing them.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0First of all, it\u2019s important to note that this is entirely speculative: there is no internal evidence in 1 and 2 Samuel for this presumed shift in authorship. But more importantly, we know that this can\u2019t be right. The verse I cited refers to \u201cthe acts of Solomon\u201d as being recorded in the books of Nathan, Ahijah and Iddo. But the books of 1 and 2 Samuel record only events that took place in David\u2019s reign, before Solomon ever came to the throne. In fact, as the verse says, Iddo\u2019s prophecies were contemporaneous with Jeroboam, who was Solomon\u2019s successor in the northern kingdom of Israel. (Here\u2019s a timeline<\/a> of Old Testament kings.) Thus, the visions of these prophets cannot all be in the books of Samuel.<\/p>\n
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And there are also references to lost writings in the New Testament. In First Corinthians, Paul refers to a letter he previously wrote to that church (5:9), which has not been preserved as part of the NT canon; a similar verse can be found in Ephesians (3:3). Paul also refers to a lost letter to the church at Laodicea (Colossians 4:16), endorsing it as one that\u2019s useful and worth reading in other churches (and presumably, therefore, also worthy of preservation).
\nHow They Messed Up:<\/b> None of these books are known to exist today, nor do we know anything that might have been written in them. It seems that a great deal of divinely inspired scripture has been lost!
\nNo, Wait, It\u2019s Not a Mistake:<\/b> http:\/\/www.religiousresearcher.org\/blog\/?p=345<\/a> argues that these books were never part of the canon to start with, so it\u2019s not the case that canonical books have been lost. But the obvious counterargument is that the only reason these books aren\u2019t part of the canon is that they were<\/i> lost! If Christians had original, trustworthy copies of new letters from Paul, or inspired writings by other Old Testament prophets, they would surely treat those with the same reverence as they treat the surviving books which they believe to be divinely inspired.<\/p>\n
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0There\u2019s a good reason for the variant wording. As the Bible was passed down through the centuries, prior to the invention of the printing press, the manuscripts had to be laboriously recopied by scribes. Usually they copied it faithfully, including the mistakes. But sometimes, when they noticed a mistake, they were bothered enough to try to correct it. This is one of those cases. Evidently, some medieval scribe tried to cover for Mark\u2019s mistake by changing the inaccurate \u201cIsaiah\u201d to the more general \u201cthe prophets\u201d. This \u201ccorrected\u201d manuscript was passed on and gave rise to a tradition of variant manuscripts, one of which served as the source for the KJV. Meanwhile, the original manuscript with the error was recopied exactly as written by a more scrupulous (or less observant) scribe and passed down in a separate chain of historical transmission, creating two competing wordings for this passage.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Although both the \u201cIsaiah\u201d and \u201cthe prophets\u201d variants have survived to this day, there can be no doubt that the \u201cIsaiah\u201d wording is the original. Even this essay by Daniel B. Wallace<\/a>, written from a conservative Christian point of view, defends this conclusion. Wallace points out that of all the variant biblical manuscripts containing this verse, the \u201cIsaiah\u201d ones are far earlier, more numerous and more geographically widespread. Notably, although Wallace still believes in inerrancy, he\u2019s honest enough to admit that this does appear to be a genuine error with no apparent resolution.<\/p>\n
\nHow They Messed Up:<\/b> As you can readily confirm for yourself by reading 1 Samuel 21:1-6, it wasn\u2019t Abiathar but Abiathar\u2019s father<\/i>, Ahimelech, who was high priest when David did this. Has Jesus forgotten his Old Testament?
\nNo, Wait, It\u2019s Not a Mistake:<\/b> Eric Lyons of Apologetics Press<\/a> insists that Jesus didn\u2019t make a mistake, oh no! He simply says that this happened \u201cin the days of Abiathar the high priest\u201d, which Lyons interprets as meaning that this incident didn\u2019t necessarily happen while Abiathar actually was the high priest, but merely while Abiathar was alive<\/i>.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Using this same logic, if I said that \u201cthe War of 1812 began in the days of President Abraham Lincoln\u201d, I wouldn\u2019t be wrong! After all, according to Eric Lyons, this statement doesn\u2019t have to mean that the War of 1812 began while Abraham Lincoln actually was president, only that it began while he was alive (he was three years old at the time). Try that one on your history professor!
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The reason my Lincoln example is implausible is the same reason Lyons\u2019 argument is implausible: when we refer to a period of time as defined by a person who held a title, in almost all ordinary cases, we mean to refer to the period of time in which<\/i> that person held that title. Statements such as \u201cX was witnessed by Abraham Lincoln\u201d might acceptably refer to any event that happened while Lincoln was alive, but \u201cX was witnessed by President<\/i> Abraham Lincoln\u201d makes little sense if X was an event that occurred before Lincoln\u2019s ascent to the presidency.<\/p>\n
\nHow They Messed Up:<\/b> There is no such verse anywhere in the Bible. What \u201cscripture\u201d is Jesus referring to?
\nNo, Wait, It\u2019s Not a Mistake:<\/b> http:\/\/bible.cc\/john\/7-38.htm<\/a> quotes several commentaries which say that \u201cthe reference is not to any single passage\u201d, but to various passages throughout the Old Testament that use water as a metaphor for holiness and cleansing. But the specificity<\/i> of this wording casts doubt on that: why would Jesus bother to tack on \u201cas the scripture has said\u201d if he wasn\u2019t quoting anything in particular? Why wouldn\u2019t he just present this as a new teaching of his own that he was introducing, as he does on many other occasions?<\/p>\n
\nHow They Messed Up:<\/b> The prophecy Matthew cited can be found in Isaiah 7:14. The problem is, it wasn\u2019t a prophecy of the distant future. Isaiah was speaking to people in his own time. More specifically, he was speaking to King Ahaz of Judah, who was at war against an alliance of Israel and Syria. The birth of this child would serve as a sign to Ahaz that his enemies would not defeat him. \u201cFor before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings\u201d (7:16, continuing the same prophecy).
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And as generations of atheists and textual scholars have recognized, the Hebrew word that Isaiah used, almah<\/i>, carries a meaning more like \u201cyoung woman\u201d. The word that means virgin in the technical sense, bethulah<\/i>, is not used in the original passage, making Matthew\u2019s citation of it a twofold error. (Even well-known Christian apologists like Craig Blomberg<\/a> concede this point: he says it is \u201cno longer controversial\u201d that almah<\/i> \u201csimply refers to a young woman of marriageable age\u201d).
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In fact, as the ultimate proof that no miraculous conception was meant, Isaiah then goes on to \u201cfulfill\u201d his own prophecy by seeking out and impregnating a suitable woman, and proclaiming that the child she bears is the sign Ahaz had been promised (Isaiah 8:3-4). Clearly, whatever this prophecy envisioned, it was not that a virgin would become pregnant without having sex.
\nNo, Wait, It\u2019s Not a Mistake:<\/b> This article<\/a> by Michael Gleghorn concedes that Isaiah\u2019s prophecy referred to events in his day, but claims that it also had a \u201cdual fulfillment\u201d in the birth of Jesus seven hundred years later. \u201cIn this view the almah<\/i>, or young maiden of Isaiah\u2019s prophecy, is a type of the virgin Mary, who later conceived Jesus through the miraculous intervention of the Holy Spirit.\u201d
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0This kind of patent nonsense is what modern apologists routinely resort to in order to excuse the clumsy misreading or deliberate misuse of Old Testament prophecies by New Testament authors. As already stated, Isaiah\u2019s original prophecy didn\u2019t envision anything unusual about the birth per se<\/i>. And even if it did, why was it only that<\/i> detail that had a dual fulfillment? For this to be a true dual fulfillment, shouldn\u2019t every detail of Isaiah\u2019s prophecy come to pass twice? Shouldn\u2019t Jesus\u2019 birth have been a sign to a good king that two evil kings who were conspiring against him would be defeated? Of course, no such thing happened in New Testament times.<\/p>\n
\nHow They Messed Up:<\/b> There is no such prophecy in the Bible.
\nNo, Wait, It\u2019s Not a Mistake:<\/b> Generations of Christian apologists have exercised their creativity in trying to figure out what Matthew might have had in mind here. Christian Courier<\/a> gives not one but three explanations:
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0(1) Matthew was recording something a prophet literally said<\/i>, not something that was ever written down. Even the apologist site dismisses this as \u201cnot the most-likely explanation\u201d. (And doesn\u2019t this still contradict the idea that God would preserve all of his words?)
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0(2) Matthew may have meant this as a play on words on Isaiah 11:1, which used the Hebrew word netzer<\/i> (\u201cbranch\u201d) to describe the coming messiah. The problem with this, of course, is that this would mean this was not a prophetic fulfillment at all; the connection was the product of the gospel author\u2019s imagination. It would be as if some ancient prophecy said \u201cThe coming messiah will be a Jew\u201d, and I claimed that this prophecy was fulfilled by the political career of Rudy Giuliani, because the first syllable of his last name is pronounced to sound like \u201cJew\u201d.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0(3) The third explanation, which Christian Courier actually favors, seems the least likely of the three: that in Jesus\u2019 time, \u201cNazarene\u201d was used in a pejorative sense as a general term for an outcast or disdained person (this is pure speculation on their part), and thus Jesus\u2019 being from there fulfills the prophecy that the messiah would be despised and rejected (Isaiah 53:3) (which actually isn\u2019t a prophecy at all). It\u2019s true enough that John 1:46 suggests some people were skeptical of Jesus because he came from Nazareth (evidently the town had a country-bumpkin kind of reputation), but the idea that \u201cNazarene\u201d was used as a general<\/i> descriptive label for a reviled person is utterly without foundation.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The Christian Courier site betrays its preconceptions when it concludes, \u201cIn view of these various possibilities, it is not a reflection of scholastic integrity to dogmatically charge Matthew with a mistake\u201d. This is nonsense, because \u201cpossibilities\u201d that excuse a text from error can always be dreamed up for any mistake in any book. This line of reasoning would lead to the conclusion that we should never accuse any author of being wrong about anything. To properly defend an author against a charge of errancy, one must show that a reading which resolves the difficulty is more likely<\/i> than the conclusion that they just made a mistake, and this is a standard which has not come close to being met.<\/p>\n
\nHow They Messed Up:<\/b> The prophecy being quoted is Zechariah 9:9. Its writer was using repetition as a form of emphasis, as biblical translations like the American Standard Version make clear: \u201cBehold, thy king cometh unto thee\u2026 riding upon an ass, even upon a colt the foal of an ass.\u201d But Matthew\u2019s misreading of this verse led him to believe that it prophesied the king would come riding on two animals at once.
\nNo, Wait, It\u2019s Not a Mistake:<\/b> This article<\/a> by Eric Lyons repeatedly flogs the argument that \u201cMark, Luke, and John did not say that only<\/i> one donkey was obtained for Jesus\u201d (as if any document, ancient or modern, would ever be written in lawyer-like language that would rule out all possible alternative readings), and invents convoluted and speculative scenarios for how Jesus might have ridden both animals at once. But it misses the larger point: the only reason<\/i> Matthew claims there were two animals in the first place is because he misread the prophecy. The original verse from Zechariah describes the promised king as riding upon one animal, not two. <\/p>\n
\nHow They Messed Up:<\/b> The verse that Matthew was citing isn\u2019t in Jeremiah, but in Zechariah (11:13). Considering this entry, the previous one, and the next one, Matthew seems to have a bit of a blind spot regarding this book.
\nNo, Wait, It\u2019s Not a Mistake:<\/b> This article<\/a> from Apologetics Press offers several explanations. Some are simply too silly to bother with \u2013 such as that the Holy Spirit originally inspired Jeremiah to speak these words, but he didn\u2019t bother to write them down, and then some time later, the Holy Spirit inspired Zechariah to say the same thing again, presumably to make sure it was written down this time. (Am I the only one who notices how lazy<\/i> the modern apologists are accusing the Old Testament prophets of being? They received divine revelations from God and never bothered to jot down some notes?)
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Their somewhat more substantive argument is that Jeremiah begins the section of the Old Testament scrolls that record the writings of the prophets, and that \u201cMatthew merely referred to this whole division of the Old Testament by naming its first book\u201d. This argument, however, is presented in a question-begging way. What other, non-disputed examples of this alleged literary technique can the apologists point to? There are plenty of New Testament verses that say \u201cas it is written\u201d, or \u201cas the prophets said\u201d, but those generic references are not the same thing as specifically naming one prophet but quoting another. Is this ever done in the writings of the church fathers, for example?
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In fact, the apologists contradict themselves by saying: \u201cAnother example is found in Mark 1:2-3 where Isaiah 40:3 and Malachi 3:1 are blended and attributed to Isaiah\u201d \u2013 an instance already discussed by this essay. But by their own argument, that verse cannot<\/i> be an example of this technique, because Isaiah wasn\u2019t the first member of the set of prophetic writings, Jeremiah was! By their argument, this verse would have to cite Jeremiah, not Isaiah, for it to be doing what they say. The fact that they cite it as an example anyway shows that their arguments are being deployed not according to any strict principle, but on an ad hoc<\/i> basis to suit the apologetic needs of the moment.<\/p>\n
\nHow They Messed Up:<\/b> Those niggling little Old Testament details can be so<\/i> hard to remember. The Zechariah who was stoned in the temple by the faithless Jewish people was the son of Jehoiada, not the son of Barachias (2 Chronicles 24:20-21). Interestingly, there\u2019s a different Zechariah, a minor prophet of the Old Testament, whose father is<\/i> named Berechiah (Zechariah 1:1) \u2013 suggesting the possibility that Matthew has just gotten his Zechariahs confused.
\nNo, Wait, It\u2019s Not a Mistake:<\/b> http:\/\/www.apologeticspress.org\/articles\/3229<\/a> suggests a multitude of different apologetics, including (a) Barachias was Jehoiada\u2019s nickname, (b) Jehoiada was actually Zechariah\u2019s grandfather, (c) Jesus was referring to the prophet Zechariah who also coincidentally died this way, even though no such event is recorded in the Bible, (d) Jesus was referring to some other, unknown person named Zechariah, and (e) Jesus was using his miraculous foreknowledge to refer to a future<\/i> person named Zechariah who hadn\u2019t been born yet (!).
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0There\u2019s not a scrap of textual evidence for any of these speculations, but strictly speaking, they\u2019re not possible to disprove. But the same is true of any statement which is retroactively redefined to refer to something unknown to the reader. It\u2019s as if I said, \u201cHerman Melville wrote the novel War and Peace<\/i>,\u201d and when this is challenged as inaccurate, I resorted to claiming that I wasn\u2019t referring to the famous author or the famous book known by those names, but some other, unknown person coincidentally named Herman Melville who coincidentally wrote a completely different book by that same title that no one has ever heard of. Is this impossible to disprove? Yes. Should a rational person consider it in any way plausible, much less more<\/i> plausible than the hypothesis that I simply made a mistake? Of course not.<\/p>\n
\nHow They Messed Up:<\/b> Once again, there is no such scripture in the Bible. Apparently, the author of the Epistle of James was quoting from a book which he<\/i> believed to be sacred scripture, but which was not judged to be canonical by later church councils \u2013 leading unavoidably to the conclusion that either he was wrong, or they were.
\nNo, Wait, It\u2019s Not a Mistake:<\/b> This apologetics page<\/a> concedes that this passage \u201cdoes not refer to a word for word or even an approximate quotation\u201d of something else in the Bible. Instead, it argues that \u201cscripture saith\u201d can be taken to mean \u201cscripture in general conveys the message that\u201d and describes this lesson as \u201c[the] distilled teaching of numerous passages\u201d.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0But as with the verse from John, the specificity of this passage casts doubt on that stretched interpretation. The verse is clearly phrased as a quotation, not as a new lesson or a generic distillation of many separate verses. The writer of the epistle cites it to support a point \u2013 that war and greed arise from sinful desire \u2013 which implies that it was a teaching he expected his readers to be familiar with. This would not be the place to introduce a \u201cdistilled teaching\u201d condensed from many verses, because it would provoke the same response from them as it does from us: \u201cHey, what scripture are you talking about?\u201d For it to have evidentiary value in this context, it must have been something identifiable to the target audience.<\/p>\n
\nHow They Messed Up:<\/b> Unlike the Old Testament authors who quoted from books lost to us, the Epistle of Jude does the opposite \u2013 quoting from, and treating as inspired, a book that has survived but was explicitly not included in the canon of the Bible by later church councils. (The Ethiopian Orthodox Church, which diverges from all other Christian denominations by including Enoch in its canon, does not have this problem.) Church fathers such as Jerome, in chapter 4 of De Viris Illustribus<\/i><\/a>, argued that Jude itself should also be considered uncanonical on those grounds.
\nNo, Wait, It\u2019s Not a Mistake:<\/b> Wayne Jackson of Christian Courier<\/a> writes that Paul quoted from several Greek poets and authors, yet the original works need not be considered divinely inspired. True enough, but Paul did not identify those Greeks as giving prophecies from God<\/i> \u2013 and Jude does<\/i> make this claim of Enoch. As with James, either the author of the epistle was wrong, or the church fathers who assembled the canon of the Bible were wrong, about whether this book was written under divine inspiration.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Jackson also argues that we don\u2019t know the actual source of Jude\u2019s quotation: \u201cThere is no phrase such as, \u2018it is written in the book of Enoch.'\u201d True enough \u2013 but given how specifically Jude\u2019s quote matches Enoch\u2019s wording, and given that the church fathers specifically identified Enoch as Jude\u2019s source, this is by far the simplest and most rational conclusion. Again, this is an example of how Christian apologists expect the Bible to be written in lawyer language to rule out their convoluted interpretations (\u201cIt is likely that the quotation in the \u2018Book of Enoch\u2019 reflects the echo of an ancient tradition that has its roots in the events of the Patriarchal period, and that the inspiration of Jude, and the tradition of the \u2018Book of Enoch,\u2019 merely merge at this juncture\u201d) when the simplest, most obvious, and most common-sense reading would lead to a conclusion they want to avoid.<\/p>\n\n