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Showing posts with label Biblical Analysis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Biblical Analysis. Show all posts
Friday, April 8, 2011
Episode 19 - Bart Ehrman - God's Problem
This episode of Cold Beer for the Skeptic's Mind features Bart Ehrman, a professor of Religious Studies at the University of Northern Carolina, Chapel Hill. Today's excerpt comes from his book called God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question--Why We Suffer.
You can subscribe within iTunes or download it directly from here.
I hope you enjoy it.
You can subscribe within iTunes or download it directly from here.
I hope you enjoy it.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Quote of the Day
One of the most fascinating features of early Christianity is that so many different Christian groups were saying so many contrary things. It is not just that they said different things. They often said just the opposite things. There is only one God. No, there are many gods. The material world is the good creation of a good God. No, it comes from a cosmic disaster in the divine realm. Jesus came in the flesh. No, he was totally removed from the flesh. Eternal life comes through the redemption of the flesh. No it comes through escaping the flesh. Paul taught these things. No, Paul taught those other things. Paul was a true apostle. No, Paul misunderstood the message of Jesus. Peter and Paul agreed on every theological point. No, they were completely at odds with one another. Peter taught that Christians were not to follow the Jewish law. No, he taught that the Jewish law continued to be in force. And on and on and on, world without end.
Not only did those on every side in all of these debates think that they were right and that their opponents were wrong; they also maintained in all sincerity and honesty that their views were the ones taught by Jesus and his apostles. What is more, they all, apparently produced books to prove it, books that claimed to be written by apostles and supported their own points of view. What is perhaps more interesting of all, the vast majority of these apostolic books were in fact forged. Christians intent on establishing what was right to believe did so by telling lies, in an attempt to deceive their readers into agreeing that they were the ones who spoke the truth.
This from Bart Ehrman's newest book, Forged: Writing in the Name of God--Why the Bible's Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
End-Times Paradoxes and Loopholes
Fred Clark, author of the Slacktivist blog, has another well-written post regarding the paradox of End-Times believers. In his effort to blog through the Tribulation Force novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, Clark explores the themes and logical conclusions of the popular religious authors' works. This time he touches on a topic that's all too familiar from my early life as a "Pre-Trib."
According to Christian Fundamentalist canon, the end of the world will be marked by two key events--The Rapture, when believers will be air-lifted to begin their heavenly change of residence, and the Tribulation, seven years of misery and suffering for the poor non-Christians left behind, the period when the Anti-Christ unites the world under One World Government. At the end of the seven years of War, Famine, Plague, and Death (the four horsemen of the Apocalypse) comes Armageddon, when God's army wipes out the United Earth Army, and the planet is swept clean of any nasty, sinful humans.
All of those points are vaguely hinted, discussed, and flirted with in the Bible, but not in any clear-cut fashion, such that Christians have argued over the details for generations. If you believe the Rapture occurs before the Tribulation, then you are Pre-Trib, as I was raised to believe. If you believe the Rapture occurs after the Tribulation but before Armageddon, then you are a Post-Trib. Then there's Mid-Trib, where saints are raptured at the Tribulation's mid-point. Some believe the Rapture of the Saints will occur throughout the Tribulation as Christians enter into whatever is the proper mind state to qualify to be airlifted away from the seven years of hellacious conditions on Earth. Christians of different persuasion bash each other on the head with their favorite Bible verses supporting their position all the time--arguments that I myself used to happily engage in--and the lack of consensus causes others to call themselves Pan-Tribs, meaning they'll take whatever pans out.
LaHaye's stance in the Tribulation Force novels is a modified Pre-Trib--namely, the Rapture occurs, but the Tribulation doesn't officially start until after Israel signs a peace treaty with the Anti-Christ. That leaves an indeterminate period of weeks or months, a post-rapture limbo in which God and the Four Horsemen are patiently waiting until certain humans do certain things.
And as Clark notes, the idea that Israel will sign a peace treaty that leaves them in a weaker position are practically nil, as the Middle East peace process over the last several decades has shown. In the novels, Israel does exactly that, but the plot point of the Tribulation with all the death and disease and stuff requires people in the novel to do and say things that people in the real world never would.
Not only does that make these bad novels, as Clark has amply demonstrated over the last many months as he blogs his way through the books, but it also points out a giant real-world conundrum--LaHaye's real-world organizations have been pouring millions of dollars for decades to make this paradox happen. In an effort to "Support Israel" conservative organizations such as Concerned Women for America have been working to ensure that Israel never signs any peace treaty. Israel has to remain strong and united and independent so that Armageddon can have a flash point--in which Israel gets destroyed for not accepting Jesus as their Messiah.
Growing up, I was always fascinated with End-Times studies in the same manner that people are interested in disaster movies--it's fun to watch the destruction of the familiar while secure in the knowledge that none of the pain and suffering will actually happen to you. One key principle that was hammered into us over and over was "Watch." Be ready for the Rapture, because it will come at a time when you least expect it. But here's another paradox--the more we study the End Times prophecies, the more we will be prepared for it. Hal Lindsey's best-selling books spelled out all the details (as he interpreted them from the Bible) warning us of Communism and the Mark of the Beast and the dangers of the One World Government. Thus, the more Christians are forewarned about the coming events, the less likely those events will come about. As Clark writes:
And yet another paradox:
According to Christian Fundamentalist canon, the end of the world will be marked by two key events--The Rapture, when believers will be air-lifted to begin their heavenly change of residence, and the Tribulation, seven years of misery and suffering for the poor non-Christians left behind, the period when the Anti-Christ unites the world under One World Government. At the end of the seven years of War, Famine, Plague, and Death (the four horsemen of the Apocalypse) comes Armageddon, when God's army wipes out the United Earth Army, and the planet is swept clean of any nasty, sinful humans.
All of those points are vaguely hinted, discussed, and flirted with in the Bible, but not in any clear-cut fashion, such that Christians have argued over the details for generations. If you believe the Rapture occurs before the Tribulation, then you are Pre-Trib, as I was raised to believe. If you believe the Rapture occurs after the Tribulation but before Armageddon, then you are a Post-Trib. Then there's Mid-Trib, where saints are raptured at the Tribulation's mid-point. Some believe the Rapture of the Saints will occur throughout the Tribulation as Christians enter into whatever is the proper mind state to qualify to be airlifted away from the seven years of hellacious conditions on Earth. Christians of different persuasion bash each other on the head with their favorite Bible verses supporting their position all the time--arguments that I myself used to happily engage in--and the lack of consensus causes others to call themselves Pan-Tribs, meaning they'll take whatever pans out.
LaHaye's stance in the Tribulation Force novels is a modified Pre-Trib--namely, the Rapture occurs, but the Tribulation doesn't officially start until after Israel signs a peace treaty with the Anti-Christ. That leaves an indeterminate period of weeks or months, a post-rapture limbo in which God and the Four Horsemen are patiently waiting until certain humans do certain things.
And as Clark notes, the idea that Israel will sign a peace treaty that leaves them in a weaker position are practically nil, as the Middle East peace process over the last several decades has shown. In the novels, Israel does exactly that, but the plot point of the Tribulation with all the death and disease and stuff requires people in the novel to do and say things that people in the real world never would.
Not only does that make these bad novels, as Clark has amply demonstrated over the last many months as he blogs his way through the books, but it also points out a giant real-world conundrum--LaHaye's real-world organizations have been pouring millions of dollars for decades to make this paradox happen. In an effort to "Support Israel" conservative organizations such as Concerned Women for America have been working to ensure that Israel never signs any peace treaty. Israel has to remain strong and united and independent so that Armageddon can have a flash point--in which Israel gets destroyed for not accepting Jesus as their Messiah.
Growing up, I was always fascinated with End-Times studies in the same manner that people are interested in disaster movies--it's fun to watch the destruction of the familiar while secure in the knowledge that none of the pain and suffering will actually happen to you. One key principle that was hammered into us over and over was "Watch." Be ready for the Rapture, because it will come at a time when you least expect it. But here's another paradox--the more we study the End Times prophecies, the more we will be prepared for it. Hal Lindsey's best-selling books spelled out all the details (as he interpreted them from the Bible) warning us of Communism and the Mark of the Beast and the dangers of the One World Government. Thus, the more Christians are forewarned about the coming events, the less likely those events will come about. As Clark writes:
The Left Behind series offers a depiction of what the authors insist is a guaranteed prediction. But for that prediction to come to pass as depicted -- for their prophecies to come true -- the vast majority of people in the post-Rapture world would have to be ignorant of what they're predicting. The popularity of the books thus suggests that those prediction won't and can't come true.
And yet another paradox:
Premillennial pessimism and fatalism are ascendant in American evangelicalism. This is a view that, explicitly, teaches that heroism is for suckers and any attempt to change the world is futile. And yet these premillennial believers are more politically active than previous generations of evangelicals and fundamentalists.
The only explanation I can offer for this is that their convoluted theology confuses them even more than it confuses me.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Genocide: Good or Bad? It depends!
Israeli psychologist George Tamarin conducted a survey among 1000 Israeli school-children ages eight to fourteen. He presented to them the biblical story of Joshua and the Battle of Jericho, where Joshua commanded Israeli soldiers to slaughter all men, women, children, infants, and animals in the city, and to bring all gold and silver into the Israeli treasury.
The children were then asked a single moral question: Do you think Joshua and the Israeli soldiers acted rightly? The results were interesting. 66% of the children expressed total approval, 8 percent expressed partial approval, and 26% expressed total disapproval. Contrary to expectations, there was no difference in the answers between male and female children.
Those who expressed total approval typically gave religious reasons for their answer:
In my opinion Joshua and the Sons of Israel acted well, and here are the reasons: God promised them this land, and gave them permission to conquer. If they would not have acted in this manner or killed anyone, then there would be the danger that the Sons of Israel would have assimilated among the Goyim.
In my opinion Joshua was right when he did it, one reason being that God commanded him to exterminate the people so that the tribes of Israel will not be able to assimilate amongst them and learn their bad ways.
Joshua did good because the people who inhabited the land were of a different religion, and when Joshua killed them he wiped their religion from the earth.
Even some of those who expressed total disapproval did so for backhanded religious reasons. One girl wrote that even entering the land to perform the conquest ran grave risks:
I think it is bad, since the Arabs are impure and if one enters an impure land one will also become impure and share their curse.
Two others expressed disapproval because the Israelites slaughtered the animals as well, and those could have been kept as more loot.
What really makes this study interesting is that Tamarin also ran a control experiment. He presented the same story to 168 other school-children, except he substituted any mention of "Joshua" with "General Lin" and of "Israel" with "a Chinese kingdom 3,000 years ago." When asked the same question of approval, this time the results were reversed. Only 7% expressed approval, 18% gave partial approval, and 75% disapproved. As Richard Dawkins writes:
"In other words, when their loyalty to Judaism was removed from the calculation, the majority of the children agreed with the moral judgments that most modern humans would share. Joshua's action was a deed of barbaric genocide. But it all looks different from a religious point of view. And the difference starts early in life. It was religion that made the difference between children condemning genocide and condoning it." The God Delusion, p. 255
The children were then asked a single moral question: Do you think Joshua and the Israeli soldiers acted rightly? The results were interesting. 66% of the children expressed total approval, 8 percent expressed partial approval, and 26% expressed total disapproval. Contrary to expectations, there was no difference in the answers between male and female children.
Those who expressed total approval typically gave religious reasons for their answer:
In my opinion Joshua and the Sons of Israel acted well, and here are the reasons: God promised them this land, and gave them permission to conquer. If they would not have acted in this manner or killed anyone, then there would be the danger that the Sons of Israel would have assimilated among the Goyim.
In my opinion Joshua was right when he did it, one reason being that God commanded him to exterminate the people so that the tribes of Israel will not be able to assimilate amongst them and learn their bad ways.
Joshua did good because the people who inhabited the land were of a different religion, and when Joshua killed them he wiped their religion from the earth.
Even some of those who expressed total disapproval did so for backhanded religious reasons. One girl wrote that even entering the land to perform the conquest ran grave risks:
I think it is bad, since the Arabs are impure and if one enters an impure land one will also become impure and share their curse.
Two others expressed disapproval because the Israelites slaughtered the animals as well, and those could have been kept as more loot.
What really makes this study interesting is that Tamarin also ran a control experiment. He presented the same story to 168 other school-children, except he substituted any mention of "Joshua" with "General Lin" and of "Israel" with "a Chinese kingdom 3,000 years ago." When asked the same question of approval, this time the results were reversed. Only 7% expressed approval, 18% gave partial approval, and 75% disapproved. As Richard Dawkins writes:
"In other words, when their loyalty to Judaism was removed from the calculation, the majority of the children agreed with the moral judgments that most modern humans would share. Joshua's action was a deed of barbaric genocide. But it all looks different from a religious point of view. And the difference starts early in life. It was religion that made the difference between children condemning genocide and condoning it." The God Delusion, p. 255
Thursday, June 17, 2010
My Boss is a Jewish Carpenter
"Excuse me, sir. That's a nice car you have there."
"You think so? Thanks. I've had it for a couple of months now, and I love it."
"Is that the Lexus LS-10?"
"Yes, it came with the Luxury Package, and it drives like a dream."
"I'll bet. Say, that's an interesting bumper sticker you've got there."
"Oh . . . thanks."
"'My Boss is a Jewish Carpenter.' You must make a pretty penny as an apprentice carpenter to afford this car."
"Oh, heh, heh. You misunderstand. I'm not a carpenter; I'm an attorney. In this case, the Jewish Carpenter is Jesus Christ."
"Ah, my mistake. But how does that work, exactly?"
"What do you mean? I'm a Christian, and Jesus is my Lord. How does what work?"
"Well, I have a boss--she's not Jewish, though . . . I think she's Irish-Italian--anyway, when she tells me to do something, I have to do it."
"Sure, that's only normal."
"So your boss is the same way? If Jesus tells you to do something, you do it?"
"Absolutely."
"But he died a long time ago. How do you know what he wants you to do?"
"Well, we have his commands in the Bible, of course. But he didn't die--he rose again from the grave, and now he lives in my heart."
"Interesting . . . so if he ordered something in the Bible, you're supposed to obey it? Sort of like written orders from a commanding officer?"
"Exactly."
"What happens if you don't obey the orders?"
"That would be disobedience, a sin against my Lord."
"And that's bad?"
"Of course! That would jeopardize my relationship with my Heavenly Father."
"So if Jesus said 'March!' you would do so or suffer the consequences."
"You bet."
"What if you disagree with the order?"
"Not gonna happen. Our Lord is all-knowing, and he always knows what's best."
"Even though you can't see the value in the command, you're supposed to obey it anyway?"
"That's right. I might pray for the wisdom to see why He wants me to do something, to help shore up my faith. Usually, though, I receive the blessings after I obey, and I end up asking myself why I dragged my feet so long. It's almost spooky how it works like that."
"That sounds fascinating."
"Would you like to join me in church this Sunday?"
"Oh, no. One boss is enough for me. I would like to make one request, however."
"What's that?"
"Give me two percent of your annual income for the rest of your life."
"What? What're you, a panhandler?"
"Oh no, I'm not hassling you for spare change. I have a decent job. But I want two percent of your annual income for the rest of your life."
"Are you out of your mind? I'll do no such thing."
"Well, now I'm confused. You just finished saying that you obey the commands of your Jewish Carpenter boss, and now you're about to disobey one."
"I hardly think so. Jesus may have commanded me to help the poor, but you don't look like you're bad off, and I give to my church for charity works."
"Well, like I said, I don't consider myself poor. But that's not the point. Jesus ordered you to give to me."
"Oh he did no such thing."
"Do you have a Bible?"
"No, I don't have one with--"
"That's okay, I happen to have a pocket New Testament right here. Ah, here we are. Matthew Chapter 5, verse 42: 'Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.'"
"That's ridiculous, that's not what that means."
"I don't understand. Jesus is ordering you to give to anyone who asks. I'm asking for only two percent of your annual income."
"If I gave to every two-bit charity with a hand out, I'd be impoverished."
"I would say so. But are you questioning your orders from your boss?"
"No, of course not."
"It sounds like you are. You said you would never disagree with the order because your boss doesn't give bad ones, you said that if you disobey the order you'd be committing a sin, and you said that you sometimes feel better about obeying the order afterwards. So what's the problem?"
"You're the problem, that's what! I only give to those in true need."
"But the order wasn't, 'Give to those in need.' It was, 'Give to those who ask.' It won't be hard. A successful attorney like you probably makes more than six figures. A few thousand dollars a year won't bankrupt you. Perhaps you could trade in your Lexus for a Honda to make up the difference."
"Look, you. Christianity is a lot more than just following orders. It's about a relationship--that's what's important."
"But your bumper sticker says that the Jewish Carpenter is your boss, not your friend. Aren't you disobeying a direct order from your boss?"
"That's not what that means, and you know it."
"It sure sounds like it to me. Is this a bad order, or is it a good order that you are going to disobey?"
"I don't suppose you give to everyone who asks."
"Of course not, that would be silly. I'm sure that would leave me homeless in no time. But then my boss hasn't ordered me to do that. If she did, I would resign and find a new boss. What's your excuse?"
"This conversation is ridiculous."
"Well, if you ever change your mind, here's my e-mail address that's linked to my Paypal account. You can have your bank make a monthly transfer and receive the blessings of your obedience, just like you said . . . or you could find a new boss and start living your life like a rational adult."
"You think so? Thanks. I've had it for a couple of months now, and I love it."
"Is that the Lexus LS-10?"
"Yes, it came with the Luxury Package, and it drives like a dream."
"I'll bet. Say, that's an interesting bumper sticker you've got there."
"Oh . . . thanks."
"'My Boss is a Jewish Carpenter.' You must make a pretty penny as an apprentice carpenter to afford this car."
"Oh, heh, heh. You misunderstand. I'm not a carpenter; I'm an attorney. In this case, the Jewish Carpenter is Jesus Christ."
"Ah, my mistake. But how does that work, exactly?"
"What do you mean? I'm a Christian, and Jesus is my Lord. How does what work?"
"Well, I have a boss--she's not Jewish, though . . . I think she's Irish-Italian--anyway, when she tells me to do something, I have to do it."
"Sure, that's only normal."
"So your boss is the same way? If Jesus tells you to do something, you do it?"
"Absolutely."
"But he died a long time ago. How do you know what he wants you to do?"
"Well, we have his commands in the Bible, of course. But he didn't die--he rose again from the grave, and now he lives in my heart."
"Interesting . . . so if he ordered something in the Bible, you're supposed to obey it? Sort of like written orders from a commanding officer?"
"Exactly."
"What happens if you don't obey the orders?"
"That would be disobedience, a sin against my Lord."
"And that's bad?"
"Of course! That would jeopardize my relationship with my Heavenly Father."
"So if Jesus said 'March!' you would do so or suffer the consequences."
"You bet."
"What if you disagree with the order?"
"Not gonna happen. Our Lord is all-knowing, and he always knows what's best."
"Even though you can't see the value in the command, you're supposed to obey it anyway?"
"That's right. I might pray for the wisdom to see why He wants me to do something, to help shore up my faith. Usually, though, I receive the blessings after I obey, and I end up asking myself why I dragged my feet so long. It's almost spooky how it works like that."
"That sounds fascinating."
"Would you like to join me in church this Sunday?"
"Oh, no. One boss is enough for me. I would like to make one request, however."
"What's that?"
"Give me two percent of your annual income for the rest of your life."
"What? What're you, a panhandler?"
"Oh no, I'm not hassling you for spare change. I have a decent job. But I want two percent of your annual income for the rest of your life."
"Are you out of your mind? I'll do no such thing."
"Well, now I'm confused. You just finished saying that you obey the commands of your Jewish Carpenter boss, and now you're about to disobey one."
"I hardly think so. Jesus may have commanded me to help the poor, but you don't look like you're bad off, and I give to my church for charity works."
"Well, like I said, I don't consider myself poor. But that's not the point. Jesus ordered you to give to me."
"Oh he did no such thing."
"Do you have a Bible?"
"No, I don't have one with--"
"That's okay, I happen to have a pocket New Testament right here. Ah, here we are. Matthew Chapter 5, verse 42: 'Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.'"
"That's ridiculous, that's not what that means."
"I don't understand. Jesus is ordering you to give to anyone who asks. I'm asking for only two percent of your annual income."
"If I gave to every two-bit charity with a hand out, I'd be impoverished."
"I would say so. But are you questioning your orders from your boss?"
"No, of course not."
"It sounds like you are. You said you would never disagree with the order because your boss doesn't give bad ones, you said that if you disobey the order you'd be committing a sin, and you said that you sometimes feel better about obeying the order afterwards. So what's the problem?"
"You're the problem, that's what! I only give to those in true need."
"But the order wasn't, 'Give to those in need.' It was, 'Give to those who ask.' It won't be hard. A successful attorney like you probably makes more than six figures. A few thousand dollars a year won't bankrupt you. Perhaps you could trade in your Lexus for a Honda to make up the difference."
"Look, you. Christianity is a lot more than just following orders. It's about a relationship--that's what's important."
"But your bumper sticker says that the Jewish Carpenter is your boss, not your friend. Aren't you disobeying a direct order from your boss?"
"That's not what that means, and you know it."
"It sure sounds like it to me. Is this a bad order, or is it a good order that you are going to disobey?"
"I don't suppose you give to everyone who asks."
"Of course not, that would be silly. I'm sure that would leave me homeless in no time. But then my boss hasn't ordered me to do that. If she did, I would resign and find a new boss. What's your excuse?"
"This conversation is ridiculous."
"Well, if you ever change your mind, here's my e-mail address that's linked to my Paypal account. You can have your bank make a monthly transfer and receive the blessings of your obedience, just like you said . . . or you could find a new boss and start living your life like a rational adult."
Friday, July 31, 2009
Father testifies he hoped God would heal his child
It's a heart-breaking story. An eleven-year old girl is dying of diabetes. Her father doesn't take her to a doctor or a hospital. Instead, he prays for her and asks his God to heal her.
The girl dies in her home, surrounded by her father and other people praying for her. In the end, she couldn't walk, speak or even eat.
Dale Neumann, 47, has been charged with second-degree reckless homicide, and recently testified on his behalf in court in Wasau, Wisconsin. When asked why he didn't seek medical help for his child, Neumann told jurors:
The girl dies in her home, surrounded by her father and other people praying for her. In the end, she couldn't walk, speak or even eat.
Dale Neumann, 47, has been charged with second-degree reckless homicide, and recently testified on his behalf in court in Wasau, Wisconsin. When asked why he didn't seek medical help for his child, Neumann told jurors:
"I can't do that because Biblically, I cannot find that is the way people are healed."
Source: MSNBC.com
Neumann is partially correct. In the New Testament, many people are healed through divine providence, be it Jesus or the apostles. There's almost no mention whatsoever of medical science in the New Testament, primitive as it must have been.
In three gospels, Jesus cites the often-quoted phrase, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick." (Matthew 9:12; Mark 2:17; Luke 5:31) What's more, the quote was in response to criticisms that Jesus was spending too much time with sinful people, whereas Jesus replied that who better needs to experience God than those farthest from him. So this line can best be seen as an analogy to make a spiritual point, rather than a piece of advice to those wondering what to do with a sick child. At any rate, this one sentence must have been thin gruel compared to the numerous fantastical accounts of Jesus touching people and having them rise off of their sickbeds, or even from their graves.
On the other hand, the Gospel of Mark tells a story of a woman "subject to bleeding for twelve years." (5:25) Mark tells us that she had "suffered a great deal" when visiting the doctors, who had taken all the money she had and yet had gotten worse, but she was instantly healed when touching Jesus' cloak. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for the power of medical science, and this makes it understandable why Neumann may have been skeptical of doctors.
Of course, this still goes on today. Never mind what inefficiencies the sick undergo when dealing with insurance companies, it is still common for someone today to spend themselves into bankruptcy without ever receiving a cure. Medical science has significantly improved in the last two thousand years, but what we don't know about the human body can still leave the best of medical science baffled.
But Neumann's daughter sufferered from diabetes, not some exotic tropical disease that no one has heard of. She suffered from a treatable disease and could have lived a long, full life under medical supervision. Instead, her parents just wanted to pray for her, even as she declined in health. Neumann's wife Leilani was tried separately and found guilty, and now faces up to 25 years in prison.
Side note: According to Colossians 4:14, the apostle Luke was a doctor, and in his gospel he also recounts the story of the sick woman healed by touching Jesus' cloak (8:40-48). For some reason, though, Doctor Luke omits the line that the doctors had bled the woman dry of all her money. In a nice example of closing ranks, Luke simply states, "No one could heal her."
In three gospels, Jesus cites the often-quoted phrase, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick." (Matthew 9:12; Mark 2:17; Luke 5:31) What's more, the quote was in response to criticisms that Jesus was spending too much time with sinful people, whereas Jesus replied that who better needs to experience God than those farthest from him. So this line can best be seen as an analogy to make a spiritual point, rather than a piece of advice to those wondering what to do with a sick child. At any rate, this one sentence must have been thin gruel compared to the numerous fantastical accounts of Jesus touching people and having them rise off of their sickbeds, or even from their graves.
On the other hand, the Gospel of Mark tells a story of a woman "subject to bleeding for twelve years." (5:25) Mark tells us that she had "suffered a great deal" when visiting the doctors, who had taken all the money she had and yet had gotten worse, but she was instantly healed when touching Jesus' cloak. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for the power of medical science, and this makes it understandable why Neumann may have been skeptical of doctors.
Of course, this still goes on today. Never mind what inefficiencies the sick undergo when dealing with insurance companies, it is still common for someone today to spend themselves into bankruptcy without ever receiving a cure. Medical science has significantly improved in the last two thousand years, but what we don't know about the human body can still leave the best of medical science baffled.
But Neumann's daughter sufferered from diabetes, not some exotic tropical disease that no one has heard of. She suffered from a treatable disease and could have lived a long, full life under medical supervision. Instead, her parents just wanted to pray for her, even as she declined in health. Neumann's wife Leilani was tried separately and found guilty, and now faces up to 25 years in prison.
Side note: According to Colossians 4:14, the apostle Luke was a doctor, and in his gospel he also recounts the story of the sick woman healed by touching Jesus' cloak (8:40-48). For some reason, though, Doctor Luke omits the line that the doctors had bled the woman dry of all her money. In a nice example of closing ranks, Luke simply states, "No one could heal her."
*************************
Update: As expected, Neumann was found guilty of second-degree reckless homicide. He'll be sentenced along with his wife in October.
Friday, June 26, 2009
The Brick Testament wraps up Revelations
The Book of Revelations comes to a close in the Brick Testament. I'll let the Reverend Brandon Powell Smith summarize:
Ever performed a magic trick for your friends? Committed adultery? Worshipped an idol? Are you cowardly? How about filthy? Have you ever told a lie? If so, bad news. You are going to be ceaselessly tortured for all eternity.
Good news, though, if you are a male Jewish virgin. A lucky 144,000 of you are going to get to live on the New Improved Earth with Yahweh. Sound fun? Did I mention the whole place is made out of gold? And has good water and 12 kinds of fruit all year round? Pretty sweet, huh? Plus, there will be no crying, no pain, and no death. And everybody gets a cool tattoo of Yahweh's name on their forehead and worships Yahweh to his face!
But guess what? No chicks. And no being sad about your loved ones being eternally roasted in flames while you bask in Yahweh's glow.
Yes, folks, our final four illustrated stories from Revelation, reveal God's ultimate plan for humanity in full. And what a plan it is. Sure you may have been wondering what all that crazy build-up was leading to, what with all God's elaborate killings and tortures of the vast majority of humankind. But when you finally see that all those people who were tortured and killed on Earth are also going to be tortured in burning hot flames for ever and ever after they died horrible deaths, it all just suddenly comes together. So go now, read the final stories of Revelation and have your own A-ha! moment. Happy epiphany!
Monday, April 13, 2009
The Brick Testament looks at the Book of Revelations
Rev. Brendan Powell Smith of the popular Brick Testament site takes on The Apocalypse of John, or commonly known as The Book of Revelations. Rev. Smith recreates biblical scenes in Lego, putting a visual twist on familiar bible passages.
This time, Smith has tackled the early chapters of John's visions and--what many believe--our world's near future.
The passages are filled with allegory, as huge bizarre animals populate the throne room of God and, if depicted in a non-Biblical setting, would suggest the influence of mind-altering chemicals.
Smith has cleverly depicted God giving his Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse the authority to slaughter one-quarter of the Earth's population, which if it occurred in April 2009, would total 1.7 billion people, all of them killed due to war, famine, and plague.
This time, Smith has tackled the early chapters of John's visions and--what many believe--our world's near future.
The passages are filled with allegory, as huge bizarre animals populate the throne room of God and, if depicted in a non-Biblical setting, would suggest the influence of mind-altering chemicals.
Smith has cleverly depicted God giving his Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse the authority to slaughter one-quarter of the Earth's population, which if it occurred in April 2009, would total 1.7 billion people, all of them killed due to war, famine, and plague.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Noah's Ark Replica
According to the Book of Genesis, God warned Noah that he was going to flood the entire earth to eliminate evil humanity. To spare Noah, God gave him specific instructions to build an ark large enough to hold a sample of all the world's animals, plus food and supplies for over a year. The Genesis account is detailed enough that we can know exactly how large this ark was supposed to be.
Dutch Creationist John Huibers took the listed dimensions to heart and built a replica of the ark that spans two-thirds of a football field.
People are reportedly amazed at the size of the replica, but the Biblical dimensions would make it even five times larger.
On the other hand, there are additional problems with the replica. For one thing, the pictures show a long row of windows across the top, whereas the Biblical account implies that Noah built only a single window less than eighteen inches on a side. Never mind the inaccuracies of the replica; how was Noah and his family to deal with tons of methane-producing manure with only a single small window for ventilation.
The TalkOrigins site has an excellent article called Problems with a Global Flood which provides this information:
Whether Huibers built an impressive replica or not, Noah's Ark is certainly beyond the realm of feasability.
Dutch Creationist John Huibers took the listed dimensions to heart and built a replica of the ark that spans two-thirds of a football field.
People are reportedly amazed at the size of the replica, but the Biblical dimensions would make it even five times larger.
On the other hand, there are additional problems with the replica. For one thing, the pictures show a long row of windows across the top, whereas the Biblical account implies that Noah built only a single window less than eighteen inches on a side. Never mind the inaccuracies of the replica; how was Noah and his family to deal with tons of methane-producing manure with only a single small window for ventilation.
The TalkOrigins site has an excellent article called Problems with a Global Flood which provides this information:
Wood is not the best material for shipbuilding. It is not enough that a ship be built to hold together; it must also be sturdy enough that the changing stresses don't open gaps in its hull. Wood is simply not strong enough to prevent separation between the joints, especially in the heavy seas that the Ark would have encountered. The longest wooden ships in modern seas are about 300 feet, and these require reinforcing with iron straps and leak so badly they must be constantly pumped. The ark was 450 feet long [ Gen. 6:15]. Could an ark that size be made seaworthy?
Whether Huibers built an impressive replica or not, Noah's Ark is certainly beyond the realm of feasability.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
The Good Book, by David Plotz
David Plotz, editor of Slate magazine, was a mildly-observant Jew. While bored during a bat mitzvah, he idly flipped through a copy of the Torah (Old Testament) and was surprised to read a passage about the rape of Dinah in Genesis 34. Rape, duplicity, and murder? In the Holy Scriptures??
He realized that he had never sat down and actually read the book his religion and culture were based on. So he started blogging his experience, one long chapter of genealogies at a time.
That was a couple of years ago, and now Plotz has edited his blog posts into a book called The Good Book: The Bizarre, Hilarious, Disturbing, Marvelous, and Inspiring Things I Learned When I Read Every Single Word of the Bible, available now.
Plotz has two primary takeaway messages. First, he argues that too many people are not familiar with the Bible, and they are missing out on the wellspring of much of our mutual culture. He was continually surprised to finally read the origins of certain catchphrases such as "Into the Lions' Den" and the original usage of MLK's "I have a dream." Common plot devices such as mannequins propped in bed to foil assassins had their origin in the Jewish scriptures. As Plotz writes:
"Not to sound like a theocratic crank, but I'm actually shocked that students aren't compelled to read huge chunks of the Bible in high school and college, the way they must read Shakespeare or the Constitution or Mark Twain."
His second point was less pleasant. Have you ever known somebody that seemed more or less normal until you investigated further and found out the dark and sordid truth about her character? That's what Plotz discovered about the Bible's number-one character: Jehovah. He writes:
"I began the Bible as a hopeful, but indifferent, agnostic. I wished for a God, but I didn't really care. I leave the Bible as a hopeless and angry agnostic. I'm brokenhearted about God.After reading about the genocides, the plagues, the murders, the mass enslavements, the ruthless vengeance for minor sins (or none at all), and all that smiting—every bit of it directly performed, authorized, or approved by God—I can only conclude that the God of the Hebrew Bible, if He existed, was awful, cruel, and capricious. He gives us moments of beauty—such sublime beauty and grace!—but taken as a whole, He is no God I want to obey and no God I can love."
Of course, as Plotz blogged his WTF moments ("God killed seventy thousand people with plague because King David conducted a census? That God himself ordered David to do??") he was naturally bombarded with apologists of two kinds. Jews wanted to punt to mystery, arguing that our ways are not God's ways so we can't judge him by human standards. Plotz rightfully argues that if God made him to be a rational person, then he can rationally find God to be irrational. If God has a problem with that he only has himself to blame.
Christians, on the other hand, wanted Plotz to just overlook those difficult Old Testament passages--the ones that they themselves ignore quite easily--and remember that's it all setup for the New Testament's Jesus to make everything right. "Sure, God may have been a bit, um, brusque in the OT, but thanks to Jesus we all get to live in Heaven someday! Doesn't that make up for the genocides and stuff?" In a word, Plotz says, No.
"I'm a Jew. I don't, and can't, believe that Christ died for my sins. And even if he did, I still don't think that would wash away God's crimes in the Old Testament."
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Two Problems with Biblical Literalism
Fred Clark who writes the slactivist blog, complains about Biblical literalists. Clark is an admitted Christian, but there are two problems he has with people who believe in Young-Earth Creationism:
Clark describes a particular kind of fundamentalist who eventually learns that the neatly compartmentalized tight beliefs that he grew up with are not even close to being truth. Then the pendulum swings too far in the opposite direction, Clark complains:
I personally didn't go through this "anti-fundamentalist fundamentalist" stage he describes, or if I did it lasted about ten minutes. Those that I know that no longer are biblical literalists aren't this angry, cynical creature Clark speaks of, either.
But I do recognize this character from popular movies and television. For example, Character is a person of deep faith. Character undergoes personal crisis. Character rejects his faith and seethes at God, himself, and anyone else who believes in God. Inevitably, if the story goes on long enough, Character softens (often thanks to the kindness of another) and begins to believe again, but with a more mature, less strident faith, and all is well with the world.
Clark says his scenario is not hypothetical and is not rare. It's not my experience, however.
His second complaint against Biblical literalists seems to be that they don't seek the poetic metaphors behind, say, the first eleven chapters of Genesis but instead treat it as a neutral history text:
Of course, one could simply argue: That's because that's what they were raised to believe. Biblical literalism is, to me, an invevitablity of dogmatic faith, a method to assert, "My god can beat up your god."
If I'm going to, say, explain the substitutionary death of Jesus using the Bible, it helps my case to refer to the Bible passage as an accurate account, just as it would help me demonstrate that Lincoln was the U.S. President during the Civil War by referring to newspaper reports. But if only some passages of my Bible are accepted as literal, then the inevitable question becomes, "Which ones?" We could argue back and forth about which passages are literal and which are metaphorical forever. The only way I can end the argument is by declaring the entire book to be a literal account, thus leaving my opponent no wiggle-room.
Of course, once I've made that claim, then I'm forced to defend that the Earth was covered in a world-wide flood, donkeys can talk, and a man walked on water. If scientific evidence disputes me, then I either reject the science or invoke a miracle to cover myself.
I've no doubt that Clark is frustrated by this behavior--most rational thinking adults are, whether they believe in God or not. What I don't understand is why he doesn't understand where it came from.
Despite my difficulty in understanding how exiling Adam and Eve for seeking knowledge or committing watery genocide are examples of God's "inherent goodness," Clark doesn't seem to see the trap he's laying for himself. If Noah's Ark is a cosmic metaphor--meaning it didn't really happen, everybody knows that!--then perhaps that means the crucifixion of Jesus didn't really happen either. Everybody knows that people don't rise from the dead! Maybe there isn't even a God, either--there certainly isn't much evidence, is there? If the reported miracles of God are reduced to poetic story-telling, then we can no longer claim that God exists because of the existence of miracles, can we?
He demonstrates this point in a footnote when he complains that certain cynics look at the two different accounts of Creation in Genesis 1 and 2 and declare them a discrepancy. He compares this to Robert Burns describing love like both a rose and a melody--is that a discrepancy? Okay then, when the authors of Genesis wrote two accounts of the beginning of the world, they were only speaking poetically. Fine. This puts the Biblical account of our beginnings into the same category as just one more ancient creation myth. No problem. And the accounts of Moses and Joshua are just more ancient hero tales with no more or less relevance than stories about Hercules or Jason and the Argonauts. And Jesus is just one more demi-god resurrection myth who can no more answer my prayers than Dionysus or Superman.
I can live with that.
The first is that it is not just false, but demonstrably false, and is thus often the place where the collapse begins for soon-to-be-former Christians raised to believe in the fundamentalist house of cards. . . If every item isn't true -- or isn't blindly accepted as true -- then they insist that it all must be false. Thus if it is not true that the world was created in six, 24-hour days about 6,800 years ago, then it is not true that Jesus loves you. Or that you should love others as Jesus has loved you. Or that your sins are forgiven. Or that you are anything but alone and godforsaken when you walk through the valley of the shadow of death.
Clark describes a particular kind of fundamentalist who eventually learns that the neatly compartmentalized tight beliefs that he grew up with are not even close to being truth. Then the pendulum swings too far in the opposite direction, Clark complains:
They become as strident and binary in their unbelief as their failed mentors at Bob Jones were in their belief. Yet even their rebellion tends to remain shaped by that world and its narrowly imagined options.
I personally didn't go through this "anti-fundamentalist fundamentalist" stage he describes, or if I did it lasted about ten minutes. Those that I know that no longer are biblical literalists aren't this angry, cynical creature Clark speaks of, either.
But I do recognize this character from popular movies and television. For example, Character is a person of deep faith. Character undergoes personal crisis. Character rejects his faith and seethes at God, himself, and anyone else who believes in God. Inevitably, if the story goes on long enough, Character softens (often thanks to the kindness of another) and begins to believe again, but with a more mature, less strident faith, and all is well with the world.
Clark says his scenario is not hypothetical and is not rare. It's not my experience, however.
His second complaint against Biblical literalists seems to be that they don't seek the poetic metaphors behind, say, the first eleven chapters of Genesis but instead treat it as a neutral history text:
The accounts of creation seemed, for them, to have nothing to say about divine intent or divine affection, but only about divine technique. The story of Noah seemed to be nothing more than a complicated word problem involving the measuring of livestock capacity in cubits. The story of Adam giving names to all the animals seemed, to them, to be a reason not to learn about biodiversity. And I probably don't need to tell you how they seemed to regard that bit about the Tree of Knowledge.
Of course, one could simply argue: That's because that's what they were raised to believe. Biblical literalism is, to me, an invevitablity of dogmatic faith, a method to assert, "My god can beat up your god."
If I'm going to, say, explain the substitutionary death of Jesus using the Bible, it helps my case to refer to the Bible passage as an accurate account, just as it would help me demonstrate that Lincoln was the U.S. President during the Civil War by referring to newspaper reports. But if only some passages of my Bible are accepted as literal, then the inevitable question becomes, "Which ones?" We could argue back and forth about which passages are literal and which are metaphorical forever. The only way I can end the argument is by declaring the entire book to be a literal account, thus leaving my opponent no wiggle-room.Of course, once I've made that claim, then I'm forced to defend that the Earth was covered in a world-wide flood, donkeys can talk, and a man walked on water. If scientific evidence disputes me, then I either reject the science or invoke a miracle to cover myself.
I've no doubt that Clark is frustrated by this behavior--most rational thinking adults are, whether they believe in God or not. What I don't understand is why he doesn't understand where it came from.
For them, the creation accounts* and the story of Noah in the early chapters of Genesis have nothing to say about the inherent goodness of creation or about the obligation of stewardship. For them these chapters exist solely as some kind of divine amicus brief in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District -- as polemic arguments, that is, in a 20th-century American political dispute that has little to do with either science or theology.
Despite my difficulty in understanding how exiling Adam and Eve for seeking knowledge or committing watery genocide are examples of God's "inherent goodness," Clark doesn't seem to see the trap he's laying for himself. If Noah's Ark is a cosmic metaphor--meaning it didn't really happen, everybody knows that!--then perhaps that means the crucifixion of Jesus didn't really happen either. Everybody knows that people don't rise from the dead! Maybe there isn't even a God, either--there certainly isn't much evidence, is there? If the reported miracles of God are reduced to poetic story-telling, then we can no longer claim that God exists because of the existence of miracles, can we?
He demonstrates this point in a footnote when he complains that certain cynics look at the two different accounts of Creation in Genesis 1 and 2 and declare them a discrepancy. He compares this to Robert Burns describing love like both a rose and a melody--is that a discrepancy? Okay then, when the authors of Genesis wrote two accounts of the beginning of the world, they were only speaking poetically. Fine. This puts the Biblical account of our beginnings into the same category as just one more ancient creation myth. No problem. And the accounts of Moses and Joshua are just more ancient hero tales with no more or less relevance than stories about Hercules or Jason and the Argonauts. And Jesus is just one more demi-god resurrection myth who can no more answer my prayers than Dionysus or Superman.
I can live with that.
Monday, January 19, 2009
The Straight Dope on The Exodus
Here's an old entry(dated March 3, 1981) to Cecil Adams of The Straight Dope trivia column regarding the veracity of the Ten Plagues of Moses and the Exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt. The Book of Exodus portrays the Plagues and Exodus as historical fact, but the archaeological record is silent. Not only is there no other evidence (outside of the Bible) that the Hebrews fled Egypt afer a series of devastating plagues, but some of the plagues are naturally-occurring phenomena anyway, such as the river Nile turning blood-red.
Furthermore, the story of Exodus clearly portrays the capriciousness of Jehovah and the Hebrews who worshipped him. Jehovah punishes the Egyptians for enslaving the Hebrews, but for some reason needed over four hundred years to work up the appropriate amount of divine wrath. Once the devastation began, however, Exodus records that Jehovah hardened Pharoah's heart in order to allow the plagues to continue. During the tenth plague, the "angel of the Lord" kills the firstborn of all Egypt with the notable exception of Pharoah himself, who should have been the firstborn in his family, no? Finally, after the Hebrews crossed the Red Sea, Jehovah didn't close the waters behind them preventing the Egyptian army from chasing them down. No, he waited until the Egyptians were in the river bed before releasing the waters, thus needlessly drowning them.
Furthermore, the story of Exodus clearly portrays the capriciousness of Jehovah and the Hebrews who worshipped him. Jehovah punishes the Egyptians for enslaving the Hebrews, but for some reason needed over four hundred years to work up the appropriate amount of divine wrath. Once the devastation began, however, Exodus records that Jehovah hardened Pharoah's heart in order to allow the plagues to continue. During the tenth plague, the "angel of the Lord" kills the firstborn of all Egypt with the notable exception of Pharoah himself, who should have been the firstborn in his family, no? Finally, after the Hebrews crossed the Red Sea, Jehovah didn't close the waters behind them preventing the Egyptian army from chasing them down. No, he waited until the Egyptians were in the river bed before releasing the waters, thus needlessly drowning them.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Book Review - The Origin of Satan
Title: The Origin of Satan
Author: Elaine Pagels
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 978-0679731184
Satan is a familiar character to Christians and non-Christians alike. He's the Prince of Darkness, a fallen angel doomed to walk the earth, the lord of a diabolical army dedicated to the overthrow of God's throne. Unfortunately, such images are largely the product of John Milton's Paradise Lost and have nothing to do with the Satan of the Bible.
In the Old Testament, Satan is a forbidding but ultimately obedient member of Jehovah's pantheon. He's no more evil than a prosecuting attorney. But by the New Testament era, Satan has become a convenient placeholder for Christians to identify their enemies--first Jews, then the pagan Romans, and finally heretics within the Christian faith itself.
Pagels began her research for this book assuming that the purpose of the doctrine of Satan was to spiritualize the natural universe and explain the persecution of a breakaway Jewish sect called Christianity. To her surprise, she learned that Satan evolved into an evil force reserved for one's most intimate enemies. Pagels carefully compares the four gospel accounts, identifying obvious trends to demonize Jews and exonerate the Romans for the death of Jesus--even to the point of absurdity.
For example, the gentle Pontius Pilate of the gospels has nothing to do with the brutal Pilate of history. Even sympathetic Roman historians portrayed Pilate from negative to bitterly hostile. Yet the gospel writers portray him as weak and compassionate in order to exonerate him and the Romans of the death of Jesus. Pagels quotes historian Paul Winters who writes: "...the stern Pilate grows more mellow from gospel to gospel . . . the more removed from history, the more sympathetic a character he becomes."
The opposite effect occurred with regard to the Jews, as each gospel (read chronologically) portrays the Jews acting more and more culpable for Jesus' death. This is exactly what we would expect as the growing Christian movement tried to distinguish itself from the Jewish religion from which it sprung.
Over time, Christians used a growing vocabulary to identify their list of enemies as "sons of hell" or "forces of darkness." But this was not confined to first-century Christians; Martin Luther in the sixteenth century denounced as "agents of Satan" all Christians who remained loyal Roman Catholics, all Jews who refused to recognize Jesus as the Messiah, all who challenged wealthy landowners in the Peasant's War, and even all Protestant Christians who were not specifically Lutheran.
Pagels has written a marvelous book here, stripping Satan of his unearthly power, and presenting "The Evil One" as the nameless, faceless force that lies behind one's own paranoia and persecutors.
Author: Elaine Pagels
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 978-0679731184
Satan is a familiar character to Christians and non-Christians alike. He's the Prince of Darkness, a fallen angel doomed to walk the earth, the lord of a diabolical army dedicated to the overthrow of God's throne. Unfortunately, such images are largely the product of John Milton's Paradise Lost and have nothing to do with the Satan of the Bible.
In the Old Testament, Satan is a forbidding but ultimately obedient member of Jehovah's pantheon. He's no more evil than a prosecuting attorney. But by the New Testament era, Satan has become a convenient placeholder for Christians to identify their enemies--first Jews, then the pagan Romans, and finally heretics within the Christian faith itself.
Pagels began her research for this book assuming that the purpose of the doctrine of Satan was to spiritualize the natural universe and explain the persecution of a breakaway Jewish sect called Christianity. To her surprise, she learned that Satan evolved into an evil force reserved for one's most intimate enemies. Pagels carefully compares the four gospel accounts, identifying obvious trends to demonize Jews and exonerate the Romans for the death of Jesus--even to the point of absurdity.
For example, the gentle Pontius Pilate of the gospels has nothing to do with the brutal Pilate of history. Even sympathetic Roman historians portrayed Pilate from negative to bitterly hostile. Yet the gospel writers portray him as weak and compassionate in order to exonerate him and the Romans of the death of Jesus. Pagels quotes historian Paul Winters who writes: "...the stern Pilate grows more mellow from gospel to gospel . . . the more removed from history, the more sympathetic a character he becomes."
The opposite effect occurred with regard to the Jews, as each gospel (read chronologically) portrays the Jews acting more and more culpable for Jesus' death. This is exactly what we would expect as the growing Christian movement tried to distinguish itself from the Jewish religion from which it sprung.
Over time, Christians used a growing vocabulary to identify their list of enemies as "sons of hell" or "forces of darkness." But this was not confined to first-century Christians; Martin Luther in the sixteenth century denounced as "agents of Satan" all Christians who remained loyal Roman Catholics, all Jews who refused to recognize Jesus as the Messiah, all who challenged wealthy landowners in the Peasant's War, and even all Protestant Christians who were not specifically Lutheran.
Pagels has written a marvelous book here, stripping Satan of his unearthly power, and presenting "The Evil One" as the nameless, faceless force that lies behind one's own paranoia and persecutors.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Most Popular Fairytale?
Yesterday, while browsing in my local bookstore, I picked up a small 3x5 card dropped on the floor. On the front was printed, "The World's Ten Most Popular Things (Test Your Knowledge)." Below that are several questions such as, "Most popular name?" and "Most popular car?" After each question is a scratch-off like a lottery ticket revealing the answer ("Mohammed" and "VW Beetle", respectively).
The final question is "Most popular fairy tale?" No, the answer is not "Hansel and Gretel" or "Cinderella." Scratching off the answer reveals the world's most popular fairy tale is "Darwinian evolution." Surprise, you've just been set up. In truth, this card isn't a harmless hand-out featuring trivia; it's a witnessing tract produced by Living Waters Publications, a fundamentalist Christian publishing firm. A case of 100 of these scratch-off cards costs $8.00. Someone paid to get this tract into my hands, then left it behind at the bookstore with the hopes of me reading it.. Thank you, whoever you are, for I am going to analyze this publication.
Below the questions and answers is a long, dense paragraph in small print that tries to cram as many of the Evangelical Right's talking points as possible onto both sides. The paragraph reads:
"Do you believe the last one?" (Meaning that Darwinian Evolution is the world's most popular fairy tale.) "If you don't, go to www.IntelligentDesignVersusEvolution.com and pick up $10,000--if you can provide just one living "transitional form." (I'll deal with this challenge in another entry.)
"Before you do," reads the tract, "test your knowledge one more time: What does someone have to do to go to Heaven?" How did a question about evolution suddenly turn into a religious quiz? Which religion's heaven are we talking about here?
"The answer is to look to the Ten Commandments." Ah, Living Waters is clearly referring to the Christian heaven. They cite the Ten Commandments, which is a set of Jewish laws provided by Jehovah to ancient Hebrews--a people who, by the way, had little to no concept of Heaven other than the place where Jehovah and other gods resided. Ancient Hebrews would have not understood the idea of them going to heaven given that they barely had an understanding of an afterlife. But some Christians have gleaned out the parts of the Jewish law that they like, ignored vast swaths of Jewish law that they don't, and mashed it with the apocalyptic teaching of Jesus and Paul, which allows them to judge others on their eternal destination.
"Have you loved God above all else? That's the requirement of the First Commandment." Is there a God? Which God do you mean? How can I love something that I can't interact with? Why would God be offended if I love my wife or son more than I love him--are his feelings that easy to bruise?
"Or have you broken the Second by making a god in your mind that you're comfortable with, a god to suit yourself--something the Bible calls 'idolatry'?" First, how can I make a god in my mind? Second, nowhere in the Bible is idolatry defined as a comfortable concept in my mind. Idolatry in the Bible is always associated with outward expressions of worship--not inward thoughts.
"Have you ever used God's name in vain?" Perhaps, but why would an omnipotent God care if I did? Incidentally, I don't think the Third Commandment is about the words we utter when we stub our toes but are more related to speaking curses against others while invoking God for powerful effect--in other words, using God to invoke magic. Which I have never done.
"Have you always honored your parents implicitly, and kept the Sabbath holy?" While I have not always obeyed my parents--particulary when they were raising me--I fully honor them today, implicitly and explicitly--and did so even when a child. I don't disobey people I don't honor--what's the point of rebelling against people that don't affect me? Even if I did, my parents have forgiven my childish slights and fully love me today. Why is that so difficult for God to do?
Also, I have not kept the Sabbath holy because I do not subscribe to the Jewish religion.
"Have you hated someone? The Bible says, 'whoever hates his brother is a murderer.'" Yes, I have hated people in the past, usually to no end. I have never murderered anyone, however. If someone feels that hating someone is just the same as murdering them, then perhaps we need to rewrite the American criminal code to allow trying and convicting people who hate others. But this would be silly, of course, as everyone has likely either hated or been hated by someone somewhere. Humans are an emotional species and hatred is easy to come by. I can see if someone might poetically compare the emotions of hatred with the emotions surrounded by murder, but to argue that hate equals literal murder is absurd. What's more, Psalm 105 states that God turns hearts to hatred to serve his purposes, so how can he then judge us for hating?
"The Seventh is, "You shall not commit adultery," but Jesus said, "Whoever looks upon a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart" (the Seventh Commandment includes sex before marriage)." First, no the Seventh Commandment does not include pre-marital sex. It says "you shall not commit adultery." Throwing in other sins to make sure you've covered everyone is deceptive. Second, so what if Jesus thinks being attracted to someone of the opposite sex is the same as adultery--I disagree. Why should we be concerned with what an unmarried itinerant Jewish apocalyptic prophet thinks? If we didn't find other people attractive enough to want to have sex with them, there would be no reason to get married and bear children, and there goes the human race into extinction.
"On Judgement Day, will you be found to be innocent or guilty? Heaven or Hell?" Wait, are heaven and hell real? Where's your proof?
The rest of the tract spells out the traditional evangelical message--that God is horribly offended that we aren't perfect but he also provided us a loophole from eternal torture--namely, the temporary torture and death of an innocent man named Jesus. We are encouraged to pray a prayer of forgiveness, obey the Bible (an impossibility, by the way) and visit Living Waters website for more instructions (and to purchase more product, presumably.)
Philosophers have been wrestling with how to be a good person and have a rich and satisfying life for millenia. Living Waters starts with a tease about evolution, then layers on several accusatory questions to invoke guilt for being human, followed by an unsupportable story about how we can escape everlasting pain and torture--all on a three-by-five notecard.
Sorry, but I'm going to stick with my original answer to "What's the most popular fairy tale?" . . . Revealed Religion.
The final question is "Most popular fairy tale?" No, the answer is not "Hansel and Gretel" or "Cinderella." Scratching off the answer reveals the world's most popular fairy tale is "Darwinian evolution." Surprise, you've just been set up. In truth, this card isn't a harmless hand-out featuring trivia; it's a witnessing tract produced by Living Waters Publications, a fundamentalist Christian publishing firm. A case of 100 of these scratch-off cards costs $8.00. Someone paid to get this tract into my hands, then left it behind at the bookstore with the hopes of me reading it.. Thank you, whoever you are, for I am going to analyze this publication.
Below the questions and answers is a long, dense paragraph in small print that tries to cram as many of the Evangelical Right's talking points as possible onto both sides. The paragraph reads:
"Do you believe the last one?" (Meaning that Darwinian Evolution is the world's most popular fairy tale.) "If you don't, go to www.IntelligentDesignVersusEvolution.com and pick up $10,000--if you can provide just one living "transitional form." (I'll deal with this challenge in another entry.)
"Before you do," reads the tract, "test your knowledge one more time: What does someone have to do to go to Heaven?" How did a question about evolution suddenly turn into a religious quiz? Which religion's heaven are we talking about here?
"The answer is to look to the Ten Commandments." Ah, Living Waters is clearly referring to the Christian heaven. They cite the Ten Commandments, which is a set of Jewish laws provided by Jehovah to ancient Hebrews--a people who, by the way, had little to no concept of Heaven other than the place where Jehovah and other gods resided. Ancient Hebrews would have not understood the idea of them going to heaven given that they barely had an understanding of an afterlife. But some Christians have gleaned out the parts of the Jewish law that they like, ignored vast swaths of Jewish law that they don't, and mashed it with the apocalyptic teaching of Jesus and Paul, which allows them to judge others on their eternal destination.
"Have you loved God above all else? That's the requirement of the First Commandment." Is there a God? Which God do you mean? How can I love something that I can't interact with? Why would God be offended if I love my wife or son more than I love him--are his feelings that easy to bruise?
"Or have you broken the Second by making a god in your mind that you're comfortable with, a god to suit yourself--something the Bible calls 'idolatry'?" First, how can I make a god in my mind? Second, nowhere in the Bible is idolatry defined as a comfortable concept in my mind. Idolatry in the Bible is always associated with outward expressions of worship--not inward thoughts.
"Have you ever used God's name in vain?" Perhaps, but why would an omnipotent God care if I did? Incidentally, I don't think the Third Commandment is about the words we utter when we stub our toes but are more related to speaking curses against others while invoking God for powerful effect--in other words, using God to invoke magic. Which I have never done.
"Have you always honored your parents implicitly, and kept the Sabbath holy?" While I have not always obeyed my parents--particulary when they were raising me--I fully honor them today, implicitly and explicitly--and did so even when a child. I don't disobey people I don't honor--what's the point of rebelling against people that don't affect me? Even if I did, my parents have forgiven my childish slights and fully love me today. Why is that so difficult for God to do?
Also, I have not kept the Sabbath holy because I do not subscribe to the Jewish religion.
"Have you hated someone? The Bible says, 'whoever hates his brother is a murderer.'" Yes, I have hated people in the past, usually to no end. I have never murderered anyone, however. If someone feels that hating someone is just the same as murdering them, then perhaps we need to rewrite the American criminal code to allow trying and convicting people who hate others. But this would be silly, of course, as everyone has likely either hated or been hated by someone somewhere. Humans are an emotional species and hatred is easy to come by. I can see if someone might poetically compare the emotions of hatred with the emotions surrounded by murder, but to argue that hate equals literal murder is absurd. What's more, Psalm 105 states that God turns hearts to hatred to serve his purposes, so how can he then judge us for hating?
"The Seventh is, "You shall not commit adultery," but Jesus said, "Whoever looks upon a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart" (the Seventh Commandment includes sex before marriage)." First, no the Seventh Commandment does not include pre-marital sex. It says "you shall not commit adultery." Throwing in other sins to make sure you've covered everyone is deceptive. Second, so what if Jesus thinks being attracted to someone of the opposite sex is the same as adultery--I disagree. Why should we be concerned with what an unmarried itinerant Jewish apocalyptic prophet thinks? If we didn't find other people attractive enough to want to have sex with them, there would be no reason to get married and bear children, and there goes the human race into extinction.
"On Judgement Day, will you be found to be innocent or guilty? Heaven or Hell?" Wait, are heaven and hell real? Where's your proof?
The rest of the tract spells out the traditional evangelical message--that God is horribly offended that we aren't perfect but he also provided us a loophole from eternal torture--namely, the temporary torture and death of an innocent man named Jesus. We are encouraged to pray a prayer of forgiveness, obey the Bible (an impossibility, by the way) and visit Living Waters website for more instructions (and to purchase more product, presumably.)
Philosophers have been wrestling with how to be a good person and have a rich and satisfying life for millenia. Living Waters starts with a tease about evolution, then layers on several accusatory questions to invoke guilt for being human, followed by an unsupportable story about how we can escape everlasting pain and torture--all on a three-by-five notecard.
Sorry, but I'm going to stick with my original answer to "What's the most popular fairy tale?" . . . Revealed Religion.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
A Chronological Analysis of the Empty Tomb
The following is a conversation I had with a Christian on a message forum regarding differences in the four gospel accounts of Jesus' resurrection:
"There seems to be one consistency, the tomb was empty."
Tombs can be empty for many reasons. If you and I were walking together in a cemetery and we came upon a hole in the ground, would the first thing you conclude is that there is a corpse walking around nearby?
"Please if you are going to paraphrase the Bible you have to give the verse. How am I to verify what you are talking about? It's better to just quote what it says then to draw your own gist and retell it, is this not the reason why the Bible is (NT) already confusing? The fact that these stories were written on different eye witness' accounts after being retold then wrote down by someone else and how much they all have in common after this shows that it is more reliable, not less."
Okay, lets take a look:
Matthew 28
1After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. 2There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it.
Mary watches an angel descend from heaven and roll away the stone. (Where is Jesus, by the way? Did he teleport out of the tomb beforehand?) What does John have to say?
John 20
1Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance.
So rather than Mary arriving in front of a closed tomb, surviving an earthquake, and watching an angel roll away a tomb stone, John says she showed up after all the action was over. Luke confirms this:
Luke 24
1On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. 2They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
Mark confirms it too:
Mark 16
4But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away.
So three writers have Mary arrive to find the tomb stone already rolled away, or one says she sees an angel come down from heaven, cause an earthquake, and roll the stone away as she's watching. Which scenario is more likely? Are the two different scenarios really that close enough to sweep under the rug of the "different narrators" explanation?
So what happens to Mary next?
Mark 16
5As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. 6"Don't be alarmed," he said. "You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7But go, tell his disciples and Peter, 'He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.' "
Mark says a single young man tells Mary that Jesus is risen, and orders her to tell the disciples that Jesus is waiting for them in Galilee.
Matthew 28
5The angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. 6He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. 7Then go quickly and tell his disciples: 'He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.' Now I have told you."
Matthew promotes Mark's one young man into an angel but he gives Mary the same story.
Luke 24
4While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. 5In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? 6He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 7'The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.' " 8Then they remembered his words.
Luke turns Mark's one boy and Matthew's one angel into two men in lightning-bright clothes. They tell Mary that Jesus is risen, but there's no mention of any future meeting with him in Galilee. Reading the Luke narrative alone, one would not guess that Jesus will ever appear on stage again, but that he's ascended to heaven . But what does John say?
John 20
2So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him!"
Mary, having seen only a rolled-away stone, immediately bolts off the scene to find Peter. She doesn't have a conversation with any angel, or young boy, or two shining men. She forgets about the earthquake. She just tells Peter that Jesus' body has been stolen. This is a contradiction.
Matthew 28
8So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples.
This seems logical. Having been ordered by an angel to tell the disciples that Jesus is alive and will meet them later, Mary does exactly that. Mark, though, tells it differently:
Mark 16
8Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.
Instead of "afraid yet filled with joy," they are just afraid, and more importantly, they don't tell anyone anything. They don't tell Peter, or any other disciples, or even the author of Mark, if his own words are to be believed. So how did this portion of Mark, the first gospel, ever get written? How does Mark know what the boy told the women if the women "said nothing to anyone"?
Luke 24
9When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others...11But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.
Looks like they should all be called Doubting Thomases.
John 20
3So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. 4Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first.
Most scholars identify this unnamed disciple as John, so I will too. Having heard Mary's story that Jesus' body is missing, Peter and John run for the tomb, John getting there first.
John 20
5He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. 6Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, 7as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus' head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. 8Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. 9(They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.)
Peter and John see the empty tomb for themselves, but still haven't put two and two together. They now believe Mary's report that Jesus' body is missing, but, according to verse nine, they still don't think that Jesus is resurrected. Let's go back to Matthew:
Matthew 28
8So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. 9Suddenly Jesus met them. "Greetings," he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. 10Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me."
Another contradiction. Forget the part from John about Mary telling Peter that she doesn't know where Jesus' body has been taken. And forget what Matthew's angel told them just two verses earlier, that Jesus will appear to them in Galilee sometime in the future. It turns out that Jesus was standing right behind them during the whole earthquake-and-stone-rolling incident. They clutch onto Jesus, and he updates what the angel said: NOW, go and tell the disciples, not that my body is missing, not that someone told you that I am risen and will meet you later, but that you know for yourselves that I'm risen, and will meet you later. Back to John:
John 20
10Then the disciples went back to their homes, 11but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb 12and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. 13They asked her, "Woman, why are you crying?" "They have taken my Lord away," she said, "and I don't know where they have put him."
So Mary, despite having been told (in Matthew's account) first by an angel that Jesus is risen, and then by Jesus himself that he is risen, is somehow still distraught that Jesus' body has been taken somewhere. Now she's approached by two angels this time. Apologists are quick to assure us that John's two angels and Matthew's one angel are the same angel, that one is a 'spokesperson' for the both. But they sure don't act like the same person, and she doesn't seem to remember what the 'one' angel told her or what Jesus himself told her. Plus, unlike every other gospel account, these two angels don't tell Mary anything: nothing about Jesus' resurrection, or where they'll see him again and when. Their sole function in John is to ask why she's crying. Also, these angels hang around for Mary to go tell the disciples and come back, but when Peter and John arrive, the angels aren't there. It's only after Peter and John leave that Mary sees the angels sitting in the same tomb that Peter and John had just inspected moments before. Is there a reason that only Mary can see these angels? What's more, where did Jesus go? If he was hanging around the tomb in Matthew's account, why didn't he wait for Peter and John to show up? Maybe he did:
John 20
4At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. 15"Woman," he said, "why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?" Thinking he was the gardener, she said, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him." 16Jesus said to her, "Mary." She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, "Rabboni!" (which means Teacher). 17Jesus said, "Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'" 18Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: "I have seen the Lord!" And she told them that he had said these things to her.
So Jesus was standing behind them all this time, watching Peter and John poke around the tomb. Unlike what Matthew told us, Mary doesn't know who this person is, this Jesus that she loved so much. Again, she just wants to know where Jesus' body is, because she wants to get it and bring it back to be properly buried this time. When he says her name, she suddenly recognizes him. But instead of letting her touch him like she did in Matthew, Jesus orders her to keep her hands off. He tells her to go and tell the disciples NOT that they'll ever see Jesus again, in Galilee or anywhere else, but that Jesus is going to the Father. Which she does.
So let's sum up. Scholars universally agree that Mark was written first, so let's do the same. I'm also estimating the time of events to get a sense of the chronology. These times are total speculation, and I'm willing to hear reasonable counter-arguments. I assume that the women's home and the disciples hideout are each thirty minutes walk away from the tomb, but without knowing the exact location that's of course debatable. The order of events in Mark are:
1. Three women arrive at the tomb to find the stone already rolled away (Call it 6:00 AM)
2. They enter the tomb (6:02)
3. Inside, one young boy tells them that Jesus is risen (6:03)
4. He orders them to go tell the disciples and wait for Jesus to see them in Galilee (6:05)
5. The women disobey this order and go home, telling no one anything. (Home by 6:35)
Matthew next:
1. Two women arrive to find the tomb sealed up tight. (6:00 AM)
2. An earthquake happens (6:05)
3. One angel descends, rolls away the stone, and sits on it, not inside the tomb itself. (6:10)
4. The guards (not appearing in any other account) faint dead away (6:10)
5. The angel tells them Jesus is risen, and invites them to inspect the now-opened tomb. (6:11)
6. The angel orders them to inform the disciples that Jesus will see them in Galilee (6:15)
7. The women run to tell the disciples (6:16)
8. Jesus stops them and lets them worship him (6:20)
9. Jesus orders them to tell the disciples he'll see them later in Galilee (6:25)
10. The women happily tell the disciples what they saw. They must believe them because no one checks out their story. (6:55)
11. Later that day or perhaps some other day, the disciples go to Galilee and wait for Jesus to appear.
Now Luke:
1. An unknown number of women arrive at the tomb to find the stone already rolled away (6:00 AM)
2. They enter the tomb to investigate (6:02)
3. Two men suddenly appear beside them (6:04)
4. They tell the women that Jesus is risen (6:05)
5. The women go tell the disciples what they saw (6:35)
6. The disciples don't believe them (6:40)
7. Peter goes by himself and checks out their story (7:10)
8. Peter goes back "wondering what happened" (7:45)
And finally, John:
1. Mary Magdalene alone goes to the tomb and finds the stone rolled away (6:00 AM)
2. Mary goes back to find Peter and tells him Jesus' body is missing (6:30 AM)
3. Peter, John run to see for themselves, with Mary coming along behind (6:45 --only 15 minutes travel to reflect they ran instead of walked)
4. John peers into the tomb (6:46)
5. Peter goes into the tomb itself and inspects the grave clothes (6:48)
6. John next goes in the tomb and looks for himself (6:52)
7. John also believes that Jesus' body is missing (6:53)
8. The disciples leave, but Mary stays behind to cry (6:55)
9. Mary peers into the tomb and sees two angels inside (6:56)
10. They ask her why she's crying (6:57)
11. She tells them she doesn't know where Jesus' body is. (6:58)
12. She turns around and sees "the gardener" (6:59)
13. He asks her why she's crying and who she's looking for (7:00)
14. She tells him she just wants to know where Jesus' body is so it can be buried again. (7:01)
15. He says her name, and she realizes its Jesus (7:02)
16. He tells her not to touch him, but to tell the disciples that Jesus is going to Heaven now. (7:03)
17. Mary has no problem leaving her beloved behind and goes and tells the disciples what she saw (7:35)
I'm sorry, but this really doesn't appear to be a case of different narrators telling the identical story with slight coloring and variations. These are four different stories, plain and simple, and only in Christian apologetics is it declared that when four people can't get their stories straight that somehow strengthens their case. We can quibble over my time estimates if you want--maybe they spent more time in conversation with Jesus, maybe it was only a five-minute walk to the tomb, etc. But to this skeptic, something about these narratives just doesn't add up.
After that, the person whom I was conversing replied:
"From a historical point of view, not a Christian, there only being one hour difference in all four stories is remarkable....I will not dispute your time lines, they seem okay. I am not perplexed by this. It was 2000 years ago, one hour no biggy. Quite amazing if you asked me."
This short reply suggested that the gospel accounts are not a record of a fixed historical event, but more like an expensive clock, that after 2000 years has only lost an hour.
I welcome any comments if my time estimates seem unreasonable.
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