tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-209307672024-03-23T18:24:19.839+00:00Confessions of a Doubting Thomas“If our faith is such that it is destroyed by force of argument, then let it be destroyed; for it will have been proved that we do not possess the truth.”
Clement of Alexandria, late 2nd CenturyUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger364125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20930767.post-24726252892749854862019-06-04T11:21:00.001+00:002021-07-24T14:54:48.929+00:00He saved others?<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxCtRYnB4aBdp4obZbI4CvFSlK0oGnv97u-VYPX2W-1VbjleuliEe_WJtw9d4pOHOJimM1bfffE5H9uh0lQWL8jckTEVPlXjfStHoB0SMLOA6htJpybkZLjXWBRAMMklaCGnM/s1600/crux.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="216" data-original-width="300" height="144" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxCtRYnB4aBdp4obZbI4CvFSlK0oGnv97u-VYPX2W-1VbjleuliEe_WJtw9d4pOHOJimM1bfffE5H9uh0lQWL8jckTEVPlXjfStHoB0SMLOA6htJpybkZLjXWBRAMMklaCGnM/s200/crux.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
During the crucifixion narrative, in Mark 15v31 it says: </div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>"In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself!"</i></blockquote>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This seems a bit like an anachronism to me, because at this point in the story, Jesus hasn't 'saved' others. He has healed a lot of people, sure. And the Greek word for heal appears to be the same word as for rescue or save; σῴζω (or 'sōzō'). But it makes no sense for people observing the crucifixion to make any connection between someone healing people of diseases and having the ability to rescue themselves from the cross. Its like they are saying 'oh, he was a doctor, he must be a good escapologist as well...'; it makes no sense, in the context.<br />
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Where it does make sense is later, after Jesus gained a reputation for being a saviour - one able to save others from going to hell. Once there are Christians who believed in Jesus as saviour, it would make sense to look back on the cross and wonder why he couldn't save himself.<br />
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For these reasons I think this detail in the crucifixion story is not historically accurate, but was probably a literary construct, written by a Christian some time after the fact, putting words into the mouths of his imagined characters. I can't see how anyone would have really said that, when watching a real crucifixion.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20930767.post-66032184065158435172019-05-28T22:08:00.000+00:002019-05-28T22:08:51.931+00:00The Living God?<div style="text-align: justify;">
I found myself wondering about the nature of God the other day. Specifically, what does it mean when the Bible (e.g. Deut 5:26, Josh 3:10, 1 Sam 17:26, 2 Kings 19:4, Psalm 42:2, Isaiah 37:4, Jer 10:10, Dan 6:20, and elsewhere) describes God/YHWH as 'The Living God'?</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
One of the problems here is that it is actually really hard to define 'life'. Dictionary.com offers a huge list of definitions, the first two of which are:</div>
<ol>
<li><i>the condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms, being manifested by growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally. </i></li>
<li><i>the sum of the distinguishing phenomena of organisms, especially metabolism, growth, reproduction, and adaptation to environment.
</i></li>
</ol>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Other definitions are a bit woolier than those. Basically, when we apply the word 'life' to an animal or plant we are talking about something which is growing, adapting, consuming, excreting, changing, etc.</div>
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But what happens when we apply that same word to God? Is God growing? Does he adapt? Does he consume and excrete? Fundamentally, does he change? The book of Hebrews suggests that he does not. So if he never changes, in what sense can we claim that he is alive?<br />
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Growing up in church I heard sermons claiming that the emphasis here was to contrast <i>our</i> God, who is real and alive, with the gods of the surrounding nations, who are dead or imaginary. But, of course, I eventually realised that nobody believes their own gods are dead or imaginary, surely everyone believes that their own gods are real and alive? It really wouldn't surprise me to discover that worshipers of Dagon (or whoever) back in OT times made jokes about worshipers of YHWH following an imaginary or dead god. If that's the point, it's just propaganda.<br />
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But suppose that's not it. Suppose the point is not to say our God is alive and yours is dead. What would the meaning be then? If a god is worth worshiping, surely we can assume that he's alive, we don't have to keep repeating it? One possible meaning, that I've heard discussed on podcasts, but have not found much about in written form, is perhaps that there was a dying-and-rising-god mythology about Yahweh long before anyone told stories about Jesus dying and rising. The story goes that the dying-and-rising myth was a common trope in many cultures and religions, and it's possible that it was part of the pre-exilic Hebrew religion as well. Yahweh was considered 'the Living God' because for a time he was believed not to have been living at all, but came back from that, and that is something worthy of worship. It's not just 'our God is alive, your god is dead', but rather 'our God has power over death, can you god do that?' Of course, this is all speculation, but it is interesting.<br />
<br />
Beyond the question of <i>'in what sense is God alive?' </i>lies the opposite question of <i>'in what sense was Jesus dead between Good Friday and Easter Sunday?'</i><br />
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I think most Christians have never really thought this through - I certainly didn't when I was a Christian. If they'd stop and think about it, I think most believers probably would come up with something like this: The man Jesus, before crucifixion, was made up of a living body and some form of indwelling soul or spirit. When he was crucified, the indwelling soul or spirit left the body and the body died, but the indwelling soul or spirit didn't die and went somewhere else for a few days. When the resurrection happened, the indwelling soul or spirit was put into a renewed (and improved) reanimated version of the human body and Jesus became a walking, talking, living being once more. I guess for most believers in that sort of thing, the indwelling soul or spirit is the <i>real</i> person of Jesus and the body was just a body. So <i>in this picture of things, the real Jesus didn't die on the cross.</i> The real Jesus just went somewhere else for a few days. Either to harrow hell, as some would have it, or to go to paradise as Luke's Jesus says from the cross, maybe both, I don't know how long it takes to harrow hell. But if he didn't really die on the cross, then how can his death atone for anything?<br />
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The more I dig into it, the less sense concepts of living and dying make in the Christian worldview. Maybe I need to read some <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_J._J._Altizer">Thomas Altizer</a> and get to grips with the idea of what would happen if God really died on the cross, and stayed dead! But that's something to think of some other time.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20930767.post-66106764229730049122019-05-27T22:24:00.000+00:002019-05-27T22:24:11.026+00:00An impersonal relationship with God?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijv0LVopD0kJJtGJv9e5nYFGUnIUm7RYJvsvoPXoSFa_lMYInEE1TIram8EV8HZ_8rQAcD58oIRXFP52z3kUcASNtKQEYwinBa3SlLbt7LrzFd8PcAvGMKhqO4q1RtBNg53pQ/s1600/HandHolding.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="372" data-original-width="600" height="123" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijv0LVopD0kJJtGJv9e5nYFGUnIUm7RYJvsvoPXoSFa_lMYInEE1TIram8EV8HZ_8rQAcD58oIRXFP52z3kUcASNtKQEYwinBa3SlLbt7LrzFd8PcAvGMKhqO4q1RtBNg53pQ/s200/HandHolding.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
What exactly is a "personal relationship" with God?<br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Lots of (mostly evangelical) Christians claim to have one, but I've rarely heard anyone actually explaining what they mean by the phrase.</div>
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In life, I have professional relationships with some people and personal relationships with others. I guess the main thing that defines the personal relationships is that I see those people socially. We do things <i>together</i>. We see each other, even when we don't <i>need</i> to see each other. We have shared experiences. Probably they know things about me that other people don't know, and I know things about them that other people don't know.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Is that how it is with God? Do individual Christians know things about God that only they know, and other Christians do not? Are Christians with a personal relationship with God able to express his preferences on various issues?<br />
<br />
If you have a personal relationship with God, could you tell me which Star Trek movie is his favourite? Or does he have a favourite character in Game of Thrones, and who is it? Does he prefer rap music to metal? Which is his favourite Spice Girl? Indeed, what is his favourite colour?<br />
<br />
I could have a good go at giving answers to each of those for people I have personal relationships with. If you can't come up with answers to that sort of question for God, do you really have a <i>personal</i> relationship with him? Do you actually interact with God, socially? Or is it just a phrase that you use?<br />
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I suspect, for many Christians, what they actually have is an impersonal relationship, if it's even a relationship at all. Following a set of guidelines is not a relationship, even if you get an 'inner stirring' while doing so.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20930767.post-67800681751941240152019-05-16T13:58:00.002+00:002019-05-16T14:01:38.563+00:00The power of storytelling, and the problem of probability.<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">I’ve recently listened to the debate between Michael Shermer (skeptic) and Luuk Vandeweghe (Christian apologist) which took place in Sequim, Washington, USA, in March 2019, and was broadcast on the <a href="https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/Episodes/Unbelievable-Are-the-miracles-of-Jesus-unbelievable-Michael-Shermer-vs-Luuk-Vandeweghe">Unbelievable radio show and podcast</a> a couple of weeks later.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><br />
It was a debate on biblical miracles, in front of a mostly Christian audience. It's fair to say that Vandeweghe won the debate. But I don't think he won the debate because he is right and has the facts on his side, I think he won the debate because he's a great storyteller, and told a compelling story of early Christianity which sounded entirely plausible, and therefore believable. Shermer never got the chance to take the story apart, and so wasn't able to counter the power of a good story.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><br />
<b>Christians have always had great storytellers and great stories. But just because they have great stories, perhaps even the greatest story ever told, doesn't make the stories true. Sometimes fiction is more interesting than real life.</b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><br />
So let's break down Luuk Vandeweghe's story and see if it holds up to scrutiny. Obviously I'll only comment on a few aspects of it here, but I'll try and give the gist of the whole and be accurate in a few direct quotes.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><br />
He began by acknowledging that he was telling a story: <i>"I want to tell you a story..."</i> and used a repeated refrain to link together all the different characters he told us about: <i>"They weren't liars and they weren't fooled"</i>.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><br />
He started his story in 66AD with a story about the emperor Nero in Rome, told by Tacitus. Vandeweghe doesn't tell us that Tacitus was only ten years old in 66AD, and wasn't there, and wouldn't write this account until at least 30 years later, he implied an accurate report of the events in AD66. He told how Nero took Christians, nailed them to crosses, and burned them as torches for his garden parties. He then told a tale of someone at the Colosseum, who could have saved their family members from being torn apart by wild animals if only they had denied Christ, but who chose to stay faithful. He said: <i><span style="color: #222222; text-align: left;">"Tacitus tells us Christians gained the sympathy of the people because they never did this, they suffered, they endured, and they won over the hearts of Rome during that era, because</span><span style="color: #222222; text-align: left;"> they never went back on their </span><span style="color: #222222; text-align: left;">testimony</span></i><span style="color: #222222; text-align: left;"><i>"</i>.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><span style="color: #222222; text-align: left;"><br /></span>
<span style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #222222;">The problem I have with this, is that Tacitus says no such thing. Tacitus does not recount the story of the people at the Colosseum being given the opportunity to deny Christ and live. As far as I know, those stories come from 2nd century writings like the Apocryphal Acts, and writings like the Epistles of Ignatius, it's not in Tacitus. And the 2nd century writings contain a lot of stories that serious historians laugh at. They are not history. But here, a storytelling Christian has merged aspects of real history, with some ambiguous interpretation, with probably fictional stories, to make the story he wants to tell. This is not history, this is apologetics, and if the truth has to be bent along the way, so be it.</span></span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #222222; text-align: left;">The storyteller told a good story, does it matter that it is probably not true? </span></div>
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><br />
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #222222; text-align: left;"><i style="background-color: #fce5cd;">Is Luuk Vandeweghe a liar, or has he been fooled?</i></span><br />
<div>
<span style="color: #222222; text-align: left;"><i style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><br /></i></span></div>
</div>
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #222222;"></span></span>
<span style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #222222;">Here's what Tacitus actually said:</span></span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><i>"Consequently, to get rid of the report </i>[that Nero had ordered the fire in Rome],<i> Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired. Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or stood aloft on a car. Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man's cruelty, that they were being destroyed."</i></span></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #222222; text-align: left;">This does say that Nero blamed the fire of Rome on Christians, and had some Christians crucified, some burned as torches, and some torn by beasts. It doesn't say that any of them were given the option to deny Christ and be saved. And while it does say that the people of Rome had some compassion for the Christians, it doesn't say that this was because they were faithful to their beliefs.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><span style="color: #222222; text-align: left;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #222222; text-align: left;">Luuk made the claim that <i>"the early martyrs weren't liars"</i>, but on the evidence of Tacitus, we don't actually know what the early martyrs said. They pleaded guilty to something, but Tacitus is unclear on what. Possibly the crime of setting fire to the city?</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><span style="color: #222222; text-align: left;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #222222; text-align: left;">But the storyteller told a good story, does it matter that it is probably not true? </span></div>
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><br />
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #222222; text-align: left;"><i style="background-color: #fce5cd;">Is Luuk Vandeweghe a liar, or has he been fooled?</i></span></div>
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><br />
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><span style="color: #222222;">The apologist's story now goes a couple of years before AD66 to the supposed martyrdom of Peter. Here, the apologist does that usual apologetic trick of overstating his case: </span><i style="color: #222222;">"According to all the earliest sources that we have, Peter is the man who inspired Mark to write his gospel</i><span style="color: #222222;">". Really? </span><b style="color: #222222;"><i>All</i></b><span style="color: #222222;"> the earliest sources? Paul doesn't say it, Acts doesn't say it, even Mark doesn't say it, secular historians like Tacitus and Josephus certainly don't mention it. In fact, most of the earliest sources we have do not mention the gospel of Mark or any connection between it and Peter. I think our earliest source on the supposed link between the two is Papias in the early to mid 2nd century. And there are reasons to question whether the writings Papias was talking about are actually the same thing as the book we now call Mark. And quite a few historians question the reliability of Papias. Most of the claims we have for a link between Peter and Mark are late 2nd century, possibly a whole century after the death of Peter, certainly more than a century after the death of Jesus. Yet the apologist declares, with apparent certainty, that the miracles in Mark came from the eyewitness accounts of Peter and that he died for his belief in those miracles.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #222222;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<hr />
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #741b47;">I'd like to insert a little parenthesis here about probability. I'll continue with Luuk's story in a minute.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><span style="color: #741b47;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #741b47;"><span style="color: #222222;">Here our apologist made three historical assertions in quick succession. These</span> are:</span></span><br />
<ol>
<li><span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #741b47;">Peter witnessed the miracles of Jesus.</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #741b47;">Peter told the stories to Mark who wrote them down.</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #741b47;">Peter died because he would not abandon his belief in these miracles.</span></li>
</ol>
<div>
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #741b47;">For the overall story to be true, all three of these need to be true. If one is false, the whole story is proven false. But historical reconstruction doesn't work in absolute truths, it works in probabilities. The way probabilities work is that the probability of the whole is found by multiplying the probabilities of the individual components together. That is P<span style="font-size: xx-small;">total</span> = P<span style="font-size: xx-small;">1</span> × P<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> × P<span style="font-size: xx-small;">3</span>.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #741b47;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #741b47;">Suppose you think there is an 80% probability that each of these three statements is true, the probability of the overall story would be 0.8 × 0.8 × 0.8 = 0.51 or 51%. That's not a statement of high certainty, is it? But suppose we doubt the stories of Papius and think that it is unlikely that Mark's stories come from Peter, perhaps allocating that a 20% chance, and we think there's only a 50% that Peter actually saw miracles, and we think there's only a 30% chance that he would not have been martyred if he had changed his story, then we get 0.2 × 0.5 × 0.3 = 0.03 or only a 3% chance that the overall story is true!</span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #741b47;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #741b47;">In order for you to have (say) a 75% (or higher) probability in the overall claim, you actually need at least a 90% certainty in each of the three claims. Few historians would be likely to stake their claims that high.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #741b47;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #741b47;">This is what happens when there are only three claims being combined, Luuk's overall story has <i>many</i> more claims. If even a few of these have low probability, the likelihood of the overall story becomes very small. However, this reasonable application of probability in history is completely masked by compelling storytelling. A good story makes something <i>plausible</i> sound like something <i>probable</i>. They are very far from being the same thing. I'll try the sum at the end of this post... but now back to the story. </span></div>
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><br />
</span><br />
<hr />
</div>
</div>
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">Luuk now makes something entirely up. He says to imagine the evangelist Luke in the crowd, watching the crucifixion of Peter. Where did that come from? I've never heard that claim before. It would sure help the apologist's case if the author of Acts was there at the events he describes in his book, or the events he alludes to, because -of course- the martyrdom of Peter is not actually recorded in Acts. If Luke was there and if he witnessed Peter not denying Christ and being crucified as a consequence, and if he wrote that in his book, that would indeed be good evidence. But the thing is, this didn't happen, he didn't see it, he didn't write it. This part of the story is a complete red herring.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><span style="color: #222222; text-align: left;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #222222; text-align: left;">But the storyteller told a good story, does it matter that it is probably not true? </span></div>
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><span style="color: #222222; text-align: left;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #222222; text-align: left;"><i style="background-color: #fce5cd;">Is Luuk Vandeweghe a liar, or has he been fooled?</i></span></div>
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><br />
Although the chain of evidence Vandeweghe is trying to build has already been broken with the lie above, he carries on and makes a big deal of the historical reliability of Luke's writings. He portrays Luke as a top notch historian who interviewed named eyewitnesses, including Mary the mother of Jesus. He claims that every time a minor character is named, this is probably because Luke has interviewed the eyewitness in question, and has told their story. It makes a great story, but this is also a highly doubtful claim. Nothing in there can be stated with certainty.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><br />
Scholars have long known that Luke used Mark as his primary source, but freely changed the bits he didn't like and added in other stories to bulk out his gospel. While the opening statement of Luke's gospel does sound like a claim of historical scholarship, not everyone is convinced. Indeed, from all I've read on the subject of Luke (and Acts, for that matter) I am reasonably convinced that the final edition of Luke, including the dedication to Theophilus, is a 2nd century expansion of an earlier gospel that made no claim to scholarship. Look at the first couple of chapters of Luke compared to most of the rest of the gospel, they're not even the same genre; chapters 1 and 2 are a musical! If you start reading Luke's gospel at chapter 3, it reads like the start of a book. I think chapter 3 is where the original gospel began and chapters 1 and 2 were added on by whoever was compiling this book for Theophilus. If the compiler was someone called Luke, this can't have been the same character who Paul named in his letters a couple of generations earlier. The apologetic as to why the evangelist Luke was the same as the companion of Paul is quite convoluted and there are good counter-arguments. Its certainly a low probability claim, not a certainty. Yet Vandeweghe relies on Luke's<i> 'unbroken line of evidence' </i>to support his case.</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #222222; text-align: left;">The storyteller told a good story, does it matter that it is probably not true? </span></div>
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><span style="color: #222222; text-align: left;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #222222; text-align: left;"><i style="background-color: #fce5cd;">Is Luuk Vandeweghe a liar, or has he been fooled?</i></span></div>
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><br />
The chain of evidence now jumps to an individual I have thought a lot about recently, <a href="https://confessionsofadoubtingthomas.blogspot.com/2018/01/james-brother-of-lord.html">James the Just, the alleged brother of Jesus</a>. Luuk invokes Josephus at this point. As with Tacitus, Josephus was a child at the time of the events of interest occurred, and was not there to witness them. There is also suspicion that the works of Josephus have been edited by later Christian redactors. Certainly the <i>'Testimonium Flavianum'</i> has evidence of someone tampering with the text, and if it wasn't for the words <i>'the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ' </i>in the passage about James, there would be nothing about the story in Josephus for us to think that James was martyred for anything to do with the Christian faith. He was executed as a lawbreaker. Maybe he was just a lawbreaker who was executed, and who has accrued legends after his death. People considered to be martyrs do seem to attract stories of great deeds and holiness.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><br />
Luuk repeats the oft-told apologetic about how James was a skeptic and became a believer and became leader of the early church. Having invested a lot of time reading up on this and thinking about it, I am really not convinced that this is in any way historical. I think that James the Just was co-opted by the 2nd century church as one of 'their' early martyrs and turned into Jesus's brother in the stories. <a href="https://confessionsofadoubtingthomas.blogspot.com/2018/01/james-brother-of-lord.html">See my blog post about that here</a>. For me, this is a really weak link in the story.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><br />
Once again Vandeweghe repeats the completely non-historical claim that James only had to do one thing to avoid being martyred, he had to deny Jesus. This statement has no basis in history. At best it is simply assuming a detail of one story fits into another story, at worst it is pure fiction.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><br />
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #222222; text-align: left;">But the storyteller told a good story, does it matter that it is probably not true? </span></div>
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><span style="color: #222222; text-align: left;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #222222; text-align: left;"><i style="background-color: #fce5cd;">Is Luuk Vandeweghe a liar, or has he been fooled?</i></span><br />
<div>
<span style="color: #222222; text-align: left;"><i style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><br /></i></span></div>
</div>
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">The apologist next made the claim that the Sanhedrin who killed James were the same group of people who killed Jesus. Maybe they were, maybe they weren't. Given the years that separate the two events, death of Jesus around 30 CE, death of James around 69 CE, it is unlikely that the group members would be the same, and even if one or two were the same, the chance that they would connect the two events in any way is tiny.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><br />
Vandeweghe concluded his story by invoking the words of the Babylonian Talmud, a book written between 500 and 600 CE. He described how the Talmud referred to Jesus as 'a sorcerer', and claimed that this belief "went right back" to the trial of Jesus. His point being that by using the word translated here as 'sorcerer' the Jews were acknowledging that Jesus actually performed magic. This is not the word for a trickster, this is the word for the real deal. In other words, the accusers of Jesus believed his miracles were real, even if they believed they were of diabolic origin.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><br />
And so, by following a chain of 'evidence' from 66 CE back to Jesus himself, the apologist concluded his case that the miracles of Jesus were real, because the Sanhedrin at the time believed they were real. It was a strong story. The fact that it is not based in history is irrelevant. Vandeweghe won the debate.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><br />
But, of course, there is no chain of evidence linking the Sanhedrin in Jesus's day with a book written about 5 centuries later. And even if there was, there are a few details in the Talmud that should give us pause for thought. The Talmud story of "Yeshu the sorcerer" names his five disciples, tried with him, as "Matai, Nekai, Netzer, Buni, and Todah". None of those names feature in the gospel accounts. And in the gospels, Jesus is tried alone, not with his disciples. Maybe Yeshu the sorcerer and Jesus of Nazareth are not the same character? If that's the case, then the apologetic case fails. The dates also do not line up. If you look at the Talmudic timeline, then Yeshua the sorcerer lived and died a generation or so after Jesus supposedly did.</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><span style="color: #222222; text-align: left;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #222222; text-align: left;">The storyteller told a good story, does it matter that it is probably not true? </span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><span style="color: #222222; text-align: left;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #222222; text-align: left;"><i style="background-color: #fce5cd;">Is Luuk Vandeweghe a liar, or has he been fooled?</i></span><br />
<div>
</div>
</div>
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><br />
I don't think Vandeweghe is a liar. I just think he fundamentally believes the Christian story, and so lines up a bunch of historical data in a way that is coherent with the thing he believes anyway. He's doing good apologetics and bad history. He's been fooled.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><br />
</span><br />
<hr />
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #660000;">So, how unlikely is his story? Here is a list of the links in his story, together with my estimates of probability for each of them. Assuming they are all required to prove the case, and therefore the probabilities multiply together, I'll do the sum and see just how probable or improbable I think the story is... I'll not allocate anything a zero probability as that messes with the calculations.</span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #660000;">Christians in the time of Nero were martyred for being Christians. (60-95% likely)</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #660000;">They could have saved themselves by denying Christ. (20-50%)</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #660000;">Peter witnessed the miracles of Jesus. (10-90%)</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #660000;">Peter told the stories to Mark who wrote them down. (20-60%)</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #660000;">Peter died because he would not abandon his belief in these miracles. (20-80%)</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #660000;">Luke witnessed the martyrdom of Peter. (5-10%)</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #660000;">Luke interviewed the people who knew Jesus. (10-50%)</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #660000;">James the Just was the brother of Jesus. (5-95%)</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #660000;">James was martyred because he was a Christian. (5-50%)</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #660000;">James could have saved himself if he'd denied Jesus. (20-50%)</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #660000;">The same people who killed James killed Jesus. (5-30%)</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #660000;">The Talmud story of Yeshua the sorcerer is about Jesus. (10-60%)</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #660000;">The Talmud story goes back to the time of Jesus. (5-20%)</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #660000;">The Sanhedrin believed that Jesus could do miracles. (5-70%)</span></li>
</ul>
<div>
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #660000;">Here I've given reasonable ranges of probability from typically skeptical at the low end (actually, some of these should go way below 5% in that case) to fairly generous credulity at the upper end.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #660000;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #660000;">If we do the skeptical sum, we end up with a probability of 1.5 × 10<sup>-12</sup>%, or 0.0000000000015%. That is about a one in 600 Billion chance of it being true. Not very likely, in other words.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><span style="color: #660000;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #660000;">Even if we go to the generous end of the scale, the probability of <i>all </i>of Vandeweghe's story being true is 0.02% or about a 1 in 5000 chance. Still not very likely.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><br />
<span style="color: #660000;">With 14 links here, in order to obtain a probability of more than 50% we need to have more than 95% confidence in all of the links in the chain. If we want the overall probability to be 75% or more, our confidence in each of the 14 links would need to be 98% or higher. Historical probabilities almost never go so high. You basically can't conclude a historical fact on a long chain of cumulative evidence. (Which reminds me that I never completed the 2nd part of my review of <a href="https://confessionsofadoubtingthomas.blogspot.com/2013/10/cold-case-christianity-part-1.html">Cold Case Christianity</a>... maybe someday...) </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><span style="color: #660000;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #660000;">Of course, it is possible that Jesus was real and his miracles were real even if the apologist's story is false or partially false, but that's not the point here. The point here is that you cannot prove something historical by telling stories like this, even though they seem plausible to people who want to believe the story.</span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20930767.post-61000860531616358432019-05-01T22:09:00.002+00:002019-05-01T22:09:52.365+00:00Dr Sean George’s miracle and the God behind it<div style="text-align: justify;">
On a recent edition of the <a href="https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable">Unbelievable</a> show, the story of <a href="https://seangeorge.com.au/">Dr Sean George</a> was presented by Sean himself and then discussed with some sceptics. <a href="http://confessionsofadoubtingthomas.blogspot.com/2018/02/hinge-episode-8-miracles.html">I’ve mentioned this story before when it was on the Hinge podcast</a>, but this new show goes into the story in far more detail. To get the whole story, you’ll need to <a href="https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/Episodes/Unbelievable-Did-God-raise-Dr-Sean-George-from-the-dead-Sean-George-Hans-Vodder-and-Bradley-Bowen">listen to the podcast</a>. But, in brief, Dr George’s story goes like this:</div>
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<br /></div>
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He had a heart attack in a remote part of Western Australia, staff at a small medical clinic tried CPR, etc., to revive him for an extended time, but eventually gave up and declared him dead. When his wife turned up, she prayed for him and his heart restarted. Despite being dead for an extended period of time, and having multiple organ failures, he eventually made a full recovery with no brain damage. He is back to being a professional medical doctor. There are a few other details in the story about third parties receiving ‘revelations’ and knowing what would happen apparently in advance of the events.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
So it sounds like a miracle happened. Dr George certainly believed that God did it. But let’s think about this.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Suppose, for a moment, that Sean George is right in his belief. God intervened, restored him to life and miraculously prevented all the problems, loss of brain function, etc., that usually follow from lack of oxygen flow to the brain for multiple minutes. What does this tell us about God? It tells us that God can intervene and over-ride human physiology, saving those who would otherwise die. It tells us that God can and does give direct revelation to individuals about the future, and about things happening elsewhere in the world. It tells us that God can do these things, but that most of the time he doesn’t do them. He can, but he doesn’t. Most people who experienced what Sean George did have simply died. Even though some of them had someone praying for them. What does this tell us about God? It tells us that he has power, but generally chooses not to use it. He probably won’t save you when you ask. He’ll probably let bad things happen to you, even when he could stop them. That doesn’t actually sound like a God worthy of worship. Would you worship and pray to a God who, most likely, will not act upon those prayers and will, most likely, let you suffer and die, even though he could intervene? Why worship a God like that?</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I guess the reason most Christians worship a God like that is because of a future, post-mortem hope in the resurrection. The belief that God can and will raise them to glory, even after they have died. There’s a huge assumption here. We’ve already seen that God generally does not do the things that he can do. So even if he raised Jesus to a resurrection body and glory in heaven, this is absolutely no guarantee that he will do the same for them, or for you. Sure, some of the bible writers made statements that make the ‘evidence’ of Jesus’ resurrection sound like a promise to do the same for you, but a written document is no guarantee, even if it claims to be. The same document says that if the church elders pray for you, you will be healed. Time and time again this promise has been proven false.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
So if Sean George’s miracle working God is real, this in no way guarantees anyone will get healing in this lifetime, or a glorious afterlife in the future!</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
But if that God doesn’t exist, isn’t Sean George’s story so remarkable that it must prove that something ‘supernatural’ is going on? Even if that God isn’t real, surely the truth is out there?</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I guess that depends on what you mean by ‘supernatural’. Certainly something weird and unusual happened, but was it beyond natural? In other words, was it impossible by natural means?</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The thing is, it certainly happened. I'm not a hyper skeptic. I think that enough people have confirmed the story to demonstrate its overall reliability as a real event. Sean George's heart stopped for an extended period of time. Most other people who have heart stoppages for that length of time do not recover and live fully restored lives. But was he properly dead?<br />
<br />
I'm currently writing another blog post about what it means to be alive and what it means to be dead. It'll get published eventually. The problem we face is that it is actually quite hard to define life and death. Life is often defined in terms of death, and death is often defined in terms of life, it's confusing. Clearly, if you define 'death' as 'the state from which no return to life is possible', then Sean was never truly dead. He may have exhibited no bodily (or brain?) function, but that does not mean that return to life is impossible, and Sean is an example which proves that. Sean George's return to life and full health is certainly remarkable, definitely rare, but seems merely to be right at the tail end of the bell curve of possibility. As I say, it certainly happened. And because it happened, it is clearly not impossible. It was exceedingly unlikely, but still on the bell curve of possibility, so could be still within the remit of nature. We don't need to look for a supernatural agent, we simply need to redefine our bounds of knowledge of what is natural.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
But. Other weird things happened around the extremely unlikely but still naturally possible resuscitation. People claim to have received revelations from God which seem to have come true, the resuscitation itself occurred coincidentally (as in, at the same time as) with Sean's wife turning up and praying, and so on. Does that not suggest something supernatural was going on?<br />
<br />
I'm not going to go as far as 'supernatural', but I'll certainly go as far as 'not currently explained by science'. The problem with science is that it can only be used to investigate the repeatable and the fairly frequent. You can't form and test scientific hypotheses based on a one off event. Weird and rare things happen all the time. Charles Fort and the Forteans who came after him have chronicled loads of weird and inexplicable stuff. Is it supernatural? Probably not. Is it rare? Yes.<br />
<br />
But I don't think you need to invoke an infinite, all powerful God to explain the inexplicable. For me, the key to this story is that Mrs George initiated the healing. Doctors and nurses couldn't do it, but she turns up and - wham - he is healed. Why do we need to invoke God here? At face value, Mrs George seems to be the one with the healing power (<a href="http://confessionsofadoubtingthomas.blogspot.com/2018/02/hinge-episode-8-miracles.html">as I said before</a>).<br />
<br />
Maybe we'll never know what actually caused the healing. But one thing is clear to me, if it was a God who intervened here, and yet choses not to intervene in millions of other, similar situations, then that God is not a God worthy of our faith.</div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20930767.post-44158017290348378312018-05-28T10:30:00.003+00:002018-05-28T10:30:51.351+00:00Frivolously misquoting the Bible. #1<div style="text-align: justify;">
Just heard someone quoting 2 Corinthians 4: 17-18 on a podcast:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>"For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."</i></blockquote>
From a Christian perspective this verse can be a powerful encouragement in troubled times. From a skeptical perspective, however, it could be just wishful thinking. So I wondered if the verses should be rendered like this in a skeptical version of the Bible:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>"For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us something that might outweigh them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen could be simply a figment of our imagination..."</i></blockquote>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20930767.post-7914197383495112682018-03-29T11:55:00.001+00:002018-03-29T11:55:56.675+00:00Richard Dawkins, appearance of design, and the Bible<div style="text-align: justify;">
In the opening paragraphs of <i>"The Blind Watchmaker" </i>(1986), Richard Dawkins states that </div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>"Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose" </i></blockquote>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
and then goes on to explain that the appearance is misleading, there is no particular designed purpose, and that no designer is required to explain the observed complexity.<br />
<br />
Christian apologists and others have given him a hard time over this statement ever since. For the apologists, ID proponents and other evolution sceptics, the apparent face value completely trumps the hidden and complex set of processes which need to be explained to provide the evolutionary story.<br />
<br />
So what has this got to do with the bible?<br />
<br />
Well, I was thinking about this the other day and I realised that there are several things in the bible which appear to be something at face value, but theologians and apologists have to do a lot of wriggling around to provide complex explanations of why the face value is not the truth.<br />
<br />
For example: The literary relationship between Matthew, Mark and Luke, a.k.a. the Synoptic Problem. At face value, it looks as though one or more of the gospel writers was copying from the others. These are not independent stories, told by eyewitnesses, these are stories copied from one source to another and edited to fit the agenda of the author. And yet many apologists will totally dispute this, providing complex but 'plausible' sequences of events that could maybe explain how these supposedly independent gospels could have come to look so similar.<br />
<br />
Or, for example: The authorship of the Pauline Epistles. Once I read Romans and Ephesians more or less back to back. While the theology of both epistles is broadly similar (as far as I can tell), the writing style is completely different. If you look at it objectively - at face value - the epistle to the Ephesians looks to have a completely different author to the epistle to the Romans. Indeed, even within the epistle to the Romans, chapters 9-11 seem to be written by someone with a different style to the writer of the other chapters. The face value appearance, based on writing style, is that if Paul wrote most of the epistle to the Romans (Ch 1-8 and 12-16) then he did not write chapters 9-11, or Ephesians, or Colossians, or the Pastorals, etc. And yet apologists will bend over backwards to provide convoluted theories about how people can change their writing style over time, and what we are seeing here is the difference between young Paul and older Paul. But, as far as I can tell (I'm no expert here), there is little evidence from secular scholars of writing style to support such a radical shift in someone's writing style as they get older. Face value suggests multiple authors, some of whom must be pretending to be Paul.<br />
<br />
The thing is, sometimes things are what they appear to be at face value, and sometimes they are not. You can't simply dismiss face value, but then again, you have to take complex and convoluted explanations seriously, because sometimes they might be the way things are. Life isn't simple. Sometimes it is, but sometimes it isn't. And that - in itself - is a complex issue to resolve.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20930767.post-36865574566721022192018-02-23T14:54:00.000+00:002018-02-23T14:54:36.037+00:00Hinge - Episode 8 - Miracles<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmhPDlfthQyXn_eCg2EBq1wQAZA9q8Es022gcTUdvUKYgcakXBsmr8aoSly6ueq_pibJZFEOc5CeQI3vgNaS30mFPaSArovBpXIw8eB0DEzlER77Hq2gpKE4DybryR7CeJP2I/s1600/hinge_fb_ad_02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="619" data-original-width="549" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmhPDlfthQyXn_eCg2EBq1wQAZA9q8Es022gcTUdvUKYgcakXBsmr8aoSly6ueq_pibJZFEOc5CeQI3vgNaS30mFPaSArovBpXIw8eB0DEzlER77Hq2gpKE4DybryR7CeJP2I/s200/hinge_fb_ad_02.jpg" width="176" /></a></div>
I've been listening to the <b><a href="http://hingepodcast.org/">"Hinge" podcast</a> </b>and have been meaning to blog about my thoughts on it, but have been so busy recently that I've not managed to write any coherent thoughts down before I've forgotten what they were and have moved on to the next thing. I may revisit this podcast in the future and post some thoughts at a later date, but for now here are my thoughts on episode 8.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I suppose I should briefly explain the setup of Hinge, in case you're unfamiliar with it. Basically its written and presented by two friends, one a pastor, one an atheist (former Christian) who decided to take a year off work and explore the big questions about God and Jesus properly, and then present it in ten podcasts, each about half an hour long. Its been interesting so far, but more than a little frustrating, because you simply cannot do justice to the questions they are exploring in only about five hours of audio.</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
This week's podcast is a perfect example of how the show doesn't really get to grips with the subject. The topic for this week was basically miracles; do they happen? In the half hour show they discussed three supposed miracles, which I will briefly summarise here:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<ol>
<li style="text-align: justify;">A situation where a believer was really short of money, did her sums and wrote down exactly how much money she needed to pay the bills, then she prayed about it. Later that week a Christian friend of hers (who knew nothing about the financial difficulty) felt compelled to send a cheque for a specific amount to this woman. When the cheque arrived it turned out to be exactly the same amount of money the woman had calculated.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">A situation where a man had a heart attack and the doctors could not resuscitate him, but kept trying for ages. When his wife arrived at the surgery, she prayed and the man's heart started working again. Despite being clinically dead for almost an hour, he eventually made a full recovery, with no brain damage.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">A situation where a man was crushed by a car, severing five major arteries and destroying much of his lower intestine. Somehow he survived until the hospital, but his guts were severely damaged and much of them had to be removed. When in hospital, some Christian healer felt compelled to come and pray for the guy and he felt something change in his insides. Some time later an atheist surgeon operated on him and discovered that much of his lower intestine had regrown.</li>
</ol>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Items 2 and 3 on that list are discussed in <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Miracles-Credibility-New-Testament-Accounts/dp/0801039525">Craig Keener's book on Miracles</a> that I really should read some time, but it is massive, so I'll pass for now.</div>
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<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The options presented and discussed in the Hinge podcast were the following:</div>
</div>
<div>
<ol>
<li style="text-align: justify;">These were all miracle events, brought about by the Christian God.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">These were not miracle events, and some natural (but not explained) process must be at work.</li>
</ol>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
That's it. No third option was even considered. </div>
</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
For me, the answer to these conundrums does not necessarily need an omnipresent, omniscient, omnibenevolent and omnipotent God. Indeed, if there was such a God involved, I'd expect different outcomes in each case.<br />
<br />
Take the first case, what role does God play here? He basically gets the magic number telepathically from the head of one character and inserts it telepathically into the head of another. And the two characters already know each other. You don't need an infinite God to link these two, if you're prepared to speculate, then a simple telepathic link direct between the two would explain it with no divine agent. In one scenario you have two telepathic links and an infinite God, in the other only one telepathic link is required. Occam's razor would prefer the option with no God. Of course, there is limited evidence for telepathy, but then again, there is limited evidence for God.<br />
<br />
You think an infinite God is <i>more probable</i> than telepathy? Are you sure about that?<br />
<br />
And what this show failed to even mention is what about the many (hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions) of Christians in financial trouble who work out their financial shortfall, pray about it, and then nothing happens? Nobody sends a cheque. What about them? One anecdote doesn't explain why most of the time God seems to do nothing, and occasionally (I've heard a similar story before) people get just the right amount of money given to them in mysterious ways.<br />
<br />
Given the law of large numbers, this could simply be coincidence. According to the story, the financial shortfall was a very specific number, and the mysterious cheque had that exact (and obscure) value, but here I must question the reliability of human memory. Suppose the shortfall was $164.07 and the cheque that arrived was $167.95, I have no doubt that the recipient would think those numbers were close enough for it to be a miracle, and as the story was told and retold over many years, the actual numbers could have been forgotten, but only the 'fact' that they were the same was remembered. Or maybe I'm being a bit cynical. I know my memory isn't perfect, I can't assume that everyone else has a perfect memory.<br />
<br />
Turning to the medical miracles (and as far as I can tell - without reading it - most or all of the miracles in Craig Keener's book are medical in nature; nobody seems to walk in water or turn water into wine these days), there is one feature of both stories that was not questioned in the podcast - why does God need to work through an intermediary? In story 2, above, no 'miraculous' healing happened until the guy's wife showed up, then things turned around. In story 3, the apparent miracle only happened after the Christian healer guy turned up and prayed. In both stories it appears that God chose to, or perhaps needed to heal through an intermediary. Why didn't/couldn't he heal directly? I've heard this in many other healing stories - some human healer is involved.<br />
<br />
Lets speculate again. What if some people simply have innate healing powers, able to cause healing, regrowth, or resuscitation just by laying on of hands, or something like that? Its like the telepathy thing again, in one hypothesis we have a healing individual and an infinite God, in the other we simply have a healing individual. Just because that individual believes that the power comes from God, doesn't actually mean that any God is involved.<br />
<br />
And again, the programme doesn't discuss the stories of those who had heart attacks and then died. Or those who were crushed by cars and then died. The stories presented are the tiniest minority of actual incidents. Most of the time miracles don't happen. Some of the time, people just get lucky. Maybe these miracles were just instances of people at the favourable end of the probability bell curve, who happened to pray at some point in the incident. Maybe they are wrongly attributing their good fortune to God, when there was actually no God involved.<br />
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The feedback loop of faith is involved here (which I first discussed in <a href="http://confessionsofadoubtingthomas.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/second-hand-revelation.html">this post</a>). We don't hear the stories of dying people who cried out to God and died anyway. Those stories should cause us to reduce our belief in a God who answers prayer, but we don't do that because we never hear those stories. We only hear the stories of the survivors.<br />
<br />
And the other thing implied in the show, but the issue was never raised, is that only the Christian God answers prayer and heals in these ways. What about those who call out to Allah and don't die? We never hear about them. What about those who cry out to Krishna? What about the prayers of Mormans, or Moonies, or whatever? The narrow focus on only two possibilities in this show (i.e. option A "The Christian God exists" or option B "There is nothing supernatural") rules out a whole host of interesting possibilities ad speculations. Reality isn't black or white.<br />
<br />
Personally, I don't think these miracle claims are enough to demonstrate that the Triune God of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit is the only way to explain the weird stuff discussed. But I also don't think that Hinge takes seriously the possibility that weird stuff can happen without there being a God. From observation and from reading I am quite sure that weird and inexplicable stuff happens all the time, and our current understanding of the universe simply cannot explain it. But that doesn't mean we need to jump straight to God as an explanation.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20930767.post-6094884525327129652018-02-03T18:13:00.000+00:002018-02-03T18:13:00.407+00:00The Resurrection and the 'Minimal Facts' approach.<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicvRHRKXX7eyRPHHLm_fhBEsc2hPQPghFE7GGhldE5H92errnXa8I0_mYPZVCwPZhuRwecDzbzA2nT3WCUlAERzIfZl27fDOKqr6bFVY8zW3wMB2oPuvlYKzkD2q6tPRxJrQA/s1600/Saint_James_the_Just.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="319" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicvRHRKXX7eyRPHHLm_fhBEsc2hPQPghFE7GGhldE5H92errnXa8I0_mYPZVCwPZhuRwecDzbzA2nT3WCUlAERzIfZl27fDOKqr6bFVY8zW3wMB2oPuvlYKzkD2q6tPRxJrQA/s200/Saint_James_the_Just.jpg" width="141" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>James, brother of someone.</i></td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
I've recently read <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Case-Resurrection-Jesus-Gary-Habermas-ebook/dp/B001QOGJY0"><b><i>"The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus"</i></b></a> by Gary Habermas and Mike Licona, and discussed that book on a weekly basis with one or two Christians for a few weeks in November last year. The case presented in this book seems to be the best case that Evangelical Christianity has that the resurrection of Jesus was a true, historical event.<br />
<br />
I've touched on this subject before (in these blog posts from 2012: <a href="https://confessionsofadoubtingthomas.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/proofs-of-resurrection.html">1</a>, <a href="https://confessionsofadoubtingthomas.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/cold-case-christianity-part-1.html">2</a>, <a href="https://confessionsofadoubtingthomas.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/evidence-for-god-arguments-1-7.html">3</a>, & <a href="https://confessionsofadoubtingthomas.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/evidence-for-god-arguments-27-42-jesus.html">4</a>), but that was over 5 years ago and I have read much more on the subject since, so it may be worth revisiting my thoughts on the subject now.<br />
<br />
The case rests squarely on the shoulders of four or five 'minimal facts', and the discussion goes from there. I guess we need to start by asking what 'facts' are. Dictionary.com defines fact as:</div>
<ol>
<li><i>something that actually exists; reality; truth</i></li>
<li><i>something known to exist or to have happened</i></li>
<li><i>a truth known by actual experience or observation</i></li>
<li><i>something said to be true or supposed to have happened</i></li>
</ol>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This doesn't help us much as the final definition of 'fact' includes the possibility that a fact may, in fact, not be true. To claim that something is a fact, is not necessarily to demonstrate that it is true!<br />
<br />
The astounding thing about the 'minimal facts' presented in this argument, is that Habermas and Licona do not, <i>at any point in this book</i>, set out to prove that the minimal facts are, in fact, true facts. There are layers of reasoning and explanation and 'proof' for various things in this book, but they are all based on the <b><i><u>assumption</u></i></b> that the four (or five) minimal facts are true.<br />
<br />
The argument goes like this, <b><i><u>if</u></i></b> these four (or five) facts are true, <b><i><u>then</u></i></b> the resurrection appears to be more probable than the alternatives. For the most part I agree with this argument. Where it falls down, of course, are the four (or five) alleged facts.<br />
<br />
So what are these 'facts'? Well they are:<br />
<ol>
<li><i>Jesus died by crucifixion</i></li>
<li><i>After this, his disciples believed that they saw him alive again</i></li>
<li><i>Paul, the persecutor of the church, became a Christian following what he believed to be an encounter with the risen Christ</i></li>
<li><i>James, the skeptic brother of Jesus, became a Christian following what he believed to be an encounter with the risen Christ</i></li>
<li><i>Jesus's tomb was found empty</i></li>
</ol>
<div>
The last of these is put out of sequence, because this is the least attested 'fact' in there and is not relied upon in the book. Habermas & Licona's case is made using the first four 'facts' and the fifth is simply used as the icing on the cake, as it were.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
For Habermas & Licona, these are established as 'facts' because the majority of biblical scholars hold them to be true, irrespective of their personal beliefs. That is, even skeptical and non-believing scholars hold these to be true.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I think that there is a huge <i>selection bias</i> in this. What sort of person becomes a biblical scholar? Only someone raised in a Christian context, who probably began their studies as some flavour of believer. Even if they then abandoned their faith, they most likely started their study of the bible with presumptions that some (at least) of the biblical stories were true and historical.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
If you took a thousand Islamic scholars and asked them if Mohammed encountered the angel Gabriel in a cave, I'll bet that the majority think this is historical fact. Just because a majority believe something does not establish it as fact. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I'll bet if you took all the religious leaders in Judea in 40AD and asked them if Jesus was the son of God, the overwhelming majority would say no he was not. Would that establish the truth? No. So why should a headcount establish historical truth here?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The 'minimal facts' argument is only a valid argument if you can defend the four (or five) facts without an appeal to authority or majority. Habermas and Licona do not do this, so their case is still unproven.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So why don't I believe these supposed facts? Lets take them one by one, starting with the last.</div>
<div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><u>The Empty Tomb</u></b></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
What evidence have we for the empty tomb? Only the gospel accounts, or later texts which are derivative of them. So the empty tomb can only be considered a historical fact if we can accept that the gospels contain historical information. Habermas & Licona don't even attempt to prove that the gospels contain historical information. They simply assume it, noting that some biblical details can be verified from secular historical sources. Then they go further in suggesting that if there is a historical claim in any book in the bible that cannot be verified from secular sources, we should <i>give the bible the benefit of the doubt</i> and take it on trust that the biblical facts are true. Huh? What kind of historian does this? "The Bible" is a collection of 66 books by multiple authors, many of whom are unknown to us. Even if some of those authors included reliable historical facts in their books, this tells us nothing about the reliability of the authors of the other books. If the book of 2 Kings contains historical information, does this imply that the book of Jonah does? Of course not.<br />
<br />
So do the gospels contain historical information? Well, certainly there are characters in the gospels who are known to secular history - two Herods, Pilate, and John the Baptist, but that's about it. Aside from the census, recorded only in Luke, there are no historical events in the gospels that can be confirmed using independent sources. Not even the death of Jesus, as we'll see below. So we really have no way of knowing if most of the stories on the gospels have any connection to real historical events.<br />
<br />
However, the main problem with the empty tomb is that we would never have heard of it had it not been part of the larger story of the death and resurrection of Jesus. <i>It is not independent data.</i> Given that, we can't use this as evidence for the 'historical' resurrection of Jesus as it only exists as part of a story that makes this claim. Trying to argue from the empty tomb to the resurrection is like trying to prove that the exhaust ports on the Death Star were badly designed, using the evidence that Luke Skywalker destroyed the Death Star by firing a torpedo into it. The two 'facts' are part of the same story and you can't have one without the other. If one of them is questionable, the other must also be questionable.<br />
<br />
There is also no case to be made for multiple attestation within the gospels here, as a couple of centuries of textual criticism have convincingly demonstrated that the account of the crucifixion in Mark is dependent on the Psalms, the accounts in Matthew and Luke are dependent on Mark, and that the account in John is probably dependent on Luke. The crucifixion looks like a literary construct, and the empty tomb forms part of the same (fictive?) story.<br />
<br />
It doesn't matter if a whole heap of biblical scholars believe this to be history, I'm not convinced.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><u>The death of Jesus by crucifixion</u></b></div>
<br />
Let's jump to the first (and least contested) of the minimal facts next; Jesus death by crucifixion. Pretty much everyone accepts this as true, right? Indeed, but it suffers from the same problems as the empty tomb - there are no stories of the death of Jesus that don't go on to involve the resurrection. All accounts of the death of Jesus are followed by major miracle claims, and claims that Jesus is or was divine. You really can't separate one from the other. If the stories of Jesus dying on the cross are taken as facts written by reliable historians, then the resurrection is also a fact written by a reliable historian! You can't assume one to be a fact of history, and the other to be questionable. If the resurrection is questionable, then Jesus death by crucifixion is just as questionable. If one is fact, the other should be assumed to be fact. We have no independent data about one that does not also concern the other!<br />
<br />
All secular references to the death of Jesus are entirely dependent on the stories told by believing Christians. And as far as we can tell, the earliest believers believed that he was raised just as much as they believed that he died. If they were wrong about one, they could equally be wrong about the other. The observation that one story is miraculous and the other non-miraculous is irrelevant here. In a story containing many unbelievable and impossible events, we can't simply take all the mundane and possible events as probably true.<br />
<br />
To establish that Jesus died by crucifixion we would need an account of his life and death that did not feature miracles and did not feature any resurrection claims. As far as I know, no such evidence exists. Literally everything we know about the life and death of Jesus comes to us from the accounts of those who fundamentally believed that he had triumphed over death and had risen. If they were wrong about that, what else were they wrong about?<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><u>The conversion of James</u></b></div>
<br />
I'm even less convinced by this claim than by the empty tomb, even though more biblical scholars are apparently convinced by it. The problem with this 'fact' is that it is not part of the biblical story, even if it is apparently derived from there. I wrote so much on this 'fact' that I decided to make it a separate blog post in its own right, <a href="http://confessionsofadoubtingthomas.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/james-brother-of-lord.html">which you can read here</a>. Suffice it to say that I very much doubt the 'fact' of the conversion of James from skeptic to church leader.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><u>The conversion of Paul</u></b></div>
<br />
This is probably the strongest of the five minimal facts. Most people, even those who doubt the existence of Jesus, believe that there was a guy called Paul in the 1st century, who wrote epistles. That guy claimed, in those letters, to have been a persecutor of the early Christians, and that he had a transformative experience of the risen Christ, becoming an apostle and firm believer in the resurrection.<br />
<br />
I read Hermann Detering's book <i>"The Fabricated Paul"</i> a few years ago (indeed, I have an unpublished, half written blog post about it, which may surface eventually, although considering it has been half written since 2013, it may never see the light of day). In this book, Detering makes the case that <i><u>none</u></i> of the epistles attributed to Paul were actually written by anyone called Paul. While I'm not entirely convinced by Detering's argument (he makes an excellent case that several of the epistles were written by different authors from each other, but can't really prove that <i>none</i> of them was authentic), I do accept that some of the other epistles were definitely not written by the guy who wrote 1 Corinthians. I'm currently working through Robert M. Price's <i>"The amazing colossal apostle"</i>, which makes much the same case, but goes one step further than Detering in claiming that there was no Paul at all. I'll possibly offer some thoughts on that once I get to the end of it.<br />
<br />
While both the above books possibly go further than I am willing to go, I am convinced that some of the epistles by 'Paul' were written by others (later) in the name of Paul. That is, <i>some</i> of the epistles are forgeries and pseudepigraphal. That probably entails that <i>some</i> of the historical or biographical 'facts' in some of the epistles are fictional or, certainly, were related by persons who were not there and did not witness any of the events claimed.<br />
<br />
Given that, it is tricky to piece together a coherent picture of what the 'real' Paul did, said, experienced, wrote, etc. Even if we take the epistles as all being authentic, it is quite hard to piece together a biography of the letter writer. In what way did he persecute the church? This is unclear. When did he do this? Also unclear. What made his stop the persecution? Fairly unclear. To iron out the uncertainties in the life of Paul, most folk turn to the Acts of the Apostles and find his story there. But there are good reasons not to take Acts as a reliable history. For one thing, it actually contradicts things said in the name of Paul in the epistles. For another thing, it presents Paul and Peter as basically having parallel lives - for every miracle Paul experiences, Peter has an identical experience; their preaching is virtually indistinguishable from each other; they say the same things and do the same things. This is not history, this is someone trying to level the playing-field by demonstrating that these two characters are equal. The Acts seminar's primary conclusion was that the book of Acts was a 2nd century fiction, containing virtually no historical data. If they're right about that, then we really know nothing about Paul's 'pre-conversion' life and persecution of the church, and we hardly know anything about his 'conversion' or 'post-conversion' life either.<br />
<br />
Was Paul transformed from anti-Christian-persecutor to believing-Christian-apostle through a visionary experience? Maybe. Is there any link we can make between this experience and the real historical Jesus guy who may have died on a cross a few years earlier? Nope.<br />
<br />
So what we are left with is a claim of the conversion of someone from one religion to another. That happens all the time, and in no way provides evidence for the truth of the religion that the person ends up believing in.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><u>The resurrection appearances</u></b></div>
<br />
Finally we get to this one. I find that this is where Habermas and Licona, and others using this argument completely over-state their case to the point of absurdity. The claim is that <b><i>all </i></b>the disciples experienced resurrection appearances.<br />
<br />
Really? Well, the gospels and Acts chapter 1 have the disciples encountering the risen Jesus. But none of these writings are first-person claims. As far as I know, we have no writings from Andrew, or Thomas, or James son of Alphaeus, or Thaddeus, or Phillip, or whoever relating their alleged experiences. Of course, Paul does, but he never saw Jesus during his lifetime, so he has nothing to confirm that his vision in any way relates to the real Jesus.<br />
<br />
We have a few letters claiming to be written by Peter. None of them relate any post-resurrection experiences. They are far more concerned to claim that the author saw Jesus when he was alive the first time. So that doesn't help us. And of course, the authenticity of these letters is debated, so we really have no data supporting the claim that the author of these letters actually had a post-resurrection experience of Jesus.<br />
<br />
Once again, the 'fact' of the resurrection appearances really turns out to be simply an unverifiable claim of early Christians which has been repeated many, many times over the past two thousand years.<br />
<br />
We don't know what the 'original' disciples experienced, because they did not tell us. And the stories relating what they apparently did experience (and the stories of their subsequent lives, ministries and martyrdoms) are at best second or third had accounts, and quite possibly works of fiction.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><u>In conclusion</u></b></div>
<br />
So there you have it, for me, none of the five 'minimal facts' stands up to scrutiny. They are all just unverifiable claims, most of which rely on a particularly orthodox reading of the source documents. I'm not sure any of the "facts" approach the standard of 'balance of probability' let alone 'beyond reasonable doubt', so these claims do not prove that the resurrection happened.<br />
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Christianity, to be proven true, needs better evidence. I've been looking for it for years and still can't find it.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20930767.post-81850011825102763032018-01-04T22:13:00.000+00:002018-01-04T22:13:06.017+00:00James, the brother of the Lord<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicvRHRKXX7eyRPHHLm_fhBEsc2hPQPghFE7GGhldE5H92errnXa8I0_mYPZVCwPZhuRwecDzbzA2nT3WCUlAERzIfZl27fDOKqr6bFVY8zW3wMB2oPuvlYKzkD2q6tPRxJrQA/s1600/Saint_James_the_Just.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="319" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicvRHRKXX7eyRPHHLm_fhBEsc2hPQPghFE7GGhldE5H92errnXa8I0_mYPZVCwPZhuRwecDzbzA2nT3WCUlAERzIfZl27fDOKqr6bFVY8zW3wMB2oPuvlYKzkD2q6tPRxJrQA/s200/Saint_James_the_Just.jpg" width="141" /></a></div>
This post is an offshoot from another post that I have half written, and which will emerge in due course. It concerns the 'Minimal Facts' approach to 'prove' the resurrection. One of the main four minimal facts concerns the initial skepticism, conversion, and rise to church leadership of James, the brother of Jesus.<br />
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However, I'm not sure this extrabiblical story has any solid grounding in history, so let's look at the character of James in the new testament and in the early church writings.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><u><i>James in the Gospels</i></u></b></div>
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In the gospel of Mark (the first gospel written), James exists only as a name in a list of Jesus' brothers in one verse (Mark 6v3)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him."</i></blockquote>
That is the only place where James is named in the gospel of Mark. He is also named in an equivalent verse in Matthew (13v55), but is not named in the other two gospels. There is no <i>character</i> of James the brother of Jesus in any of the gospels.<br />
<br />
Jesus' (unnamed) brothers do have a very minor role in the gospels. After the wedding in Cana in John chapter 2, Jesus, his mother, brothers and disciples spend time together. No antagonism between Jesus and his brothers is implied, quite the opposite.<br />
<br />
However, the (skeptical) character of James in the gospels is <i>inferred</i> largely because of this verse:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"Jesus’ brothers said to him, “Leave Galilee and go to Judea, so that your disciples there may see the works you do. No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world.” <b>For even his own brothers did not believe in him.</b>" </i>John 7v3-5</blockquote>
This is a confusing statement, verses 3 and 4 imply that the brothers know that Jesus is doing some form of wondrous works (i.e. they apparently believe in his power), but verse 5 states that they didn't believe in him (in what way did then not believe?). Furthermore there is this story in Mark 3v20-21:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>"Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.”"</i></blockquote>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
So, <i>by inference</i>, James (assumed to be part of 'his own brothers' or 'his family') thought that Jesus was 'out of his mind' and 'did not believe in him'. From this somebody deduced that James was not a follower of Jesus, and was <i>therefore</i> 'a skeptic'. Sorry, what? Is that really the best we can do? It is really, really unclear to me that we know anything at all about the character of James from the gospels. Surely on this basis we have to list Mary as a skeptic too?</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It is interesting to note that Matthew's retelling of Mark's story in chapter 12 omits the verse about Jesus' family thinking he is 'out of his mind'. In Matthew, the family just turn up and want to speak to Jesus, and he ignores them. We learn nothing at all about the character of Jesus' mother and brothers from Matthew. Likewise in Luke.<br />
<br />
In Summary, Matthew and Luke have nothing negative to say about James or any of Jesus' other family members, they are really non-characters. Mark names James in a list, and while he does note that Jesus 'family' thought he was out of his mind, there is no explicit mention of James in connection to this. John does not name James anywhere. But Jesus' unnamed brothers do express a very minor degree of skepticism.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Based on gospel evidence, it is far from clear that James the brother of Jesus did anything at all, or had any massively negative views about Jesus or his message.<br />
<br />
Before we move on, I'd like to think through this again. The claim made by apologists is that Jesus' brother James was skeptical about his ministry, then later had a post-resurrection appearance by Jesus, changed his mind, became a follower and then became one of the main leaders in the Church in Jerusalem. He was later martyred.<br />
<br />
Keep that sequence in mind. At the time of writing of the gospel accounts, generally taken to be post 70AD, James would have been a legend of the early church - one of the pioneering Church leaders, one of the most notable martyrs, someone important. Basically, he'd be considered a <i>core character</i> in any history of the early church that anyone would write. If you want to suppose that Mark was written pre-70AD, the same sort of reasoning applies, but James might still be a key character in the church, having not yet died.<br />
<br />
Now consider the evangelists writing their gospels. Knowing who James would become, would Mark leave James as merely a name on a list? Would he mention the apparent skepticism of James in such an oblique way? Would he not have made James more of a character? I think if Mark knew who James would become, he would certainly not write about him in the way presented here. My conclusion - the first evangelist did not know the stories about James, the brother of Jesus, converting and becoming a leader in the Church.<br />
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What about Matthew and Luke? If they knew about James's story would they have modified Mark's story to make James even more anonymous? I doubt it. Conclusion, it looks unlikely that Matthew or Luke knew the story of James.<br />
<br />
Finally John, who doesn't even name James in his gospel. Did he know about the conversion and rise of this skeptic to be the leader of the Jerusalem church? No. It doesn't look likely at all.<br />
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Basically, I think that the gospel stories themselves suggest that James the brother of Jesus was not a key player in the life of the early church. Maybe there was a James who was important, as we will see, but the gospel evidence suggests that this character was not identified with the brother of Jesus.<br />
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Before we move on, it is worth mentioning at this point that the gospels list two other characters called James - one the brother of John and son of Zebedee, and the other one the son on Alphaus. These are both characters, not merely names on a list.</div>
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<b><u><i>James in Acts</i></u></b></div>
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Next we go to Acts. What does it tell us about James the brother of Jesus after the death of Jesus? Nothing. </div>
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None of the mentions of any character named James in the book of Acts explicitly refer to him as the brother of Jesus. <i>None of them.</i><br />
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James the brother of John is killed in Acts 12v2. After this there are three references to someone called James who is a leader of the church in Jerusalem. The book of Acts does not tell us who this James is; if this is James brother of Jesus, or James son of Alphaus. But given that Luke-Acts has never even mentioned that Jesus had a brother called James, our <i>only reasonable conclusion</i> is that the second James in Acts is the <i>only other James</i> previously mentioned, James son of Alpheus. Luke-Acts gives us no other character to assume. It would also make sense if the James in question was one of the disciples, not some non-character who hadn't been on the scene or part of the story before. If the other James was an outsider from the original apostle group, surely the writer of Acts should have introduced him in some way?</div>
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<b><i><u>James in Paul</u></i></b></div>
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So from where do we get the idea that the leader of the Jerusalem church (after the death of James son of Zebedee) was James the brother of Jesus? We get it from <i><u>one</u></i> reference in Galatians 1v19:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>"<span style="color: #cccccc; font-size: xx-small;">18</span> Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days. <span style="color: #cccccc; font-size: xx-small;">19</span> I saw none of the other apostles—only James, the Lord’s brother. <span style="color: #cccccc; font-size: xx-small;">20</span> I assure you before God that what I am writing you is no lie."</i></blockquote>
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That's it. About three years after his conversion, Paul met someone called <i>"James, the Lord's brother"</i> in Jerusalem, and he lists him in the same breath as mentioning the apostles.<br />
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No other mention of James in the writings of Paul specifies which James he means. In fact, it sounds as if Paul thinks there is only one James of note. Poor James son of Zebedee and poor James son of Alphaus, if Paul means the other one. Paul, it would seem, doesn't rate them.</div>
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In the creed at the end of 1 Corinthians, <i>someone</i> called James is named as being one of the recipients of a post-resurrection appearance of Christ. It doesn't say which James. Again, if you read Paul, it looks like he only knew of one James. Paul knows of no James who was martyred and then replaced by another James. Paul's writings only refer to one James, and aside from the Galatians verse above, he doesn't add any describing words.<br />
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It looks to me like somebody, sometime after the writing of the epistles and the gospels, contrived the skeptic-appearance-church leader story out of this very limited information. Apparently that is enough to make it a 'fact'. It all hangs on one verse in Galatians.<br />
<br />
But let me go back to that one verse again before I move on. The plain reading of the verse is confusing. It suggests that the James under discussion was not an apostle. Paul plainly says <i>"I saw none of the other apostles"</i>. These verses might have said <i>'the only apostle I saw was Peter, and I also saw James, the brother of the Lord'</i>. What can we do with this? On one interpretation it suggests there was a character called James, who wasn't one of the original disciples, the group now known as apostles. This fits with the story. Or maybe this verse should be read the way it traditionally has, something like <i>'I saw none of the other apostles, except James, the brother of the Lord, I did see him'</i>, which would label this character as both a brother of Jesus and as an Apostle.<br />
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The creed in 1 Corinthians 15 says:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="color: #cccccc; font-size: xx-small;">3</span> For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, <span style="color: #cccccc; font-size: xx-small;">4</span> that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, <span style="color: #cccccc; font-size: xx-small;">5</span> and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. <span style="color: #cccccc; font-size: xx-small;">6</span> After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. <span style="color: #cccccc; font-size: xx-small;">7</span> Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, <span style="color: #cccccc; font-size: xx-small;">8</span> and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.</i></blockquote>
There is a parallel here between verses 5 and 7. V5 has <i>"to Cephas, and then to the Twelve"</i> whereas V7 has <i>"to James, then to all the apostles"</i>. Were the apostles and the Twelve different groups of people? I've heard it suggested that they were. The Twelve (a symbolic name, I guess, because if the gospel accounts are accurate, then Judas was gone by this time) were the disciples who knew Jesus during his lifetime, the apostles were those who claimed to have post-resurrection visions of Jesus. These need not be the same groups of people.<br />
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I've also heard it claimed that this creed was an early attempt to unite two rival branches of early Christianity - the one that viewed Cephas and the Twelve as the founding fathers, and the one who viewed James and the apostles as the original guys. By putting both groups in the same creed, with equal standing, the author of this creed (pre- or post-Pauline? Certainly not Paul himself) tried, successfully as it seems, to unite the two rival proto-religions into one big happy family that became the Catholic (universal, i.e. unified) church.<br />
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<b><i><u>James beyond the NT</u></i></b></div>
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If we go beyond the NT, the sources muddy the water quite a lot. There are snippets in Eusebius (3rd/4th century), some of them attributed to Hegesippus (mid/late 2nd century), whose writings are now lost to posterity, other than the quotes in Eusebius.<br />
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There is also one reference in Josephus (late 1st century) which, if judged to be authentic, would be the closest in time to the real character, if there was one. This is in Antiquities of the Jews, Book 20, Chapter 9, where it says:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"so [Ananus] assembled the sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned"</i></blockquote>
This passage doesn't tell us much about James, or about Jesus, other than that James was considered by the sanhedrin to be a lawbreaker and was executed by stoning. According to Josephus, this execution was unpopular and led directly to the removal of Ananus as high priest and the appointment of someone called Jesus ben Damnaus as high priest.<br />
<br />
Richard Carrier observes that if the clause <i>'who was called Christ'</i> is removed from the Josephus passage, the story still makes sense but has a different spin - James the brother of someone called Jesus is executed, and as some form of recompense for this someone called Jesus is promoted to high priest. It makes a lot of sense if these two Jesus characters are actually the same character. Carrier supposes that some reader of this text added a marginal note "who was called Christ" (perhaps even questioning this?) at some point and when this document was copied, the scribe, thinking that this was an omission from the earlier document, inserted it into the text. Its possible, and has certainly happened in the transmission of other ancient documents.<br />
<br />
Hegesippus, quoted in Eusebius, says this:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"James, the brother of the Lord, succeeded to the government of the Church in conjunction with the apostles. He has been called the Just by all from the time of our Saviour to the present day; for there were many that bore the name of James. He was holy from his mother’s womb; and he drank no wine nor strong drink, nor did he eat flesh. No razor came upon his head; he did not anoint himself with oil, and he did not use the bath.
He alone was permitted to enter into the holy place; for he wore not woolen but linen garments. And he was in the habit of entering alone into the temple, and was frequently found upon his knees begging forgiveness for the people, so that his knees became hard like those of a camel, in consequence of his constantly bending them in his worship of God, and asking forgiveness for the people.
Because of his exceeding great justice he was called the Just, and Oblias, which signifies in Greek, ‘Bulwark of the people’ and ‘Justice,’ in accordance with what the prophets declare concerning him."</i></blockquote>
Does this sound at all like the child of a carpenter from Nazareth? Whoever this James was, he was raised as a Nazirite, and became the high priest - the only one permitted to enter the holy place in the temple; so he must have come from a priestly family.<br />
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Were it not for the <i>'the brother of the Lord'</i> clause in the above passage, we would not consider this description as in any way coherent with the descriptions of Jesus' brothers in the gospels. Hegesippus' description leaves no room for the skeptic-turned-believer hypothesis - the James described here was holy from before he was born!<br />
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I suspect what we have here is a legend of a Jewish (not necessarily Christian!) holy man, possibly a high priest, called James. This is coherent with my supposition above that the James named by Josephus was brother of Jesus ben Damnaus, who must have also come from a priestly family as he became the high priest.<br />
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At some point along the way though, possibly due to Hegesippus himself, this character was merged with the largely unknown character of James, the brother of Jesus, who had just been a name on a list until then. My suspicion is that Hegesippus co-opted the well known character of James the Just, and made him a Christian saint, by identifying him as the brother of Jesus.<br />
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If that's not the case, then either Hegesippus is wrong about the character of James the brother of Jesus, or the gospels are wrong about him. We can't keep both as reliable historical accounts of the man, that's doublethink.<br />
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Clement of Alexandria (late 2nd/early 3rd century) also briefly mentions James the Just, claiming that following the resurrection, Peter, James & John deferred to James the Just as bishop of Jerusalem. While the whole notion of a 'bishop' in Jerusalem immediately following the resurrection seems a bit anachronistic, this shows that James the Just and James the brother of Jesus were clearly identified as the same person by the late 2nd century (which is consistent with Hegesippus as well). However, this is fully a century after the alleged guy lived!<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><u><i>In conclusion</i></u></b></div>
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So it looks to me like this:<br />
<ul>
<li>The earliest Christian documents (Paul's letters) know of only one character called James, who is a leader in the Jerusalem church. Only one verse in Galatians 1 identifies him as the brother of Jesus.</li>
<li>The other early Christian documents (the gospels & Acts) know nothing about the character of James, the brother of Jesus. This seems inconsistent with later claims about his character.</li>
<li>From the mid 2nd century onwards, James (the brother of Jesus), James the Just (a 1st century priest and holy man) and James (the 'bishop' of Jerusalem) were merged into one character.</li>
</ul>
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Were it not for that verse in Galatians, the whole thing simply looks like a legend that has grown in the telling. So what are we to do with the verse in Galatians?<br />
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Robert M. Price, in his commentary on Galatians in <i>"The Amazing Colossal Apostle"</i> (which I am still reading and will review on this blog eventually), agrees with the claims of W.C. Van Manen (1842-1905) that Galatians was written not by Paul, but by Marcion in the early 2nd century. This claim appears to be largely based on the observation that Tertullian wrote that Marcion 'discovered' the letter of Paul to the Galatians, that is, this epistle was unknown to the church before Marcion. Price's analysis suggests that Marcion wrote the core of the epistle, but that the 1st chapter - including the verse we are discussing here - was added at a later date, by another editor, which places this verse squarely in the mid 2nd century. This coheres with all my suppositions above, resolving the problem in the chronology.<br />
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So there you have it. A very long winded rebuttal of one of the five 'minimal facts' used as part of Habermas & Licona's apologetic. For this one at least I am convinced that this isn't a 'fact'. But I guess I have a long way to go to bring down the whole argument!</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20930767.post-87636595257195422892017-11-07T14:15:00.000+00:002017-11-07T14:15:51.062+00:00A guy walks out of a tomb...<div style="text-align: justify;">
Just listened to the r<a href="https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/Episodes/Unbelievable-Is-Science-Mike-right-about-God-evidence-and-the-benefits-of-believing-Mike-McHargue-JD-Walters">ecent <b><i>Unbelievable</i></b> show</a> featuring 'Science Mike' and a more conventional Christian called JD Walters. I don't have much to say about the show except that on a few occasions Mike referred to the resurrection using phrases along the lines of <i>"Jesus walked out of the tomb..."</i></div>
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Maybe I've been getting the wrong end of the stick all these years, but I always thought that the whole point of the stone being rolled away was to demonstrate that the tomb was actually empty, not to facilitate the risen Christ leaving? Jesus has no problem in the post-resurrection stories of simply appearing in locked rooms, so I had always assumed that the idea was that he could and did vanish (bodily) out of the tomb, and then appeared wherever later on, like on the road to Emmaus.</div>
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Do <b><i>you</i></b> think he walked out of the tomb?</div>
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I always thought that the tomb was empty before the stone was rolled away. Jesus didn't need the stone to be moved in order to get out. The rolling away of the stone was only to allow the witnesses to see an empty tomb.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20930767.post-28404859607054389262017-08-25T12:56:00.001+00:002017-08-25T12:56:21.311+00:00Other boats?<div style="text-align: justify;">
There is a peculiar detail in Mark's gospel that I've never noticed before. It is found as part of the story of the stilling of the storm in Mark 4:</div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">35</span> That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” <span style="font-size: xx-small;">36</span> Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. <b>There were also other boats with him.</b> <span style="font-size: xx-small;">37</span> A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. <span style="font-size: xx-small;">38</span> Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">39</span> He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">40</span> He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">41</span> They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”
</blockquote>
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Have you ever noticed that short statement at the end of v36? Jesus and his disciples are in one boat, travelling across the sea of Galilee, but there were other boats travelling with them. These other boats explicitly do not contain members of 'the crowd' as v36 says they left them behind.</div>
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These other boats play no further role in the story, and appear to be entirely absent by the time of the storm and the miraculous calming. So why mention them at all? Matthew (ch8) and Luke (ch8) omit this detail of the story in their tellings of it.</div>
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This is one of the peculiar details in Mark that may reveal something about the sources Mark used for his gospel. Mark is clearly adapting an earlier story to present here. It looks like the earlier story included multiple boats, and even though Mark's telling of the story does not require the other boats for the narrative to make sense, he keeps the short statement about them anyway. Matthew and Luke, realising the redundancy of this statement, remove it.<br />
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So what possible function could the other boats have in the earlier story, the one that Mark adapted? A few options seem reasonable. It could be that these other boats were lost in the storm, and only the boat containing Jesus was saved. That would make narrative sense, and also be a good theological analogy. But that's an analogy that Mark doesn't make, so perhaps that suggests that this is not the original story.<br />
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Dennis R. MacDonald makes a compelling case in his book "<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Homeric-Epics-Gospel-Mark/dp/0300172613">The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark</a>" (which I am reading at the moment) that this story about Jesus is based on a story about Odysseus in Homer's Odyssey. I won't detail the parallels here, but suffice it to say there are clear narrative and vocabulary parallels between one specific passage in the Odyssey and this passage in Mark. In Homer, there are other boats, and these do play a minor role in the story. If MacDonald's case is true, then Mark used elements of a story about Odysseus, which which many of his readers would probably be familiar, as the basis for a story about Jesus. I've read elsewhere that this was actually fairly common in ancient literature (written in Greek), writers adapted well known stories so that they could highlight certain features of their hero (in this case Jesus) - that is, showing the ways in which their hero is like the well known hero, and sometimes highlighting the ways in which their hero is even better than the well known hero. Here Jesus is shown to be better than Odysseus, as the latter merely survived the storm, but the former demonstrated power over it.<br />
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The question for us, however, is whether or not events told in this way actually happened or not? Was there a <i>real</i> story about Jesus which has been told 'through the lens' of Homer, or is this a story of Homeric origin which has been <i>fictionally</i> recast with gospel characters to demonstrate just how much of a hero Jesus was to a Greek-literate audience?<br />
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We actually face this question again and again in Mark, the story as presented reveals details of an older source text, so is the source text the sole origin of the story, or is Mark's telling of the story a fusion between an earlier Jesus story and an older written document? This question becomes most important when we get to the crucifixion narrative. Is that a fusion of an earlier story about Jesus with the <i>framework</i> of Psalm 22, or is it a work of midrash, fictively expanding on Psalm 22? I'll leave that quandary for another time.<br />
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For now the question is whether the stilling of the storm story is a fusion of a Jesus story with an Odysseus story, or is it a fictive riff on the Odysseus story to show how Jesus is better than the Greek hero? How could we even tell? If we had access to any pre-Markan Jesus stories set on lakes, then maybe we could parse this story, but as it happens we do not, and therefore cannot.<br />
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I'm reasonably won over by MacDonald's thesis that the Sea of Galilee stories of Jesus are fictive attempts to put Mark's Jesus into similar situations as Odysseus. Indeed, it would seem that before Mark wrote his gospel, nobody ever referred to this small lake in the 'Holy Land' as anything other than a small lake. It was never a 'sea' before this. Mark, it would appear, beefed up the designation of this lake to a 'sea' so he could set Odysseus-style stories on it. The 'other boats' are just a little editorial oversight that Mark forgot to remove for his retelling of the story.<br />
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Of course, all this could be waaaay off the mark. Maybe the other boats had a completely different origin in Mark's non-Homeric source. I'd love to hear other opinions about what these boats are doing in this story.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20930767.post-34835215035632251032017-08-21T09:28:00.000+00:002017-08-21T09:28:18.226+00:00Question Mark, Part 4<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDhp6PsRGfQr4BAb9z0QMrysxTPxeOTyk5qjNrs3hezRAlxEiA4p_zKNDKvVT1UfnJ_llEMzxjlcNiuszLY4FAtgn8el38p4NsAWHca7-p3YKIFDrIpoICyIFFOlH2g0rqDaw/s1600/question-mark.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="173" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDhp6PsRGfQr4BAb9z0QMrysxTPxeOTyk5qjNrs3hezRAlxEiA4p_zKNDKvVT1UfnJ_llEMzxjlcNiuszLY4FAtgn8el38p4NsAWHca7-p3YKIFDrIpoICyIFFOlH2g0rqDaw/s1600/question-mark.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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Welcome back to the world's slowest Bible study... two years ago I began slowly going through the gospel of Mark and so far I have managed to get to the end of... verse 1 of chapter 1. You can read the first two posts <a href="https://confessionsofadoubtingthomas.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/question-mark-part-1.html">here</a> and <a href="https://confessionsofadoubtingthomas.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/question-mark-part-2.html">here</a>. Hang on, you might be thinking, the title of this post says 'Part 4', what happened to 'Part 3'?</div>
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Well, I'm now about to annoyingly jump over ten verses and think about verses 12 and 13 of chapter 1. I'll come back to verses 2 to 11 in 'Part 3', which will follow at a later date. For now let's look at:</div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">12</span> At once the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness, <span style="font-size: xx-small;">13</span> and he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.</i></blockquote>
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Hmmm. That's not how you remember this story is it? You remember all the details of the temptation from Matthew's expansion of this story. This version is really short in comparison, and seems fairly pointless.<br />
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First we need to talk about the word "πειράζω" or "peirazō", translated in the NIV (above) as 'tempted'. As far as I can tell, the word here translated tempted generally means 'tested'. In this context it is clear that Jesus is being tested to show that he is up to the task that lies before him. Here Satan is fulfilling the divinely appointed role that he has in most of the OT, he is acting on behalf of God to test someone to see if they are truly righteous or not. Satan here is not God's adversary, but rather seems sent by God to test Jesus.<br />
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There are four characters in the story here: Jesus, the Spirit, Satan and the angels. God the Father, having popped up in verse 11 has again vanished off the stage and plays no active role here.<br />
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Jesus was directed by the Spirit into the wilderness, where he was tested by Satan. We are not told the nature of the tests, we are not even told if Jesus passed the tests! The reader actually has to make up their own mind about what they think happened. I guess this is why Matthew felt the need to be explicit about the nature of the tests and to be explicit in showing that Jesus passed them. Mark feels no such need to explain anything. Once again I am reminded of Robert M. Fowler's book <i>"Let the reader Understand"</i> - Mark doesn't give his audience everything, he expects them to work things out for themselves.<br />
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Maybe we should rephrase my comment above about the four characters in the story, there are actually five witnesses to the events - Jesus, the Spirit, the Satan, the angels, <i>and the reader</i>.<br />
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But why was the testing necessary? Did God the Father need to do this in order to find out that Jesus was up to the task? Well, that very much depends on your pre-conceptions of the Father. Did Jesus need to know for himself that he could pass the test? I don't think the angels really needed to know. Whether Satan needed to know would depend very much on your pre-conceptions of Satan. But really, I think, the main audience who need to know if Jesus passed the test are Mark's readers themselves. This story is for them. Nobody else in this story <i>needs</i> these events to have happened. That, in itself, should put a very big question mark over the actual historicity of this event, the event itself presupposes an audience, but as presented there was no audience present.<br />
<br />
If we take for granted the Trinity, as generally believed in modern Christianity, this story makes no sense. Why would one member of the Trinity need to get another member of the Trinity to direct the third member of the Trinity to the place of testing? In this concept, God the Father must already know that God the Son is up to the task set before him, as they have been in communion together for eternity past. God the Father does not need to test God the Son, and certainly does not need the direction of God the Spirit to assist in this. From a Trinitarian point of view, the only way we can make sense of this passage is if Satan is the devil, and the point of the exercise is to demonstrate to the devil just who Jesus is. This seems to be the way that Matthew understands the story, but it is not at all clear in Mark's version. Various theologies in other parts of the NT rely on the assumption that the devil did not know who Jesus was, so they, at least, are inconsistent with this view of this event.<br />
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Put aside the idea of the Trinity for a moment, though, and the story makes a whole lot more sense. If God in heaven had chosen a righteous man, Jesus, to <i>become</i> his Son, and had poured his Spirit <i>into</i> this man (that's something to be discussed in the part of this study that we have temporarily jumped over), then he'd need to be sure that the man he had chosen was up to the task. From a non-Trinitarian (and, indeed, an <i>adoptionist</i>) point of view, this passage makes perfect sense. Here God is simply double checking that he made the right choice. And so from here on in, the reader can be sure that God made the right choice too.<br />
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I think this is the lens through which we need to view the rest of the gospel of Mark. Jesus is just a man, <i>chosen and empowered</i> to be the Son of God, but not part of the Trinity and not pre-existent.<br />
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Thinking in this way also makes this passage make sense from Jesus's point of view as well. Jesus himself needs to know that he can pass the test. He needs to know the power of the Spirit which is now within him. Having been through this, Jesus himself now knows that he is ready for the rest of the gospel, and so does the reader.<br />
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Before we move on, one final comment that, I think, contradicts what Matthew will later do with this passage when he expands it. Nothing in this passage suggests that Jesus is without food. Indeed, the angels 'attending' him would imply that they brought him whatever he needed, including food. For some reason this short passage makes me think of 1 Kings 17 where Elijah is ministered to by ravens, who bring him food. Perhaps it is even closer to 1 Kings 19, where an angel brings Elijah food. Either way, if this inference is correct, then Matthew's story, in which Jesus has no food for 40 days, contradicts this.<br />
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So there we have it, I think this short passage is clearly non-historical, and reveals an underlying theology which is at odds with current Christian belief.<br />
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<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20930767.post-85494760893653045672017-07-26T15:50:00.001+00:002017-07-26T15:50:08.938+00:00Why eyewitnesses remember things wrong...<div style="text-align: justify;">
This could be an interesting journal article, if only I could get it out from behind the paywall:</div>
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<a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/114/30/7758.abstract">http://www.pnas.org/content/114/30/7758.abstract</a></div>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20930767.post-36674265338056801862017-07-09T11:03:00.001+00:002017-07-09T11:03:44.758+00:00God is not the answer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJtMuy_s2wQEuRvuO0-rP5HAKWghnJuqzPDbUwInE4-4K0zISKmk3hiVA8ZRQlbGcdzOduhM1BlnEadtvMgp0KDA-52y7V-rAxaOp8UF80Dq8FKl1UEczInIVQDjCJv6ZP03c/s1600/panic.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="475" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJtMuy_s2wQEuRvuO0-rP5HAKWghnJuqzPDbUwInE4-4K0zISKmk3hiVA8ZRQlbGcdzOduhM1BlnEadtvMgp0KDA-52y7V-rAxaOp8UF80Dq8FKl1UEczInIVQDjCJv6ZP03c/s200/panic.png" width="200" /></a></div>
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Reflecting on some apologetics I've been listening to recently, and on a book I'm reading at the moment, I have realised that quite often "God" is not an adequate answer to the question posed.</div>
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For example, how did life emerge out of non-life? Or how did consciousness arise out of non-consciousness? Or where do 'objective' morals come from?</div>
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In each of these questions, and many others like them, the apologist finds the answer in God. But God is not a satisfactory answer to any of these questions. God cannot explain the origin of life, because we assumed that God is and has always been living - God merely gives inanimate matter a property he already possesses. Similarly with consciousness, it is assumed that God has always been conscious, so consciousness really has no origin. Likewise, God has always been moral, so morals never began anywhere. </div>
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So the God answer does not actually answer the question. In each case, proposing God as the solution is really saying "you're asking the wrong question, that thing you think had an origin really didn't and has always been." So the question is never answered.</div>
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The next layer of questions, however, are never asked. How did God become living? When did God become conscious? How did God develop his morality? The believer assumes that God never <i>became </i>living, or conscious, and he certainly didn't ever <i>develop</i> any of his attributes.</div>
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For the believer, therefore, the fundamental essence of reality (i.e. God) has always possessed a complex set of attributes and properties. Kind of like the so called 'fine tuning' of the universe, a set of fundamental properties that <i>must have </i>been there since the outset, and <i>could not</i> have changed or developed.</div>
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So which is it, did all of reality start out with a complex set of improbable parameters, or did all of reality start out with a complex set of improbable attributes and personality traits and sentience?</div>
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Both options seem ridiculously improbable, and yet here we are. What I can't see is a good reason why the complex personal set of attributes should be more likely than the complex impersonal set of parameters. Indeed, if I had to weigh up the two seemingly improbable options, Occam's razor might suggest we should cut off the 'more complex' option including personhood. But there's not a lot in it.</div>
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Where we end up is one of those places where 'I don't know' is a perfectly valid answer. Indeed, it is impossible to truly 'know' one way of another, using only this line of thinking. But with regard to this issue alone, there is no compelling reason to choose theism over atheism.</div>
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By the way, "42" is not a satisfactory answer to the questions either...</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20930767.post-45146858794046176712017-05-30T09:25:00.001+00:002017-05-30T09:25:30.231+00:00Accidental<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix6Xa9dkv37rCsiZ6C4Rtq7a1wN0fuAbBq_9zdl_Xb897VBlI7Oui8E9pkZ5JgPMmx5svzRLA0q07v7d5qzXJ4sU044ZcF8ya4u-3engnaKtEqvZ1TWXjpF-kk_vYt7QzI7SA/s1600/accident-or-design.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="402" height="186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix6Xa9dkv37rCsiZ6C4Rtq7a1wN0fuAbBq_9zdl_Xb897VBlI7Oui8E9pkZ5JgPMmx5svzRLA0q07v7d5qzXJ4sU044ZcF8ya4u-3engnaKtEqvZ1TWXjpF-kk_vYt7QzI7SA/s200/accident-or-design.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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I've heard a lot of debates between Christians and atheists where the Christian has presented the options for the origin of life on earth as being either (a) intentional <i>design</i> by a creator, or (b) an <i>accident</i>. That is, the word 'accident' is used as if it is the opposite of the word 'design'. I don't think it is, and I think this is a biased way of phrasing the question.</div>
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The word 'accident' carries with it loads of negative connotations. People <i>die</i> or are <i>injured</i> in car accidents. Accidents are generally when something goes <i>wrong</i>. The word accident does not just convey the idea of a random event, but it carries the connotation of an <i>unfortunate</i> random event. The word actually implies that there is some right-occurrence which could have happened, but did not happen, and the wrong-occurrence happened instead. The claimed dichotomy between design and accident is false.</div>
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The naturalistic atheist does not claim that life evolves by a sequence of unfortunate random events, if anything, the opposite is true. Live evolves because of <i>beneficial,</i> positive random events. Not accidents. There is a better word for this: Serendipity.</div>
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Of course the question remains, is life the product of design or serendipity? But that is a better question than is usually presented in these debates.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20930767.post-49823034904056860282017-05-26T18:00:00.001+00:002017-05-26T18:00:09.416+00:00Meaning and purpose in life?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijyFwLaNuXjd8ohvySdO7H5Vd-4x1ONHhH1iQ4K5VZew4qn9gDR84f8AC80q_Dv59puMgM0G3Nc85c8JY1NkB6YlBONLRCejpPgcvWiz7kFs36fob9J6rmafU9DuWvZc2LpvY/s1600/snoopy.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="515" data-original-width="500" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijyFwLaNuXjd8ohvySdO7H5Vd-4x1ONHhH1iQ4K5VZew4qn9gDR84f8AC80q_Dv59puMgM0G3Nc85c8JY1NkB6YlBONLRCejpPgcvWiz7kFs36fob9J6rmafU9DuWvZc2LpvY/s200/snoopy.png" width="193" /></a></div>
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I was listening to a podcast earlier that touched on the old question of <b>where do meaning and purpose in life come from?</b> The usual Christian/apologetic argument is that without a creator or a higher being, there can be no meaning or purpose in life, and thus <i>your life</i>, and indeed the entire universe would be without meaning and purpose if there was no God.</div>
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Quite often the atheist debater in such discussions concedes that there is no 'ultimate' meaning or purpose, but sometimes we can define our own meaning and/or purpose in life. The Christian apologist usually doesn't think much of this and prefers to believe in a God who gives meaning and purpose to our lives.</div>
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This morning I found myself wondering if God himself (herself, itself, whatever) has a meaning and purpose in <i>His</i> life? I'm sure most Christians would claim that God does. So where did God get this purpose? From His creator? From some higher power? Or did he just give the meaning and purpose to Himself?</div>
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I'm sure that most Christians faced with this question would have to admit that if God has any purpose in his own existence, that he somehow devised this purpose Himself. In other words, beings can give themselves purpose without a higher power.</div>
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If God can give himself purpose, why can't we find meaning and purpose for ourselves? Why do we need a higher power when He does not?</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20930767.post-70564183912110711892017-05-07T09:00:00.000+00:002017-05-07T13:54:48.421+00:00Magnificent Obsession by David Robertson (a response, Part 6)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitT25KFiffvu5DeXdkggbAaQmVQMMMCgqj8QelqS_1RdAwzn5eiQB8XYt5oH202hUkm6Acav2If7VsX8DiwZ4JrkZl1KxqgRuhI4H8-7f0py_aDLnovm-rCVTdTJFXSAz9ZZ0/s1600/Magnificent-Obsession.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitT25KFiffvu5DeXdkggbAaQmVQMMMCgqj8QelqS_1RdAwzn5eiQB8XYt5oH202hUkm6Acav2If7VsX8DiwZ4JrkZl1KxqgRuhI4H8-7f0py_aDLnovm-rCVTdTJFXSAz9ZZ0/s1600/Magnificent-Obsession.jpg" width="131" /></a></div>
Dear D.,<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
We're getting near the end of your book now, having worked our way through eight chapters of your book [<a href="https://confessionsofadoubtingthomas.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/magnificent-obsession-by-david.html">1-3</a>, <a href="http://confessionsofadoubtingthomas.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/magnificent-obsession-by-david_26.html">4</a>, <a href="http://confessionsofadoubtingthomas.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/magnificent-obsession-by-david.html">5</a>, <a href="http://confessionsofadoubtingthomas.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/magnificent-obsession-by-david_9.html">6-7</a> and <a href="http://confessionsofadoubtingthomas.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/magnificent-obsession-by-david_23.html">8</a>], and now we come to <b>Chapter 9: Maranatha</b>. I think this may be the first chapter in this book with no actual apologetics in it. You're in preacher mode throughout.<br />
<br />
You talk about the end of the world, heaven and hell, and your only justification in believing in any of these claims is that Jesus spoke about them in the Bible. Jesus said it, you believe it, that settles it.<br />
<br />
I guess you'll not be surprised to find that many skeptics (or is it sceptics, I'm never sure?) don't find this line of reasoning particularly compelling. Why should there be any life after death? You don't explain. Is there any life after death? You offer no evidence. Why should the Christian explanation of heaven & hell be preferred to any other (after-)world view? You don't justify it. This is not an intellectually challenging or satisfying chapter.<br />
<br />
This chapter, as with many discussions of heaven & hell that I've read, ends up simply quoting C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Truly, the best explanations of heaven and hell are to be found in fantasy fiction. Why should the version presented in Matthew's gospel (you don't notice this, but all your 'Jesus' quotes about heaven and hell come from Matthew's pen, not the other gospel writers) be any more real than the version presented in <i>"The Last Battle"</i>?<br />
<br />
Have you ever noticed that Matthew is obsessed with heaven and (particularly) hell, in a way that Mark, Luke and John are not? And have you ever noticed that hell is (almost) entirely absent in the Epistles of Paul? Paul's message is one of salvation for those who are in Christ, but not one of damnation for those who are not.<br />
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Anyway, let's move on to the climax of your book, <b>Chapter 10: Magnificent</b>... where you remain in preacher mode and basically explain why apologetics only gets you so far. Indeed, you appear to dismiss the value of apologetics, which is odd in a book of apologetics. You also go in for a bit of atheist bashing, but I'm not really interested in that.<br />
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So you present no further evidence or argument for your case, but just list lots of theological reasons why Jesus is important to you. I suppose that's fair enough, but I'm sure adherents to other religions could give similar lists about Krishna, or Bahá'u'lláh, or Sabbatai Zevi, or Haile Selassie, or whoever. The justification for all your reasons is, essentially, <i>because it is in the Bible</i>.<br />
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Your book repeatedly takes the stories and claims of the Bible at face value, without question, and this is the greatest weakness (as I see it) of your case. It would appear that you've never needed to justify to yourself that the Bible is an authority, so you don't really need to justify it to your readers either.<br />
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For me, it was not the debates between science & Christianity, or by consideration of the big philosophical arguments for or against God, but the failings in the Bible itself that ultimately led to the erosion of my faith. The Bible is factually wrong in places, the Bible is internally inconsistent in places, the Bible records as history things that cannot have happened (and in some instances demonstrably did not happen) in history. The Bible tells stories about God and Jesus. If it is wrong about the other stuff, we have to at least consider the possibility that it is wrong on these subjects too.<br />
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After much study, I came (somewhat grudgingly) to the conclusion that the Bible is an errant book, and was written by human authors with human agendas. In your book, you have shown that you base your life on the Bible, but you haven't managed to convince me that the Bible comes from God. You've not even shown me why <i>you</i> came to that conclusion.<br />
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Your magnificent obsession concerns a man who comes to you through the pages of a flawed book. I agree, if the stories about Jesus are true, then he is worthy of this obsession, but for now at least I have reasonable doubts about the truth regarding Jesus, so I think your obsession is misplaced.<br />
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Regards,<br />
<br />
R.<br />
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20930767.post-35363122587872761082017-04-23T11:09:00.001+00:002017-04-23T11:09:05.586+00:00Magnificent Obsession by David Robertson (a response, Part 5)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitT25KFiffvu5DeXdkggbAaQmVQMMMCgqj8QelqS_1RdAwzn5eiQB8XYt5oH202hUkm6Acav2If7VsX8DiwZ4JrkZl1KxqgRuhI4H8-7f0py_aDLnovm-rCVTdTJFXSAz9ZZ0/s1600/Magnificent-Obsession.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitT25KFiffvu5DeXdkggbAaQmVQMMMCgqj8QelqS_1RdAwzn5eiQB8XYt5oH202hUkm6Acav2If7VsX8DiwZ4JrkZl1KxqgRuhI4H8-7f0py_aDLnovm-rCVTdTJFXSAz9ZZ0/s1600/Magnificent-Obsession.jpg" width="131" /></a></div>
Dear D.,<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Following my comments on the first seven chapters of your book [<a href="https://confessionsofadoubtingthomas.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/magnificent-obsession-by-david.html">here</a>, <a href="http://confessionsofadoubtingthomas.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/magnificent-obsession-by-david_26.html">here</a>, <a href="http://confessionsofadoubtingthomas.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/magnificent-obsession-by-david.html">here</a>, and <a href="http://confessionsofadoubtingthomas.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/magnificent-obsession-by-david_9.html">here</a>], we come to <b>Chapter 8: Modern</b>. I came to read it following a few weeks break after reading the last ones, so I was pleased to find you started the chapter with a recap. The problem with the recap is, however, it doesn't just recap the stuff you've already established in earlier chapters, but sneaks a few extra things in there to make it look like you've already provided more of a case than you actually have. Your recap covers:<br />
<ol>
<li><i>God, the creator
</i><br />You've not actually gone there yet. You've not even tried the cosmological argument. Up until now, God the creator is a presupposition underlying everything else in here, but you've not even tried to justify or defend this presupposition. Now you're implying that we can take this for granted? Sorry, you still have work to do here.</li>
<li><i>Made humans in His own image</i>
<br />Similarly, I don't recall you justifying or defending this claim either.</li>
<li><i>Freewill and the fall of man, bringing creation down with us</i>
<br />You've gone into the issue of sin a bit in previous chapters, but have provided no case that we have freewill. You've certainly not explained or justified the claim that the sin of man could ruin all of creation. Why should that follow?</li>
<li><i>God's redemption plan: Jesus</i>
</li>
<li><i>Jesus: his miraculous birth</i>
</li>
<li><i>Jesus: taught God's message</i>
</li>
<li><i>Jesus: showed God's power
</i><br />Ok. You definitely have covered these. I'm not convinced, but I'll grant that you went there.</li>
<li><i>Jesus: died our death and suffered our hell</i>
<br />Yes, you went there, but let me remind you that Jesus descending to hell isn't actually in the Bible.</li>
<li><i>Jesus: raised from the dead, and ascended</i>
<br />Have you talked about the ascension? I don't remember that bit.</li>
<li><i>The Holy Spirit
</i><br />Yes, we've touched on it, or is it Him?</li>
</ol>
<div>
Hmmm. So while your focus in the book thus far has been almost exclusively on Jesus, you basically want us to take God, the Father and Creator, as a given. Not sure that's how apologetics (a defence of the faith) actually works. To defend something, you need to actually defend it, not simply presume it or assert it. But anyway, on with the chapter...<br />
<br />
Your aim in the first part of the chapter is to show that Christianity isn't dying out and isn't bad or irrelevant. You take swipes at hypocritical Christians, celebrity atheists, Bono, Stalin and Hitler along the way. Your trump card here seems to be a quote from Matthew Parris, an atheist, who observed that Christianity is making a positive change in parts of Africa because Christianity changes lives in a 'real' way. Of course, you can't prove anything by anecdote, but this seems to you to settle the question.<br />
<br />
Sometimes, converting to Christianity is hugely beneficial for people and makes them better, kinder, more hopeful people. Does that mean Christianity is true? Not necessarily, it simply means that the Christian worldview is better than their previous worldview. Maybe there's a better one beyond Christianity that they could move on to? Then they might be even more kind and even more hopeful. Maybe.<br />
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Of course, the flip side of all this is all the miserable Christians that we've all met. And the useless ones who are 'too heavenly minded to be of any earthly good', and the ones who are downright horrible people and yet use Christianity, the Bible or God to justify this. For every anecdote there is an equal and opposite anecdote.<br />
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All you've really done here is show that for some people, being a Christian is a positive thing. I don't deny that. But that doesn't mean that Christianity is true, just that it can work as a positive worldview.<br />
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You claim that the Church is growing, and that where it is growing, it is growing particularly through attracting young people. I can't deny either of those facts, viewed worldwide, there is a definite trend towards church growth in superstitious societies. People who believe in all sorts of nonsense are coming to believe the Christian message, because it is more rational than the thing they believed previously.<br />
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But. Have a look at societies where Christianity has been dominant for a long time, there the picture is different. When I was young, in the 1970s, I seem to recall that about 12% of Scots were regular church attenders. When I was a student, in the 1990s, the number had dropped to about 10%. Now, in 2017, the latest numbers show that only 7% of Scots regularly attend church. Following that trend, I fully expect that we'll see numbers below 5% within 20 years, and maybe as low as 3% in our lifetimes. The Church in Scotland is dying. In particular, the established church (CofS, Scottish Episcopal, etc.) has pretty much already lost all its young people and is slowly losing members as its congregations die off. Of course, you will offer statistics that show that some churches are growing. Indeed. An increasingly smaller number of non-traditional churches are growing. They're growing primarily by hoovering up all the younger Christians who still believe, but have become disillusioned by the traditional church. The church I still attend has a congregation of about 200 folk every week, where 3/4 of the congregation are families with school age kids. But it is the exception, not the rule.<br />
<br />
And finally I want to get onto the question of church growth through attracting young people. Of course this is happening. Evangelistic campaigns aim to attract young people. Some of those young people convert. This is mostly a matter of psychology. Young people's minds are still 'plastic' - they can adapt to new ideas and belief systems much better than older people. As we age we do get more set in our ways. It is much easier to change the mind of a teenager than it is to change the mind of a retiree. That's a matter of human nature. So evangelistic organisations work primarily among schools, universities and other groups of young people. Thus it is not surprising that those churches which are growing by conversion (a tiny minority of churches in my UK-based experience) are seeing this growth among young people. Its because they don't aim for conversion of older people, and would find it harder to do if they tried.<br />
<br />
Fundamentally, what you've shown in this chapter is that Christianity works as a worldview, and works better than some other worldviews, and may be justifiable in comparison to some other worldviews, but haven't in any way demonstrated that it is true.<br />
<br />
Regards,<br />
<br />
R.<br />
<br /></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20930767.post-9968621692121774232017-04-09T09:00:00.000+00:002017-04-09T09:00:11.031+00:00Magnificent Obsession by David Robertson (a response, Part 4)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitT25KFiffvu5DeXdkggbAaQmVQMMMCgqj8QelqS_1RdAwzn5eiQB8XYt5oH202hUkm6Acav2If7VsX8DiwZ4JrkZl1KxqgRuhI4H8-7f0py_aDLnovm-rCVTdTJFXSAz9ZZ0/s1600/Magnificent-Obsession.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitT25KFiffvu5DeXdkggbAaQmVQMMMCgqj8QelqS_1RdAwzn5eiQB8XYt5oH202hUkm6Acav2If7VsX8DiwZ4JrkZl1KxqgRuhI4H8-7f0py_aDLnovm-rCVTdTJFXSAz9ZZ0/s1600/Magnificent-Obsession.jpg" width="131" /></a></div>
Dear D.,<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Following my comments on the first five chapters of your book [<a href="https://confessionsofadoubtingthomas.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/magnificent-obsession-by-david.html">here</a>, <a href="http://confessionsofadoubtingthomas.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/magnificent-obsession-by-david_26.html">here</a> and <a href="http://confessionsofadoubtingthomas.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/magnificent-obsession-by-david.html">here</a>], I now get to <b>Chapter 6: Meaning</b>. It is a strange beast, touching on a number of different topics, not as focused as the previous ones.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
You start with the 'eyewitness testimony' of the disciples and the old claim that people don't die for a lie, again. Furthermore you claim that if Jesus had remained dead in the tomb, then the authorities could have just dug him up and demonstrated that the stories the disciples were preaching were false.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Once again, you are using a story told in one part of the Bible to 'prove' the historical accuracy of a story told in another part of the Bible. We have no secular evidence that the disciples preached <i>anything at all</i> about the death and resurrection of Jesus in the vicinity of the supposedly empty tomb, in the weeks or months following the alleged resurrection event. No, the only evidence that such events ever happened is contained in the book of Acts.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Of course, you believe the book of Acts is accurate reportage. To counter that assumption, may I mention that the "Acts Seminar" - a bunch of proper Bible scholars who spent years studying and debating the book of Acts - gave as the primary conclusion of their study that the book of Acts was a work of fiction, most likely written in the early 2nd century? Conservative evangelicals disagree of course, but I think the impartial observer has to at least consider the possibility that Acts is - or contains - fictional elements.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
If the gospel was not preached until years or decades after the supposed event, and perhaps then not by the supposed eyewitnesses, who could dig up a body to prove anything?</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
From here you go off on a rant about some of the usual 'new atheist' authors and arguments. Fair enough. But you don't really present your own case, you merely attack their weaknesses. Eventually you get to your point, that Jesus is God, and we finally get to the Trinity. You call this the 'cornerstone of Christian thinking' but, of course, can't explain it, because nobody can. It is literally a mystery. Or possibly a nonsense. 1 + 1 + 1 = 1. How can you believe something you can't explain?</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
You then touch on the 'but who made God?' question and don't really get anywhere. This discussion never gets anywhere because it is obvious to the believer that nobody made God and it is obvious to everyone else that the chain of cause and effect can't go back to something as complicated as an eternal and infinite triune Godhead. You can solve almost every finite problem by invoking an infinite and unseen solution, but you can't solve the problem of an infinite and unseen thing by invoking anything else.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
You go a bit preacher for a while, revelling in the claim that Jesus is God, and then come back to some semi-apologetics questions, like why the Trinity isn't in the Old Testament (your answer: it is), and why did God have to become man to become our redeemer. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Finally you get to the question of where Jesus is now and why could he not stay on earth. You don't actually address the first of those that well, considering that there are some biblical passages that imply that Christ remains in his human (perfected) body even now, i.e. he remains localised, while other passages speak of him 'filling all things' and the like, implying that he is anything but localised. I've heard your answer to the second of those before, and heard it from others than you. Of course Christ had to leave the earth, because if he didn't go, the Spirit could not come. Huh? So the Spirit and the Son are two distinct persons, but they can't both be on earth simultaneously? Why?</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Through all of this you imply that the Trinity is the clear teaching of the Bible. It isn't. Sure, you can read the Trinity into the Bible in a good many places, but it is far from clear that all the Bible authors would agree with such a concept if you presented it to them. So at the end of this chapter I remain unconvinced that the Trinity actually makes sense. Oh well.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
On we move to <b>Chapter 7: Mission</b> in which you defend the Church, by pointing out that it is made of flawed human beings. Yes it is. I don't really have much to comment on here. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The only thing I really want to mention here is when you attack the straw man of "The Bible was compiled by the council of Nicea". While I have heard this claimed by Dan Brown and the like, this is a bit of a red herring. I'm far more convinced by David Trobisch's claim that the original NT was compiled and edited by Polycarp, and then widely distributed. But anyway, that's enough for now. I'll move on to Chapter 8 next time.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Cheers,</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
R.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20930767.post-8930963318913055192017-04-06T14:30:00.000+00:002017-04-06T14:30:34.672+00:00The simplicity fallacyJust listened to last week's <a href="https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable"><b><i>Unbelievable</i></b></a> show on "<a href="https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/Episodes/Can-atheists-believe-in-human-rights-Peter-Tatchell-vs-Andy-Bannister">Can atheists believe in human rights?</a>"<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The basic argument put forward by the Christian guest on the show was that humans would have no 'human rights' if there was no creator God to give those rights to people. The atheist guest on the show more or less conceded this point and claimed that human rights are a human construct, and are not really inherent.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The details of the debate are largely irrelevant to the point I want to make here. But it struck me, while listening to this podcast, that I've heard the same basic form of argument for God in debates (both on Unbelievable and elsewhere) many times over.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The basic, underlying, argument is this:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<b>The [<i>thing we are talking about</i>] is much <u>simpler</u> to explain in a universe created by a God than it would be in a universe not created by a God. Therefore we can conclude there is a God.</b></blockquote>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The same argument has been made concerning human rights, morality, reason, science, etc., etc.<br />
<br />
Its just not a very good argument. The fundamental flaw in this argument lies in its implied appeal to Occam's Razor. Two options are presented, one is made to look simple, one is made to look complex, thus the simpler one is the preferred (by which it is assumed we mean 'true') option.<br />
<br />
I agree, human rights would be much easier to justify if they were granted by a higher power, relative to if they were not. But the two opposing sides in this situation are not:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>Complex justification of human rights with no granting authority, vs.</li>
<li>Simple justification of human rights with a granting authority, </li>
</ol>
but rather:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>Complex justification of human rights with no granting authority, vs.</li>
<li>Simple justification of human rights with a granting authority <i>PLUS</i> very complex justification of the existence of the infinitely powerful granting authority.</li>
</ol>
Given that the argument itself is usually being framed as an attempt to prove the existence of God, it usually overlooks all the circular reasoning and begging the question that is going on here. The whole thing presupposes that God can do anything, which of course makes anything that God can do into a simple task. But you can't have that presupposition when trying to justify the existence of God.<br />
<br />
God is anything but 'simple'. Any argument suggesting that something would be 'simpler' by assuming God is fallacious. </div>
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20930767.post-26447861770760156522017-04-02T09:00:00.000+00:002017-04-04T08:12:47.168+00:00Magnificent Obsession by David Robertson (a response, Part 3)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitT25KFiffvu5DeXdkggbAaQmVQMMMCgqj8QelqS_1RdAwzn5eiQB8XYt5oH202hUkm6Acav2If7VsX8DiwZ4JrkZl1KxqgRuhI4H8-7f0py_aDLnovm-rCVTdTJFXSAz9ZZ0/s1600/Magnificent-Obsession.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitT25KFiffvu5DeXdkggbAaQmVQMMMCgqj8QelqS_1RdAwzn5eiQB8XYt5oH202hUkm6Acav2If7VsX8DiwZ4JrkZl1KxqgRuhI4H8-7f0py_aDLnovm-rCVTdTJFXSAz9ZZ0/s1600/Magnificent-Obsession.jpg" width="131" /></a></div>
Dear D,<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
While these posts may appear in quick succession, several months have passed since I read the last chunk of your book and formed my thoughts on it, so sorry if this appears a bit disconnected from the previous posts. My comments on the first three chapters of your book <a href="https://confessionsofadoubtingthomas.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/magnificent-obsession-by-david.html">can be found here</a>, and my comments on chapter four <a href="http://confessionsofadoubtingthomas.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/magnificent-obsession-by-david_26.html">are here</a>.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Now we get to <b>Chapter 5 "Marvellous"</b> in which you tackle the subject of the resurrection. You believe it happened, and you believe this because you believe that the Biblical stories are true. I don't think you have really given us any story of how you came to believe that these stories are true so far.<br />
<br />
For myself, I believed that these stories were true because my family and Church family all believed that these stories were true and managed to embed that belief in me from an early age. I may not have made any personal commitment to be a Christian until I was in my late teens, but the fundamental belief in the truth of the Bible was always there from the word go. I suspect that much the same is true of you. We are both products of a Scottish Christian upbringing.<br />
<br />
Suppose you weren't though. Suppose you happened upon this book with no preconceptions about its author or authority. What would it take to convince you that this book conveys truth? I've wrestled with this question in other posts on this blog, so I'll leave it out for now, but I do think there is something in John Loftus's "Outsider test for faith" idea.<br />
<br />
Anyway, the resurrection... or rather, sin. You start by talking about sin. Indeed, you get to the doctrine of total depravity quite rapidly. I always find it interesting that the so called 'good news' needs to start with the 'bad theory' - once you've convinced people that they are bad, then you can sell them your way of fixing the perceived problem that you gave them in the first place.<br />
<br />
Before really getting into the question of sin, though, you jump (abruptly) to the question of <b><i>evidence</i></b>. Your imaginary correspondent apparently raised this question somewhere off stage left. And you skirt around this issue in a really unsatisfying way by saying:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"<i>There is plenty of evidence for what I assert. I can't list it. Whole books have been written..." </i></blockquote>
Most of these books you don't cite, so I'm not sure how your reader is supposed to test your claims.<br />
<br />
But the central claim of this chapter is that, unlike most of the other things you claim, that you can <b><i>prove</i></b> the resurrection. Strong claim. So let's look at your proof.<br />
<br />
At least you start from common ground here: <i>"Resurrections just don't happen."</i> At least we agree on that. Then you dismiss a few straw-man theories, the 'swoon' theory, the 'conspiracy' theory and the 'cock-up' theory. All of these theories are bunk, I'll agree with you there, but the fundamental flaw in all of these theories is that they accept some of the details of the gospel story as true and accurate, and only cast doubt on one or two details. This is 19th century rationalism - only people who believe that the Bible is true, but that miracles don't happen have to resort to such theories. How about the theory that the whole thing is fiction? You don't go there. And yet that is the most likely scenario.<br />
<br />
Resurrections just don't happen. But <i>stories</i> of resurrections do happen. Loads of them. This story could be complete fiction. Why don't you even consider this 'theory'? Because your responses to all the theories rely on the assumption that some of the details in the gospel stories are true, and from this basis you will attempt to prove that other details in the same stories must also be true.<br />
<br />
Your first port of call is Bauckham's book (which I read and <a href="https://confessionsofadoubtingthomas.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/jesus-and-eyewitnesses-by-richard.html">reviewed</a> six years ago), which you take to be conclusive proof that the gospels were written by actual eyewitnesses. The assumption is that if someone who was there wrote this, then the story is completely accurate. Really? Read some of the actual eyewitness testimony from the Salem Witch Trials! People who were actually verifiably somewhere at a given point in history can and did report absolute nonsense about what they apparently saw. With the gospels we don't even have that.<br />
<br />
Next you raise the old turkey of the women. If this was made up, surely the fabricator would have made a man the central character!? Why? Why would a man go to the tomb? Culturally, it was the women who would go to embalm the body. In the context of the story, it has to be the women who are the first witnesses. The story demands that the women discover the empty tomb, whether the story is true or not.<br />
<br />
Then you take the conflicting gospel reports head on and claim that the fact that they disagree with one another somehow makes the accounts more likely to be true. You don't really address the actual irreconcilable differences between the stories, you do broad brush strokes and paint a picture that works. Its a shame that a detailed look at the evidence shows the opposite. Have a look at my post "<a href="https://confessionsofadoubtingthomas.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/why-did-angels-say-what-they-said.html">Why did the angels say what they said?</a>" for more on this.<br />
<br />
Next you (once again) use the evidence of some details in the story to demonstrate that other details in the story are true. The if the resurrection appearances are true then the resurrection must also be true. Well, yes, but claiming that 500 nameless people saw Jesus at one unspecified time, in an unspecified location, doesn't really help us much. As far as I know, the only other reference to 500 people (other than in Corinthians) who could have seen the resurrected Jesus comes from the Gospel of Nicodemus which specifies that there were 500 guards placed at the tomb. Not sure I believe that story, maybe the author of 1 Corinthians 15 did...<br />
<br />
Finally you cite the evidence that nobody dies for a lie. Well, aside from the fact that that we know some folk have died for lies (Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism, springs to mind), this doesn't help us much - the stories of the martyrdoms of the disciples are part of the same literary tradition that contains the Bible stories. Once again, you are using one part of a story to prove another part of the same story.<br />
<br />
You close the chapter with anecdotes about people believing in the resurrection. The fact that people believe it is not in doubt. Whether they have good grounds for believing in it is the question, and I'm not sure your case for that is very strong.<br />
<br />
Cheers,<br />
<br />
R.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20930767.post-11084048506826316812017-03-26T08:00:00.000+00:002017-03-26T08:00:26.944+00:00Magnificent Obsession by David Robertson (a response, Part 2)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitT25KFiffvu5DeXdkggbAaQmVQMMMCgqj8QelqS_1RdAwzn5eiQB8XYt5oH202hUkm6Acav2If7VsX8DiwZ4JrkZl1KxqgRuhI4H8-7f0py_aDLnovm-rCVTdTJFXSAz9ZZ0/s1600/Magnificent-Obsession.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitT25KFiffvu5DeXdkggbAaQmVQMMMCgqj8QelqS_1RdAwzn5eiQB8XYt5oH202hUkm6Acav2If7VsX8DiwZ4JrkZl1KxqgRuhI4H8-7f0py_aDLnovm-rCVTdTJFXSAz9ZZ0/s1600/Magnificent-Obsession.jpg" width="131" /></a></div>
Dear D,<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I commented on the first three chapters of your book, Magnificent Obsession in <a href="https://confessionsofadoubtingthomas.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/magnificent-obsession-by-david.html">my previous post</a>. I've now got to <b>Chapter 4: Murdered</b>, which raises a few issues worthy of discussion.<br />
<br />
In my previous post I noted how you slipped out of the role of apologist in Chapter 3, and into the role of preacher. You do that again in Chapter 4. Rather than try to defend the notion of a spiritual reality and a devil, you ask the reader to <i>"grant the existence of the devil for a moment"</i> and from here on in attempt to show that the Christian message is <i>internally</i> consistent (you seem to assume that the <i>'moment'</i> extends for the duration of the chapter). Actually, I'm not sure that the Christian message is completely internally consistent, but leaving that aside for now, you do nothing here to convince the reader that the Christian worldview (there is a God, there is a devil, Jesus's death has saving and atoning power) is consistent with reality, you simply ask the reader to grant you that worldview and then proceed <i>as if it is</i> reality.<br />
<br />
I suppose that one possible reason there are so many "false teachings" going around in the many flavours of Christianity is that the devil has stuck his oar in and messed it all up, but another reason could be that there is no "true teaching" and the many different flavours are all just human attempts to interpret a selection of confusing and occasionally conflicting scriptures in the light of different varieties of human experience. If you want to convince me toward one rather than the other, there needs to be some evidence to back this up. (For what its worth, I think the Christian conception of the devil is an evolved hybrid concept combining aspects of the OT serpent, the OT Satan, the Canaanite chaos monster (who appears in the bible as Leviathan), the Zoroastrian Ahriman and the Philistine "lord of the flies" Baal-zeebub... but that's going waaaay of topic, so I'll leave that discussion for another time.)<br />
<br />
Anyway, you express your opinion that God "would express himself through his Word", that this Word is "supposed to be the message of Christ" but do acknowledge that there are "issues where more than one interpretation is equally valid". Hmmm. So God expresses himself in ambiguous ways? But you then assert your opinion that the Bible is beyond scrutiny - it is true and who are we to query it?<br />
<br />
If you want your readers to accept the Bible as ultimate truth, I think there needs to be some justification of this. You seem to be slipping into presuppositional apologetics. That never gets anywhere, in my experience.<br />
<br />
But anyway, we now get to the death of Jesus and what its all about. Or rather, you start with "the atonement" and assume that Jesus death has atoning power. Again, I think you've jumped ahead of yourself here. Not all the gospels claim Jesus death has atoning power. The concept is absent in Luke-Acts as <a href="https://confessionsofadoubtingthomas.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/luke-acts-and-atonement.html">I have blogged about</a> in the past.<br />
<br />
When we get to the question of "Why did He die?" I agree with you that Hitchens created a straw man caricature of the Christian concept of the atonement, but I think there are issues with the very notion of the atonement that other 'new' atheists are right to question. You say that "He was suffering in our place" as if that somehow solves the problem. Why do we deserve suffering and death? (Not merely one or the other, but both, apparently.) What is it about sin that requires suffering to repay the debt? And how can an innocent party take the penalty for the guilty in a just court?<br />
<br />
Suppose someone 'sins' against you by crashing into your car and writing it off. In order to fix that situation, all that is needed is that you get a replacement car, and perhaps a bit of financial compensation to cover the inconvenience. While you probably do want the guilty party to suffer in some way for this, you'll probably be reasonably satisfied when someone else (the insurance company) pays the bills. Here it is entirely justified to have a substitute pay the price.<br />
<br />
But suppose someone 'sins' against you by murdering your children. There actually is no way to repay that debt. Nobody can replace the lost child, not even if someone were somehow able to give you more children, this wouldn't repair the damage. Here, if the guilty party goes free and a substitute takes the penalty, there is no justice. It doesn't matter how much pain or even death is imposed on the substitute, nothing can repair the damage. Indeed, inflicting pain and death on an innocent party only serves to make the injustice greater, not less.<br />
<br />
Atonement theology confuses these two different types of substitution. It is claimed that we have sinned against God in the latter manner, hurting him in a way equivalent to murder. Yet the payment follows the former manner, assuming that justice can be served by letting the innocent pay. The justice of the cross is no justice at all.<br />
<br />
You ask, <i>"After all, who would want to live in a universe where there was no justice?"</i> This is just begging the question. We don't have a range of universes to pick from. We only have this one. Whether we <i>want</i> it to be just or not has no bearing whatsoever on whether or not it <i>is</i> just. From observation, it would seem that there actually is no justice. Innocent people are born, live their lives in misery and famine and then die. Meanwhile others are born into privilege, become mean and selfish, exploit others, make money, live a long life of luxury and die, peacefully in their sleep, at an old age. You can invent a postmortem judgement, heaven and hell to try and restore justice to the grand picture, but without evidence, that really is just wishful thinking. Any finite problem can be solved by an imaginary, infinite and unseen counterweight, but without any evidence for the counterweight, it is 'just a theory' (and not in the scientific sense of the word!).<br />
<br />
Anyway, on the subject of sin, we now get to your 'simple experiment': <i>"see if you can go one whole week without saying, doing, or thinking anything bad."</i> You then ask <i>"Why do we find that impossible?"</i> I'll tell you why we find it impossible, because the society that we live in (which derives its morality in large part from 'Christian values') defines many normal and natural aspects of human nature as 'sin' or 'bad'. By nature we are made to try to satisfy our desires, whether for food, sex, or position in society. It is not wrong to desire any of these things, but the bible has branded the desires themselves as sinful, even if they are never acted upon. Part of growing up to function in a group society is learning when not to act on those desires. One of the terrible things the church has done countless times in history is to convince people who have literally done nothing wrong, that their very thoughts are sinful, the ones they haven't acted upon. Indeed, that their very human nature is sinful. Some people haven't been able to live with the pressure of that guilt and there have been many casualties along the way.<br />
<br />
You now move on to hell. As I said above, hell is just an unseen, theoretical counterweight. Without evidence, of which you offer none, the argument is worthless. <i>"Jesus suffered hell so that we don't have to."</i> Really? I don't think that's even in the bible!<br />
<br />
The message that Christ died in my place is powerful and can be liberating, unless you think about it too much. As soon as you ask the 'Why?' and 'How?' questions it all becomes a bit less certain, and loses its power. I'm more of the opinion that <i>belief</i> that Jesus has paid for the burden of your sins, can effectively reduce the psychological burden of guilt (a guilt that is probably there because of the church's teaching in the first place). There doesn't need to be any reality to it. That is why faith is so important. Not because its true, but because faith itself works, on a psychological level at least. Which is why it works in all religions, maybe not for everybody, but for some.<br />
<br />
So <i>grant the non existence of the devil for a moment...</i> and no hell, no sin and no damnation... and no God, no atonement, and no saviour... take away the imaginary, infinite and unseen counterweights... then look at the world. Doesn't it look just like the sort of jumbled chaos you'd expect if there weren't supernatural beings in control of everything? <br />
<br />
You end with Mark 10:45, one of the verses that Luke could have used when he was working up Mark into his longer gospel, but chose not to use. Have you ever wondered why? Its worth thinking about.<br />
<br />
Until next time,<br />
<br />
R.<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20930767.post-49049323289106452642017-03-19T08:43:00.000+00:002017-05-07T07:42:07.759+00:00Magnificent Obsession by David Robertson (a response, Part 1)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitT25KFiffvu5DeXdkggbAaQmVQMMMCgqj8QelqS_1RdAwzn5eiQB8XYt5oH202hUkm6Acav2If7VsX8DiwZ4JrkZl1KxqgRuhI4H8-7f0py_aDLnovm-rCVTdTJFXSAz9ZZ0/s1600/Magnificent-Obsession.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitT25KFiffvu5DeXdkggbAaQmVQMMMCgqj8QelqS_1RdAwzn5eiQB8XYt5oH202hUkm6Acav2If7VsX8DiwZ4JrkZl1KxqgRuhI4H8-7f0py_aDLnovm-rCVTdTJFXSAz9ZZ0/s1600/Magnificent-Obsession.jpg" width="131" /></a></div>
Dear D,<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I've been reading your book "Magnificent Obsession" and I'd like to make a few comments on it. I'm writing this "review" (OK, so really its a response) in the form of a letter, mostly because your book chapters are written in letter format, but also because I think its quite likely that (unlike most of the book reviews I do on this blog) you might actually read this and will probably respond. (Yes, your reputation does precede you!) </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
You might not remember me, but I've been in your church in Dundee on a few occasions (not for quite a few years now) as I'm friends with some of your congregation, both current and former members. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
As you'll see if you browse the previous posts on this blog, I've been a practicing and committed Christian since my teens in the 1980s, but over the past decade or so I've wrestled with a lot of issues to do with faith, belief, God, Jesus, the bible, and how all of them fit into reality. I started with the agenda of simply wanting to know the truth, in the hope that the truth would, indeed, set me free. Over the past decade, however, I (along with the readers of this blog) have witnessed a progressive and ongoing erosion of my faith. This wasn't intentional from the outset, but is rather the honest re-evaluation of my beliefs in the light of my study of the bible, and various books, writings and discussions on both sides of the 'God debate'. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Anyway, all this by means of introduction. Lets get to thinking about your book. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
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You seem, at the outset, to imagine yourself to have a different agenda to other apologists, and perhaps a different audience too, but I have to say that, much like almost all apologetics, this book is most likely to be read by those who are already (Evangelical) Christians and will serve to reinforce their already established beliefs. Of course, I expect a small number of non-Christians and atheist/agnostic types might read it too, but mostly for the challenge of 'debunking' it; I'm not sure they'll be swayed too much. The book is also being read by folk like me, somewhere in the middle ground, who've heard you on the Unbelievable show a few times... </div>
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In <b>Chapter 1, "Man"</b>, you aim to show that Jesus <i><b>is</b></i> (not was) a real person. As real to you as your own wife is. I once expressed similar sentiments myself, but came to realise that the comparison is not good. I can (literally) see my wife, I can (literally) hear her speaking to me, I can (literally) touch her. Occasionally I trust my feelings regarding her and she has to point out that I've completely misread what she says or what she wants. My feelings can be wrong, and frequently are. But with Jesus, all we have is an (unchanging) book, our feelings and our interpretative framework. If our feelings or interpretation are wrong, we have no way of knowing this. If our feelings come entirely from chemical impulses in our physiology, we have no way of distinguishing this from the 'promptings' of the Holy Spirit, if such exist. This is not analogous to a relationship with a person. A person can correct you even when your feelings are wrong.<br />
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But considering that this is apparently the stated intent of Chapter 1, you move rather rapidly from the subjective experience of Jesus <i>now</i> to the (slightly) more solid ground of the historical Jesus. Your evidence and reasoning here are not new, or particularly compelling, and you do quite a lot of appealing to authority, but anyway, on to the evidence. </div>
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You present three pieces of non-biblical evidence for the historical Jesus. You mention Serapion, without presenting what he said. Probably just as well, as the evidence is very weak. He (writing at an unknown time between the destruction of Jerusalem and the 3rd century) mentions the execution of a Jewish "wise king" and nothing else. No name, no location, and the text suggests this occurred <i>immediately</i> before the destruction of Jerusalem. This might have nothing to do with Jesus, yet you suggest this is evidence. You also quote the rather late evidence of Tacitus. All this really tells us is that, by the beginning of the 2nd century, there were "Christians" who believed in a Christ who had been crucified by Pilate. These beliefs were attested some three or four generations after the alleged event. Nobody doubts that there was Christian belief in the 2nd century. This isn't evidence for any actual events occurring some 90 years earlier than the document was written. Even supposing that Serapion was referring to Jesus, all these two sources really give us is evidence for two things:<br />
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<li>that there was a man, known as "Christ", who was executed, and</li>
<li>that there was a Christian religion in the early 2nd century.</li>
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I have to say that neither of these facts is particularly controversial. Almost everyone who knows anything about Christianity, but is not a Christian, will happily endorse both these statements.</div>
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You also quote the disputed passage from Josephus. Most 'critical' scholars appear to think that this is at least partially a Christian forgery. Origen certainly knew nothing about this passage, so some suggest it was added after his time. Josephus, whose job more or less required him to consider Vespasion as "lord", would never have said that Jesus was the Christ or Messiah, so that line -at least- is a Christian insertion. Given that, this passage only really shows that later believers in Christ were willing to change documents they copied to fit their own agendas. It gives us no information about a historical person. And that's really all there is outside of the Bible...<br />
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I've read thorough and compelling analysis of these passages in the 'new-atheist' literature, and your brief mention of them here does not provide enough reasoning to make me reconsider these passages as having anything useful to say about the historical person of Jesus. So to find him we have to trust the New Testament.<br />
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Of course, you do trust the NT accounts, without really giving your readers much justification for doing this. A serious historian can't take a book which claims a man walked on water or transmuted water into wine as being a reliable historical document. Our first approach <i>must </i>be one of scepticism, but you jump over this and assert that there is "no substantive reason to doubt" that these documents are eye-witness testimony. Well, to even the casual observer there are loads of reasons to doubt this, firstly the outrageous claims in the books, then the fact that they appear to have copied each other and changed bits of the things they copied to fit their own agendas, and also the fact that Jesus in the 4th gospel sounds almost nothing like the Jesus of the other three.<br />
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Now I'm not following the "nineteenth century paradigm of 'miracles don't happen'" here, I began all this firmly believing in the miracles and it was through a study of the unreliable reportage in the gospels that I ever came to doubt them.<br />
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Finally, in this first chapter, you (rather oddly) jump to the subject of the virgin birth. If this happened, as you say, it would define history. But two contradictory birth stories don't really make a very strong case. Yes, the authors of Matthew and Luke both appear to believe that Jesus was virgin born, but Mark, John, Paul and the other writers of the NT don't mention it, so it doesn't appear too foundational for them. You conclude with a couple of anecdotes of prodigals returning to faith. Yes, it happens. Hindus also become Muslims, Christians become Jehovah's Witnesses, etc. Anecdotes prove nothing.<br />
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So the odd thing in chapter 1 is that you don't support your main claim, that Jesus <i>is</i> real, with even a single anecdote from your own experience. We end this chapter having established that Jesus might have been a real person and that some people, some time after his lifetime believed outrageous things about him. What you haven't yet provided is any evidence that these outrageous claims are actually true.<br />
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In <b>Chapter 2</b>, you turn to the subject of <b>"Miracles"</b>. You start off by poo-pooing the atheist caricature of blind faith. Fair enough. I know plenty of Christians who believe stuff because of the evidence of their experiences. You have a headache, somebody prays for you, the headache goes away, you have evidence that prayer for healing works. Of course the cause-effect chain might not be as clear cut as it appears to the believer, but to deny experience is pointless. But Christian faith is not, as you say, merely 'based on knowledge', it is based <i>primarily</i> on the bible and then, somewhat secondarily, on an interpretation of the evidence perceived through a biblical mindset. I've blogged before about <a href="http://confessionsofadoubtingthomas.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/second-hand-revelation.html" target="_blank">the lack of a negative feedback loop</a> in the Christian mindset. You pray, God answers, faith is boosted. You pray, no answer, faith is not diminished. Whichever way you slice it, if positive experiences boost faith and negative ones do nothing, then the net effect will always be to boost faith, even if the positives are only coincidence. Anyway, I seem to be straying away from what you said in your book.<br />
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The question at hand regards God. If there is a God (or there are gods) then miracles must be considered a possibility. Although, I must say even if there is a God, that doesn't necessarily imply that there must be miracles. So we can't simply assume that miracles can't or don't happen. Fine. I agree. Evidence for miracles amounts to evidence for God, not necessarily your God, but let's not go there just now.<br />
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Miracles might happen today. Miracles might have happened in the past. Either way, what constitutes evidence for a miracle? One thing that doesn't - in itself - provide any evidence for a miracle having occurred is somebody telling a story that a miracle occurred. By their very nature, miracles are rare events. Made up stories are rather common. So even if there are real miracles, the balance of probability is that any story claiming a miracle occurred is most likely fiction. The bible doesn't get special pleading here. The stories recorded here of miracles are <i>probably</i> fiction unless they can be verified somehow.<br />
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And there's the problem the apologist faces, we have no verification mechanism to prove miracles in the past. We could prove (some of) them if they occur now, but not the ones in the past. We have no evidence, only stories.<br />
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Did Jesus perform miracles? Well, the stories say so. His followers several generations later believed that he did. But that is no evidence. Throughout the 1980s and 90s there were hundreds if not thousands of people who believed that Elvis was still alive. Today there are thousands of folk who believe that the American government destroyed their own buildings on 9/11 2001. Widespread belief does not make a claim true. And holding a belief within a short period after the event does not make it any more likely to be true.<br />
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The historian only has probability to deal with. If something occurs today, there's a good chance it happened in the past. If miracles happen today, we can believe they happened in the past too. That is the 'principle of analogy'. We know that people are apparently healed by faith healers today, so we can assume that this happened in the past as well. We know there are exorcists who apparently cast out demons today, so we can assume this happened in the past as well. We know that people cannot walk on water, so we must assume that this cannot have been possible in the past. Jesus could well have been know as a healer and exorcist. He maybe even had a reputation as a miracle worker. But we have no access to what happened, so cannot conclude the truth of the stories.<br />
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I'm astonished that you take the words of Quadratus as true. He claims that there are 'some' (i.e. more than one) who had been raised from the dead by Jesus still alive some 90 years later. Unless they were infants at the time of their resurrections, it is almost inconceivable that this story is true, and even then it is highly doubtful. This first apologist is doing the same as many of his successors - exaggerating and embellishing his story to try and persuade his audience.<br />
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You do the same. You speak of 'hundreds' at the funeral of Lazarus. Where is that in the bible? In John 11v31 it implies that all those present for the resurrection of Lazarus had previously been in the house of Mary and Martha. They must have had a very big house!<br />
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Citing the 5000 who were fed or the hundreds who witnessed Lazarus being raised as evidence is just silly. We have no access to these people, we have no names, we have no independent testimony. They are just part of the story. As Robert M. Price frequently points out, using the characters in the story as supporting evidence is much like arguing for the existence of the Emerald City using the evidence of the Yellow Brick Road; of course there must be an Emerald City, where else would the Yellow Brick Road go? Even the first readers of the gospels had no way of finding any of the alleged witnesses, they were too late and probably too far away (some say Mark was most likely written in Rome, some claim Matthew was written in Antioch, almost everyone agrees that John was written late, and so on). If they couldn't confirm the miracle claims, what hope have we got?<br />
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The problem we face is that miracles don't happen today. Sure, healings happen, but not resurrections, walks on water, miraculous multiplications of food, etc. I've never seen good evidence for them. You don't claim they do. So we have a problem. We simply cannot verify unique events in history.<br />
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You build a theology of why Jesus might do miracles, but all this is built on the presupposition of the Christian God and Christian theology. Given that this is is the question we are actually trying to answer, your reasoning seems a bit circular, much like the accusation you point at some atheists out there.<br />
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Blimey, this response is getting quite long, and we're only 20% of the way through the book. Sorry about that, but you can't really respond to an entire book in just a few words.<br />
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Moving on we get to <b>Chapter 3, "Messenger"</b>. Handily enough, after playing the nazi card, you begin this chapter with a summary of the book so far. You admit you're building a cumulative case, and assume the reader has accepted that Jesus was a real historical person, the bible accounts are accurate history and that miracles are possible. As you can tell from what I've said above, I don't accept these foundations of your cumulative case. </div>
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You assert that the message of Jesus is the same as the message of the Old Testament, without discussing any specific passages, which is a bit sloppy. If you're making a case for something, you actually need to make the case. Then you cite Richard Bauckham as if that settles the 'eyewitnesses' argument. It really doesn't. I've read Bauckham and remain unconvinced. </div>
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But the question remains, where did the teaching come from if not from Jesus? True, this is a problem for the skeptic. Maybe it originates from one man. Maybe Jesus, maybe someone else. Maybe it's a collection of sayings from multiple sources. There is no compelling reason to assume it all must have come from one man. And your argument that it couldn't have been the disciples as they were 'unlettered men' is fallacious - none of the gospels claim to be written by anyone in particular and only church tradition links the names to the gospels. It is clear that some of the gospels were written by very educated men, perhaps men who could have fabricated an inspiring central character for their writings.<br />
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You assume (rather than demonstrate) that the teaching attributed to Jesus originated from him. You briefly discuss the 'problematic' passages and talk about interpreting the bible with the bible. Basically this means you can explain away the bits of the bible that you don't like or are plainly nonsense, using the bits of the bible that you like, or which seem more reasonable. If the bible is an edited collection of various sayings by diverse people it would make perfect sense that there would be some disagreements in the text and some contradictions in there. It is only your presupposition that won't let you view it this way. </div>
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There is an exceptionally clear command from Jesus in the gospel - give everything you have to the poor. It is clear and unambiguous, so why do I not know any Christians who have done this (yes, I know <i>of</i> one or two, but these are the exception rather than the rule)? It is because most Christians find ways to get around this by reading stuff into the context (so it doesn't apply to me!). All Christians 'pick and choose' the verses they like and 'interpret' the verses they don't like accordingly. If your starting point is the gospel of Matthew, you end up in a very different place than if your starting point is the letter to the Romans. This is why there are so many different denominations - they each hold a different set of passages as 'primary' and let those interpret the 'secondary' passages, but the choice of primary versus secondary is rather arbitrary.</div>
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But what is the message? Well, you side-step this and ask the reader to read the bible. Then you stop being an apologist for a bit and turn into a preacher - rather than defending the gospel message, you simply present it. So there's not much more to say about this chapter. I'll move on to the next chapter, which is pretty meaty, in the <a href="http://confessionsofadoubtingthomas.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/magnificent-obsession-by-david_26.html">next post</a>.<br />
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Cheers,<br />
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R.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20930767.post-21139724166446788422017-03-09T17:00:00.000+00:002017-03-09T17:00:00.748+00:00Lean not on your own understanding?<b>Proverbs 3v5-6 says:</b><br />
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<i>"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight."</i></blockquote>
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While these verses have been etched into my brain since before I could read, I was surprised to discover that the version I remember is a hybrid of the NIV and RSV versions. I remember the verse as above, but with 'acknowledge' (RSV) in it rather than 'submit' (NIV). But anyway...</div>
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This verse presupposes that there is only one Lord, you already trust this Lord and that this Lord is able to control what happens in your life.<br />
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Where this verse falls down is for the person who has doubts. Or for the person who is presented with multiple 'Lords' to choose between. Or for the person who is not sure if there are any 'Lords' who are trustworthy, or can control what happens in life.<br />
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You see, <i>that </i>person, needs to use their own understanding to weigh the evidence and decide whether or not there is a Lord and whether or not that Lord is worthy of trust in all things. They can't not lean on their own understanding!<br />
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Well, I guess they could, but then it would be a 'gut instinct' type decision, and they are rarely trustworthy...<br />
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This verse keeps committed Christians committed to Christianity, because it requires them to surrender their intellect to something they may never have considered in an intellectual manner anyway. This verse prevents the Christian from asking (legitimate?) questions, and actually seeking the truth. It assumes you already have the truth, so there is no need to go looking.<br />
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Somewhere along the way I started leaning on my own understanding. I'm not quite sure when that happened. Christians will say that's where I went wrong. Skeptics will say I did the right thing. I think that my own understanding is reasonably trustworthy, but Christians will tell me that its not, that its part of my fallen nature, and my human reason should not be trusted. Blindly trusting in the claims of an ancient book is much better, of course.<br />
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Curiously, Christian apologists appeal to the reason and understanding of their skeptical audience. Human understanding is a good thing when its used to bring you towards God, but an untrustworthy thing when it takes you away from Him. Or, in many cases, leads you to question whether there even is a Him. I'm not sure you can have that both ways.</div>
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