{"id":15182,"date":"2013-06-21T22:09:17","date_gmt":"2013-06-22T02:09:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=15182"},"modified":"2013-06-21T22:09:17","modified_gmt":"2013-06-22T02:09:17","slug":"more-on-the-ridiculousness-of-left-behind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/06\/more-on-the-ridiculousness-of-left-behind.html","title":{"rendered":"More on the Ridiculousness of Left Behind"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Fred Clark is continuing his series <\/a>that takes apart the unintentionally comical character of the Left Behind books in slow motion. His latest post <\/a>on Nicolae: The Rise of the Antichrist<\/em> is a gem. It includes wonderful statements like this:<\/p>\n

\n

Tim LaHaye wants his readers to recognize that he, Tim LaHaye, is uniquely correct about the meaning of the Bible and of \u201cBible prophecy,\u201d and so his story includes Moses and Elijah as characters who stand around preaching that Tim LaHaye is uniquely correct about the meaning of the Bible and of Bible prophecy. They stop just short of mentioning LaHaye by name, but still.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And this:<\/p>\n

\n

They\u2019ve just described a scene in which the entire population of the world witnesses a series of explicit, undeniable and unambiguously supernatural events. And then everyone simply ignores them. No awestruck wonder. No curiosity. No skeptical probing to try to figure out how the trick was done. Just a giant collective shrug. That\u2019s impossible. Humans don\u2019t work like that.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n

But according to the authors, humans do work like that. Or, at least, Christ-denying, unsaved, non-RTC, damnation-deserving humans do. In their view, unbelievers are not simply unconvinced, but obstinate, willful deniers of evidence every bit as overwhelmingly clear as the miraculous fire-breathing killers in this story. (Just read Josh McDowell or any other \u201capologetics\u201d book \u2014 it\u2019s obvious, so anyone who doesn\u2019t immediately convert is just stubbornly rejecting what they know to be true.)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And this:\n<\/p>\n

\n

That \u201ccome nigh\u201d and \u201cgo forth\u201d business is what the authors actually meant by \u201cthe language and cadence of the Bible.\u201d For the authors, the language of the Bible is English \u2014 but only English as it was spoken before Friedrich Schleiermacher was born.<\/p>\n

But even if you read the Bible in King James English, it\u2019s hard to explain how Ben-Judah could be counted among the \u201c144,000\u2033 mentioned in the book of Revelation. \u201cThese are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins,\u201d Revelation 14:4 says. And yet, verily and forsooth, the authors themselves hath written that Ben-Judah had taken unto him a wife, and gone in to her and knew her and uncovered her feet, and lo, in the fullness of time, she bore unto him many children.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Click through<\/a> to read the whole thing!<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fred Clark is continuing his series that takes apart the unintentionally comical character of the Left Behind books in slow motion. His latest post on Nicolae: The Rise of the Antichrist is a gem. It includes wonderful statements like this: Tim LaHaye wants his readers to recognize that he, Tim LaHaye, is uniquely correct about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[135,81],"tags":[3012,3143,3592,4871,7721,9454,9456,9965,10293,12607,12609,13807],"class_list":["post-15182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eschatology-theology","category-revelation-bible","tag-elijah","tag-eschatology-theology","tag-fred-clark","tag-humor","tag-moses","tag-premillenial-dispensationalism","tag-premillenialism","tag-rapture","tag-revelation","tag-tim-la-haye","tag-tim-lahaye","tag-witnesses"],"yoast_head":"\nMore on the Ridiculousness of Left Behind<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Fred Clark is continuing his series that takes apart the unintentionally comical character of the Left Behind books in slow motion. 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