Take Our Contradictions In Context
March 5, 2008 · By Matthew
Liberal theologians have been a source of great amusement for me since the days of high school when one teacher tried to convince my class that the Nile turning into blood as described in Exodus was actually just mineral deposits contaminating the water to make it look like blood — apparently the Egyptians weren’t able to tell the difference between a vital organic fluid and some rusty soot. This didn’t matter much though, as my teacher went on to discredit the entire Bible up until around the four Gospels (I asked her where things became legit, she never really gave me an answer…), which begged the question as to why the long-winded debunking of each of the 10 plagues of Egypt; if it didn’t even happen, why are we investigating how it happened?
Sparing me from such burdens is the revelation from an Israeli researcher who now claims that Moses really went to a “high” place to get the 10 Commandments. I know of a few other Bible-bashers who will take exception to the Law actually being authored by Moses (not to mention PZ’s little echo chamber crowd, who probably think that they just eroded onto the surface of Mount Sinai), so I’m sure everyone’ll understand that I’m very confused and need some help with this problem: whose attacks on the Bible are correct? Is it the crowd who think that psychedelic and mineral concoctions magically led the Israelites out of Egypt and gave them a legal code that we use as the foundation of our laws today? Or is it the group that doesn’t even think there was an Exodus and just think that this legal code just appeared out of nowhere some time around the third century B.C.? Don’t trip over yourselves to offer me the answer kids!
“if it didn’t even happen, why are we investigating how it happened?”
Because a properly-investigated scientific explanation is far more believable than “magic man in the sky done it”, particularly when you haven’t been able to even prove the EXISTENCE of any such magic man in the sky to begin with. Your approach is akin to claiming that a magical pink unicorn on an asteroid orbiting Saturn was responsible for an observed phenomena, but then taking great exception to someone pointing out that we have NO EVIDENCE for the existence of any such magical pink unicorn. And this doesn’t even BEGIN to delve into the great many inconsistencies and contradictions in the rest of your magic book.
I have been a theologian for 20 years and I have yet to encounter a “contradiction” in the Bible that withstands serious scrutiny, nor have I ever encountered a militant atheist, in person or in print, who held an informed opinion on the subject. These attempts to “debunk” the historical integrity of the Bible, whether through the hollow sophistry of liberal ’scholarship’ or the amateurish ramblings of militant atheism, inevitably crumble under the overwhelming weight of documentary, linguistic and archaeological evidence. Unfortunately, experience has also taught me that liberals and atheists, notwithstanding their professed love affair with “reason”, are notoriously averse to objective reflection upon these matters.
Accordingly, for people like anonymous here, any “natural” explanation, however flawed, is preferable to a supernatural one.
The very first sentence of the Bible says “…GOD created….” If you don’t believe in a supernatural God why go any further - its a legitimate question.
Perhaps the Bible looms so large as a record of Israel’s history or at least as an archaelogical artifact that its critics feel compelled to try and debunk it.
Its only natural that if someone rejects the very existence and nature of the Bible as evidence, rejects the existence and struggle of Israel as evidence, rejects world trends as evidence, rejects word-of-witness as evidence, rejects miracles as evidence and then explains away creation, that they would in fact be left with NO EVIDENCE.
If you can show some sort of mechanism for a “supernatural explanation”, Strider, then you might have some sort of basis to stand on; until then, your “explanation” is nothing more than wishful thinking. As for contradictions in your magic book, here’s only one of many: your religion claims that the major players in the story (Jesus, Mary Magdalene, the apostles, etc.) were all Jews, and as Jews, they would’ve followed certain specific ritualistic behaviours. They would’ve followed the Jewish calendar, they would’ve observed the Jewish “holy days”, they would’ve been subject to Jewish dietary restrictions, and so on and so forth. A major part of these behaviours revolves around the way to treat and handle a dead body, which is where reality runs into the story presented in your magic book. Jewish ritual says that a dead body must be cleaned and interred as soon as possible, it must be accompanied by a “shomerim” (an official “accompanier”) until it is interred, it must be ritually cleaned and prepared by a member of the same sex as the dead body, and after it IS interred, that body is considered “ritually unclean”, and it must not be interfered with ever again. This is obviously because it’s easy to catch a third cousin of the ebola virus when you’re handling a dead body in the desert. BUT, according to your magic book, the “resurrection” (guffaw!) was “discovered” by a woman who went to “anoint Jesus’ body” after it had lain in a tomb for three days. Therefore, in order to believe this fairy-tale, we would also have to believe that these observant Jews ALSO spontaneously chose to ignore their own religions’ code of behaviour in a number of respects; 1) handling a dead body after it had been interred; 2) handling a dead body after it had no accompaniment; and 3) a WOMAN handling a dead MALE body. Besides these, there are numerous examples of the four “gospels” telling directly contradictory stories, and if you were a police officer investigating a crime, and four different “eye-witnesses” told you stories that differed from each other as much as THESE four differ from each other, you’d KNOW that someone was lying to you.
How again does this fit with the theme of thepolitic?
The reason your teachers discredited the bible is because up until 10 years ago there was no evidence for the Biblical stories. Then a man named David Rohl came along and reworked the archaelogical chronologies of the middle east and lo and behold there was plenty of evidence, from letters written by the King of Jerusalem to the Pharoah of Egypt asking for help in fighting off David’s armies to the location of the settlements of the Jewish peoples in Egypt during the captivity.
As time passes and the old guard archaeologists with a vested interest in the status quo die off Rohl’s New Chronology comes to be more accepted. Check out Rohl on Wiki or his Test of Time website. Amazing reading
Anon, who says the the women going to the tomb completely followed Jewish ritual? Where does it make the claim they followed these rituals to the letter? Even David from the Old Testamant (who Jews revere greatly) broke ritual law:
“Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God and ate the showbread which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are blameless? Yet I say to you that in this place there is One greater than the temple.”
-Matthew 12:3-6 (NKJV)
The four gospel accounts give a testimony from four different people/perspectives. If they were all the same there might be more allegations that they were all written by the same person. For example, if there was a crime scene and a witness saw one suspect run away - this does not mean that another witness could not have seen another one as well in the shadows. For one witness to say “one” and one to say “two” does not necessarily mean the accounts cannot be reconciled or do not corroborate.
I said there may be MORE allegations the gospels were all written by the same person, actually I am not sure that there are any claims by anyone to this idea.
Anonymous’ arguments helpfully illustrate my earlier point about militant atheism. The Jewish Talmudic rituals to which he refers, were, of course, not fully consolidated until several centuries after the events described in the Gospels, so it would be very unlikely that Jesus’ friends would have observed them. But just for fun, pretend that the Talmud’s regulations were in force at the time of Christ: If Anon were at all familiar with Jewish religious law, he would realize that it incorporates great flexibility for contingencies like this. In this instance, the burial was hurried and incomplete, and it would have been very appropriate to resume and complete the full burial ritual after the Passover Sabbath. As for having a shomer present (Anon incorrectly uses the plural ’shomerim’), Joseph of Arimathea would have obviously filled this role. But again, as we are dealing with a situation taking place centuries before these rules were consolidated, this discussion is moot. This matter is very instructive, because it demonstrates the extremes of malice and misguided erudition to which militant atheists will run in order to attack us, and yet they still don’t know what they’re talking about!
I also see that Anon won’t let us seek evidence for God’s existence from the historical record. Must we have a priori evidence of God’s existence before we can prove that He exists? By Anon’s logic, we cannot prove that God exists unless we have first proven His existence. He arbitrarily rules out the possibility of historical evidence for God’s existence, demanding instead proof from some other unspecified source. But of course any proof, no matter how unequivocal, recent and immediate, ultimately becomes a matter of recorded information and therefore history, and therefore inadmissible by Anon and his co-religionists. How very convenient! Thus, as Steve points out, we see how atheists arbitrarily rule out any avenue of inquiry that might threaten their world-view.
Anon’s fawning endorsement of David Rohl, is a good example of an amateur drawing sweeping conclusions from the lunatic fringe of Biblical scholarship. Rohl is a bona-fide crackpot and, as the Wiki article itself demonstrates, nobody is drinking his kool-aid. Anon’s comments on this subject demonstrate that he literally does not know the first thing about Biblical scholarship.
I do believe you are confused because I do not believe you actually want an answer to that question. Are you struggling with your faith?
Matthew,
I share the same faith as you but the questions you ask do not bother me. Please trust me when I give you this little bit of religious advice: do not be afraid of the people who attack the Bible. Satan is more cunning than them.
A friend of mine always repeats this bit of advice [he quotes some passage in the Bible; I can not remember what verses they are; I apologize ahead of time to my non-Catholic brothers because we do not know have the Bible memorized] and warns that Satan appears in a saintly uniform.
StE,
By discrediting the Bible, a school teacher made it a political issue.
Steve, the Jews themselves make the claim that they have followed these laws for all of recorded history, yet your magic book suddenly claims that this is so *EXCEPT* in this one instance. This is an awfully “convenient” set of affairs, don’t you think, akin to Joseph Smith’s tale of having the “golden plates of the Book of Mormon” taken back by the “angel” that had given them to Smith in the first place. Anyone who DOESN’T have a vested interest in these stories (other than Mormons in the case of Smith, or other than Christians in this case) can immediately recognize the stories as convenient fabrications. The four different accounts of the “resurrection” (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) have MULTIPLE instances of one or more of those accounts telling a tale directly contradictory to the remainder, so they are unable to even agree on the whos, whats, whens, wheres and hows of the story. When any OTHER religion has holes in its story the way this one does, Christians (rightfully) say “See? This shows that this story is made up, and therefore this is a false religion.”, but they are unwilling to put their own superstition to that sort of scrutiny.
Strider, “must we have a priori evidence of the magical pink unicorn’s existence before we can prove that He exists”? Without any sort of evidence for exactly that, you may as well be claiming that the Sasquatch, or little green men from Mars, or the magical piece of gum stuck to the bottom of your shoe is responsible for ANYTHING. You (hopefully) don’t make any OTHER decisions by decidig on your conclusion before looking at the available evidence, so why do you do so in this case? I’ve got no relation to the other “Anon”, and neither know nor care who Rohl is. Also, forgive my grammatical errors in Hebrew, it’s not my mother tongue ;-)
Good lord.
The bible is to blame for commodity futures pricing!
Who will think of the children?!
Well, I’m not a “militant atheist”, but a mild agnostic. I also happen to be conservative (of the libertarian bent).
Stephen F. Roberts has said what I believe far better than I could: “When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”
Finding some physical evidence of someone in the Bible no more proves the supernatural parts of it than finding the city of Troy proves the gods of the Iliad existed…
Charles Anthony, thank you for your message above. I probably should clarify though that I’m not afraid of what those who attack the Bible say, but in fact just feel pity for them. Over the past two years, the Spirit has really opened up to me just how deep and rich the Scriptures are (for example, how the virgin birth had to happen on not one, but two planes to keep Scripture consistent and prophetic!). I wrote this piece though because I’m truly curious to see how the debate between those who want to believe parts of the Bible and those who believe none of the Bible is viewed from other perspectives.
Also to my Anonymous friend, thank you for the reference. I will be looking more into these findings and hope to do something for The Politic on that at a later date.
James: Interesting point, however, I would be quick to point out how different the Bible is from other religious claims — even the more modern ones in Islam or Taoism. The Bible is not just a story about the downfall of man, but also the solution to the rift that now exists between God and man because of the breaking of divine law.
I offer this often as evidence that the Bible speaks truthfully about our inability to be good people: try going a week without thinking a hateful or lustful thought in your head; I assure you that you won’t make it past the first day. The Scriptures, in Romans, also explains the logic of how important our thoughts are, stating that without evil thoughts, there can be no evil deeds. If such thoughts are not evil though, then assuredly there should be no problem in not having them to begin with.
Anon said, “the Jews themselves make the claim they have followed these laws for all recorded history” Do they claim that every person, followed every little law throughout all recorded history? How can they speak for those individual people directly involved in Jesus’ day? The Bible describes Jews breking their own laws - and sometimes this in their own holy texts! I also am likely to concur with Strider, although I have not researched it like he has, that there have been laws or customs added or ratified by Jews that were not part of their intial law given by God.
With regards to the the various resurrection accouts: they can be harmonized and shown to describe different glimpses of a singular process of events. This account sets out to do just that:
http://www.geocities.com/Athen.....rmony.html
Steve, this isn’t just a matter of “following every little law”, it is a matter of these people’s JEWISHNESS; for exactly the same reasons that they wouldn’t have served ham sandwiches or lobster bisque at the “last supper”, no observant Jew would have a) gone to “anoint” a dead body that that had already been placed into a tomb, b) had ANYTHING to do with a body that was no longer under the care of a shomer (h/t strider), or c) gone to do ANYTHING AT ALL with a dead body of the opposite sex. You may as well claim that these particular Jews decided to abandon the practice of circumcision just for the heck of it, as to claim that they decided that these particular burial rituals didn’t apply to them.
As for “harmonizing” (read: “glossing over contradictions”) the various and sundry accounts of what is supposed to be the defining moment of this particular superstition, no OTHER superstition is given this sort of slack by Christians, so why should Christians be given that benefit? Only a few of these contradictions include: the time of day this is supposed to have occured (not abig deal for non-Jews, but since they use the moment of sunrise as the marking point for a new day, it’s definitely something they would have taken note of); who exactly went to undertake this supposed “anointing” (the different accounts mention 1, 2, 3, or more possibilities); what those people are supposed to have seen when they got to the tomb (one story claims that an “angel” was seen moving the entrance-blocking tomb, while the others claim that the stone was already moved when they got there); the number of “angels” (tee-hee) that were supposed to have been seen at the tomb, where they were, what they were doing, and what they said); the number of “apostles” that went to the tomb afterwards to see if Mary Magdalene was justing BSing them (one account says ONE, another account says THREE); what exactly this supposed “risen prophet” was supposed to have said to the 1, 2, 3, or more women at the tomb (one account claims that the women prostrated themselves and clutched at his feet, while another specifically says that this “risen prophet” warned them NOT to touch him; a direct contradiction); where exactly this supposed “risen prophet” was supposed to have met the “apostles” afterwards, and how many were met at once (three accounts say this meeting was in Galilee, while one says they never even GOT to Galilee, and they returned to Jerusalem instead, while three accounts say that all the “apostles” were met at the same time, and one account says all but Didymus (of “doubting Thomas” fame) met him at the same time); and last but not least, what exactly is supposed to have happened to this supposed “risen prophet” after his supposed “resurrection” (two accounts claim a speech was made (said speech differing in details between the accounts), followed by an “ascension into heaven”, one account claims yet a third speech was made, but says nothing about an “ascension into heaven” (which is the sort of thing I think would be noteworthy, no?), and the last account says nothing at all about either a speech OR an “ascension”, claiming that this “prophet” simply hung around and continued to perform “miracles”. This story has got SO many holes in it that it wouldn’t be admitted as evidence in any court.
Matthew:
Two things: first, while Taoism certainly has its mystical elements and it is a religion to some, it is seen as a philosophy to many others.
BTW, you might want to re-consider the term “modern”: Taoism pre-dates Christianity by several centuries…
As for your belief that Christianity is somehow different than other religions, sorry, but no. You are basically saying you believe X because X says you should.
I am glad you find some sort of peace in your choice of religion, but as this article is about science vs. faith, you haven’t done much but denigrate science.
James, the phrase “modern religion” isn’t mine, but has been ascribed to the major world religions which came after the bronze era of history.
As for the uniqueness of Christianity, just saying “nuh-uh” doesn’t mean that it isn’t different. I laid out the premise and evidence in my previous post (and it isn’t believing X because X says I should — I offered a trial that anyone, anywhere at any time can try!). If you’re not willing to contend with my premise, I respect that but don’t knock it until you’ve tried it!