Thomas L. Thompson and the Myths of History

I've been reading Thomas L. Thompson's 1999 book "The Mythic Past: Biblical Archaeology and the Myth of Israel" (also published as "Bible in History: How writers create a past"). It looks like a fairly slim book in the edition I'm reading, but it has small text, narrow margins and thin pages, so has taken me a long time to read it. There's a lot in there.

Thompson is an "Old Testament Minimalist" and makes his case in this book that you can't really use the OT stories to construct a history of Israel as they weren't actually written to narrate that history. In other words, he ends up concluding that we actually don't know very much for sure about the history of Israel, the Jewish people and the Jewish religion. Furthermore he, basically, claims that we have been reading the entire bible wrong for thousands of years, and have therefore completely misunderstood it. It was intended as literature, not history, and to read it as history loses all sorts of important stuff.

I don't really intend to do a review of the book here, but here are a few of my thoughts about the book, and some of the things said in it, in no particular order:

No References!

I'll start with my biggest complaint agains this book. There are no references. None! He cites nobody. He doesn't even give a bibliography or name other authors along the way. As far as the reader can tell, this entire book could have been fabricated by the author. There is some irony here given that this is essentially what Thompson is claiming about the Bible... If any of this is true, or at least plausibly true, the reader needs some more info than this book provides to be convinced. Thompson mentions various archaeological and historical findings along the way, but without any citations the (amateur) reader does not know and cannot judge whether or not his claims about the meaning of certain historical 'facts' are based on sound reasoning or wild speculation.

So while this book is very interesting and seriously challenges many preconceptions about the biblical canon, without supporting documentation or information it must be taken entirely with a pinch of salt.

Anyway, on with the things that actually are in the book...

The purpose of the OT writings

Why are the stories in the OT actually there? Because they suited the purpose and agenda of whoever compiled and edited the 'canon' of the OT. If that editor had access to stories that didn't fit with this agenda, they would not have kept them in the collection. The stories we have mostly show theological points through apparently historical events. Not everything that ever happened in Israel had theological meaning. So the stories of mundane and not apparently divinely guided events would not have been retained by the collection editors. What fraction of actual historical events clearly show the Hand of God at work? Probably only a small minority, so the vast part of real history will not have been retained for inclusion in the Biblical canon. What we are left with is, at best, a fragmented history. Perhaps some of the key historical events are simply not there at all.

And what happened if the editor of the collection had a story that nearly, but not quite, made the theological point he wanted to make? He could either discard it or modify it to fit his purposes. How can we tell the difference between a real story with theological overtones and a modified story with theological overtones?

The Bible is a theological work and if we understand it as such, we have to realise that not much actual history will have survived the editing and compiling process intact.

The timing of the compilation

When was the OT compiled? (And by who?) Most scholars seem to agree that the compilation and editing of most of the books of the OT that we have was done after the exile in Babylon. That is to say, the OT was compiled to make sense in the time following the exile to the people who returned from exile (or possibly a few generations later). Thus the purpose of the compilation exercise was to answer questions like "who are we?", "who is our God?" and "why did God send us into exile?" and so on.

Once again, if the editor had an agenda, then any stories that did not fit the agenda would be omitted or modified to fit.

In a couple of places in this book, the claim is made that the bible chronology has been rewritten in the time of the rededication of the temple in 164BC. It is claimed that the chronology was designed to make the time from creation to that date equal 4000 years. The claimed reason for this is so that the bible narrative would essentially demonstrate that this rededication of the temple was a pivotal moment in history, indeed, it was the culmination of the entire history of Israel before it.

The claim is nothing less than that people rewrote history to suit the purposes of their own time. The agenda of the compilation and editing of the Bible was not to preserve history, but actually to change it!

If this claim is true, then -essentially- the entire bible is false history!

As with other claims in this book, this is an extraordinary claim, and thus (as is now widely quoted) extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence. Sadly, this book doesn't provide the evidence, extraordinary or otherwise.

An invented religion?
On page 169 Thompson makes a staggering claim. He says that the Assyrians (the people who appear to have taken the Israelites into exile, and resettled some of them back in Israel and Judah some years later) had a practice of moving peoples about in the empire as a means of maintaining control of the migrating people. But one of the things he says they did was to tell the people they were moving that really they were returning them to the land of their ancestors, when in reality they were not. Furthermore, he claims that the Assyrians would "invent" gods and tell the people they were resettling that these gods were the gods worshiped by their ancestors.

"The invention of new ancestor gods was an Assyrian imperial policy that helped create religious ties between societies around regional and local deities. Its counterpart was to develop legends about the 'return' of 'old' long-neglected and forgotten gods."

What he is essentially claiming is that the 'exiles' who 'returned' to Jerusalem had probably originated elsewhere in the empire and were not in any way descended from the Israelites who had been taken into captivity some decades earlier. Those exiles were presumably resettled somewhere else.

Furthermore, he is claiming that the Jewish religion was an invention, given to the 'returning' people as part of the resettling process.

In other words, he is claiming that both the Jewish people and the Jewish religion were fabricated by the Assyrians. There was no continuity between pre-exilic and post-exilic peoples and no continuity between pre-exilic and post-exilic worship. This is such a staggeringly big claim that I can hardly believe it comes hidden in the middle of a chapter on something else! If this is true then all of Judaism and all of Christianity is based on a lie!

And here, again, we get to the problem. As I said above, extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence. But we are given hardly any evidence here at all. Nothing more than an anecdote really. He alludes to another instance where we 'know' that this sort of thing happened in Ur, where the neo-Babylonian king Nabonidus established (or re-established?) the worship of the god "Sin" (nothing to do with the Christian concept of the same name) by building (or re-building) a temple there in about 550BC. But the book doesn't discuss the evidence. It isn't even presented properly, just mentioned in passing as if the reader should be fully aware of these events. Its not proven that this invention of a god happened in Ur, so its even less clear that it could have happened in Jerusalem.

I really want to read and know more about this, but Thompson doesn't give enough detail, or references for further reading. Doing a quick Google search suggests that the consensus opinion among scholars regarding Nabonidus and the temple was that Nabonidus was a follower of Sin before he became king, and that he was simply using his status in society to promote the worship of his preferred deity. In other words, the consensus view knows nothing of the creation or promotion of false gods, only the resurgence of belief in an already worshipped god.

If that is what actually happened in Ur, then we have no evidence for the promotion or creation of false gods in Jerusalem. In order for Thompson's case to be convincing it needs to actually present the case! As it stands, it appears that this is mere speculation, and wild speculation at that.

The wrong people?
Thompson goes on at length to make the claim that there never was a group or nation who would have self-identified as "Israelites" until after the 'return' from exile. All stories told about the pre-exilic nation of Israel should be understood as fiction:

"In writing about the historical developments of palestine between 1250 and 586, all of the traditional answers given for the origins and development of 'Israel' have to be discarded. The patriarchs of Genesis were not historical. The assertion that 'Israel' was already a people before entering Palestine whether in these stories or in those of Joshua has no historical foundation. No massive military campaign of invading nomadic 'Israelites' ever conquered Palestine. There never was an ethnically distinct 'Canaanite' population whom 'Israelites' displaced. There was no 'period of the Judges' in history. No empire ever ruled a 'united monarchy' from Jerusalem. No ethnically coherent 'Israelite' nation ever existed at all. No political, ethnic or historical bond existed between the state that was called Israel or 'the house of Omri' and the town of Jerusalem and the state of Judah. In history, neither Jerusalem nor Judah ever shared an identity with Israel before the rule of the Hasmoneans in the Hellenistic Period."

He then goes on to claim that the only people who should really be described as 'Israelites' are those 'enemies of Benjamin and Judah' who turn up in Ezra chapter 4 and are rejected by the 'Jews' because they were "Samaritans".

Once again, a staggering claim which, if true, would basically render the entire Old Testament untrue. The claim, once again, is that the Bible stories were written and compiled well after the exile, and that the stories were intended to create a history for a people who didn't really ever have one.

There's loads more in this book along the same lines. Thompson wants to destroy the idea of the bible as history. The problem is he doesn't present enough data to support his conclusions. He might be right, but I have no way of judging that, and Thompson doesn't give me any way of judging it.

So in the end, while this is a mostly fascinating book, I have to take it all with a very large pinch of salt, and look for answers to these questions elsewhere.

2 Corinthians 11-12: Is it pure sarcasm?

In 2 Corinthians 11v24-27 Paul gives a very potted autobiography of his life (NASB):

"Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep. I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren; I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure." 

I have never heard anyone suggest that these verses are anything other than Paul giving brief but true account of his missionary life. Well, I had never heard anyone suggest otherwise until I read "Profit with Delight" a few weeks ago (see my previous post). In an offhand comment in that book, Richard Pervo asserts that Paul was talking sarcastically here and giving an extremely exaggerated, if not entirely fictitious autobiography here. Pervo implies that the author of Acts took these comments as true and based several incidents in Acts on these comments, but that Paul did not intend these to be taken seriously.

On re-reading the passage in 2 Corinthians 11 and 12, I think I see what Pervo is getting at and I'm amazed that I've never seen this before or heard or read anyone discussing this issue before. Let's think about the context.

Paul is comparing and contrasting himself to the "super apostles" (NIV) or "most eminent apostles" (NASB) or "great apostles" (NCV). From context it is clear that various stories about these 'super' apostles are circulating and some of the stories make the apostles out to be more than mere men. They are portrayed as super-heroes, doing amazing deeds and enduring amazing persecutions, etc. Reading between the lines here it is also apparent that no such stories are circulating about Paul, so he comes out of all the gossip looking like an inferior apostle. What he says in these chapters is to set the record straight and put himself on an equal footing with these "super apostles" - if he can't bring them down to his level (reality) he's going to need to boost himself up to their level!

Look at the language he uses:

"I wish that you would bear with me in a little foolishness; but indeed you are bearing with me." 

2 Cor 11v1 - he starts out here admitting that his readers will have to bear with him while he indulges in "a little foolishness". What foolishness? Well in the verses that follow he starts boasting about all he has done for the Corinthian Church. He boasts about how he was not a burden and how he is not inferior to the super apostles. The foolishness is the boasting. There is nothing amazing in here, all this reads like fairly reasonable and unremarkable events are being described. He lives, works and preaches. Nothing much to boast about, but he has dropped humility and considers this foolishness.

In the midst of all this foolish boasting he says a few very cutting things about the super apostles - that they are false apostles, deceitful workers and servants of Satan (2 Cor 11v13-15).

So when Paul is talking foolishly, he does normal things that he boasts about and the super apostles are knocked off their pedestals.

But he doesn't stop there... he goes beyond foolishness and into the realms of the "insane"  (2 Cor 11v23). It is in the context of speaking as one who is insane that he gives the biography that includes beatings, floggings, shipwrecks, starvation, etc. In other words, Paul himself says that only an insane person would claim that all these things happened to him! In other words, Paul is saying these things did not happen to him. He is fabricating a super-biography to make stories about himself equal to the stories about the super-apostles. But these are the words of someone who is insane, and by implication he is saying that these things did not happen to any of the super apostles either.

Wait a minute! The implications of this are that 2 Corinthians shows that the amazing stories about Paul in Acts are complete fiction! Scripture is disproving scripture!

But Paul doesn't stop there... he drops back from insanity into boasting and recounts the story of when he was lowered in a basket over the city walls in Damascus (2 Cor 11v32-33). So maybe this is the only 'amazing' story in this biography which is not insane - maybe the rest was made up, but this was true? Maybe.

But having said this, he doesn't stop there... he "goes on" (beyond boasting?) to "visions and revelations of the Lord." Are these mere boasting or are we back in the realms of insanity again? Is the famous vision of the "third heaven" (2 Cor 12v1-6) boasting or insanity talking? We can't tell. And given that, given the context, we must consider this claim of a vision to be suspect. Maybe Paul is saying that this kind of vision is the sort of thing claimed about the super apostles. Maybe not.

Putting the stories of Acts to one side for a moment, and merely considering the passage in 2 Corinthians, it seems reasonable, if not entirely likely, that the 'insane' passage is not biographical, and that any stories like this which are told about Paul or any other apostle, must be considered to be exaggerated gossip, at best, or pure fiction, at worst. So any such stories we read (such as Acts, and the various non-canonical apocryphal Acts books) must be considered with a pinch of salt.

When Paul boasts, he boasts in the mundane. Clearly his own biography actually was mundane, characterised by ordinary preaching and teaching, without miracles, signs and wonders. Everything else is was made up by his biographers to make him into a 'Super Apostle'...

The book of Acts: historically accurate or literary fiction?

I've just read the book 'Profit with Delight' by Richard I. Pervo. Not the greatest surname I've ever come across, but the guy certainly seems to know the book of Acts inside out and upside down. I think this book (written in the mid 80s) is basically a rehash of his PhD thesis (from Harvard, no less). Nothing wrong with that, of course. I've always meant to turn my PhD thesis into a book...

So what is his thesis? Well, his central thesis is that the book of Acts should be considered as a novel, not as a historical record. Yes, it may contain history, but it also contains fictional episodes and events which were written purely to entertain, and which have no basis in what actually happened.

The structure of the book is rather odd, at least I found it so. After a short introductory chapter, the author goes through the book of Acts in exhaustive detail, listing and discussing every story in the book which he thinks show signs of having been invented purely to entertain. In Chapter 2 he discusses all the scenes invented (according to his theory) to make the book an adventure story, in Chapter 3 he discusses the other entertaining features, such as the funny stories. Then, and only after he has discussed the above in detail for over half the book, does he address the question of what a novel actually is, in the context of the 1st and 2nd century setting. It would have made more sense to me to put this first and then ask "does Acts conform to this genre?" rather than start with the presumption that it does, and then answer the question towards the end of the book. Chapter 5 is a discussion of various novels from the period, including Acts, and then the book concludes.

My issue with the book is not the central thesis of the book. Pervo does a great job in Chapters 2 and 3 in convincing me, the reader, that many stories in Acts are inventions of the author (assumed throughout to be 'Luke'). No, my main issue with the book is the thing it assumes but never demonstrates, which is stated in these two quotes:

"Although clearly a theological book and a presentation of history, Acts also seeks to entertain." (p 86)

and

"My thesis is that the canonical Acts are best explained as an example of one type of historical novel. [...] I hope that it is now clear that relating Acts to ancient novels is hardly a means for writing the book off for being fiction, least of all, pure fiction." (p 122)

Pervo insists on several occasions that Acts is a book of history, containing historical details from pre-Lukan sources, and although it contains fiction, it isn't all fiction. But how does he know this? He gives no evidence. He presents no method for distinguishing the fact from the fiction.

I have to admit that the first of those quotes, which comes at the start of Chapter 4, caught me totally off guard. Having read all the discussion of the episodes which Pervo says are clearly fiction, I had assumed he was coming to the conclusion that this book is a work of pure fiction. But he denies this, with no justification.

Its similar to the assumptions I have noticed in the work of Bart Ehrman and others regarding the gospels. They view some of the gospel stories as clearly fiction (usually the miracles or other 'impossible' stories) but then assume the non miraculous stories contain kernels of history. Why?

If a work of writing clearly contains fiction and fabrication in numerous places, how can we assume that the other bits are in any way reliable? What if Luke simply made the whole thing up? How can we distinguish between a book that is 50% fiction and 50% fact, from one that is 75% fiction and only 25% fact, from one that is 100% fiction? Pervo doesn't give us this method. Neither, as far as I have seen or read, does Ehrman. They just both assume there is some truth in there.

But we know that Peter and Paul, etc., were real historical people, don't we? And so a story told about them, even if heavily embellished, must contain some truth, mustn't it? Well, no. And Pervo seems to know this. Regarding Jewish novels he notes that:

"Jewish novelists did not invent their characters. They elaborated figures and events from myth, legend, Scripture and history." (p 120)

The novels he's talking about here are pure fiction. But in a historical setting with historical characters as the main characters in them. Why can't Acts be one of these? No reason given.

So Pervo comes away from this study content to believe that Acts is an embellished history book, but I'm afraid that I come away from this study thinking that most, if not all, of Acts is not history.

What is a 1st or 2nd century historical novel? Well, its a story that generally contains themes of adventure, travel, sea voyages, companionship, persecution, apparent death (which the hero then recovers from), and so on, generally with religious or magical themes and overtones of love and sex. Hmm, apart from possibly the sex angle, Acts has all of that in bucket-loads. But if the sea voyages, travel, persecution, etc. were all just invented out of genre convention - apparently this was what 1st and 2nd century readers wanted in their books - then we know virtually nothing about what Paul or Peter, etc. actually did. Paul may throw us a few hints in his letters (but see the next post I am writing!) but they're not really enough to build a biography on.

Hmmm, yet another part of my once strong faith comes crumbling down. Which is either very sad, or about time too, depending on your viewpoint.

If anyone out there knows of any defence of the historicity of Acts, please point me in that direction. Even better, if anyone can offer a reliable means of detecting historical facts in stories containing fictional elements, I'd love to read about those! 

Bart Ehrman, multiple attestation and probability

I've just listened to the entire 12 hour audio book of Bart Ehrman's "Did Jesus Exist?" which someone posted on YouTube. I transferred it to my iPod, and listened to it while commuting, of course.

I don't have too much to say about the book. I totally understand why many folks in the "Mythicist" camp are angry at this book, as it does seek not only to counter their arguments, but also makes a number of ad hominem attacks on them, individually, specifically, by name. But I'm not going to defend them here, they've gone as far as to write a whole book in response. I might read that eventually, but I'm in no hurry...

I also don't dispute the central thesis of this book. I'm reasonably convinced that there really was a 'historical Jesus' and that Christianity, at least in part, is based on some of his teachings and actions. I also believe, as explained in this book, that an awful lot of legends have been added to the historical core of Christianity, such that the modern religion is almost certainly something that the 'historical Jesus' wouldn't recognise at all.

But the main thing that annoyed me with Ehrman's book was the sloppy thinking at the centre of his reasoning. During his ad hominem attacks on the mythicists, he made a big deal about the fact that most mythicists (with the exception of Robert M. Price and Richard Carrier) do not have postgraduate degrees in relevant disciplines, and so (in his thinking) the arguments by these people can be largely dismissed. For Ehrman, appropriate qualifications are essential. It is odd, therefore, when he wades into the field of probability - something that he has no postgraduate education in - and bases the main points of his argument on probability judgements. He does not appear to understand how probability works.

The core of Ehrman's reconstruction of the historical Jesus is based on the criterion of Multiple Attestation - put simply this is taken to mean that if a story about Jesus or a teaching attributed to Jesus is attested in multiple independent sources, then it is more likely to be true or authentic than one which is not. Ehrman builds a library of stories and sayings that are multiply attested and concludes that these are most likely historically authentic.

Hang on, do you see what he did there? He takes a statement of relative probability (that Story A, which is attested in two independent sources, is more likely than Story B, which is found in only one source), and assumes it to be a statement of absolute probability. In other words, he seems to equate "more likely than" with "certainly happened". This is very sloppy thinking! An event that has a one in a thousand chance of having happened is more likely than an event which has a one in a million chance of having happened - a thousand times more likely in fact - but both events are still extremely unlikely. Relative probability tells us nothing without some quantification of absolute probability. Just because a story appears in multiple sources, doesn't mean it actually happened. It merely means that more people wrote it down.

Another annoying aspect of Ehrman's reasoning is the way he invents independent sources. I actually can't remember all the sources he claims, but his list of independent sources includes:

Mark; Q; M; L; John; Traditions in Paul; Traditions in Acts; Traditions in non-Pauline epistles; Revelation; and various non-scriptural sources.

This is all very impressive, but Ehrman forgets that Q is a scholarly construct which may or may not have existed. If it did exist, then the claim is that both Matthew and Luke used some of it, in addition to Mark, when creating their own gospels. There is no claim that both of them used all of Q in their gospels, so it seems quite likely that one or both of them might have missed out bits of Q. This means that it is possible that some, if not all, of the M and L material was actually part of Q. In other words it is quite possible that Q, M and L are not independent. Given that this is a real possibility, which we cannot discount, we cannot claim that these are independent sources.

For what its worth, I'm reasonably convinced by the Farrer hypothesis, that Luke used Matthew and Mark when writing his gospel. In this way of thinking, M and Q are reduced to a single source, and Luke (including L?) is not independent of either of them.

How Ehrman manages to justify to himself that the traditions in Acts are independent of L is a mystery to me. Both were written by the same author, it is supposed. And under the Farrer hypothesis, these become not independent from Mark and Matthew.

So I think Ehrman completely overstates his case. Sure there are some stories that are genuinely multiply attested, but not half as many as Ehrman makes out.

While I basically agree with Ehrman's conclusions, I think his overly exaggerated claims of authenticity don't do his case much good. The same case could be built on more sober and reliable reasoning.

Kill all Amalekites!

Follow the story in Lego form, click here...

Yet another post springing from a recent episode of the Unbelievable show...

The discussion on the show on Saturday 12th January (link to the show audio) concerned the "Amalekite genocide" in I Samuel 15. My summary of the main points of the Biblical story is as follows:

1. God instructed Saul, through Samuel, to slaughter all the Amalekite people as a punishment for what they did to the Israelite people on their way out of Egypt, several centuries before. 
2. Verse 3 is explicit: "Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys." - This is presented as the direct Word of God.
3. Saul carried out an attack on the Amalekite people, but did not utterly destroy them.
4. God, through Samuel, chastises Saul for not carrying out the total destruction, and rejects him as king over Israel. 
5. Samuel himself kills the king of Amalek who was spared and, in a later chapter, David destroys the remaining Amalekites. These two show obedience to the command of God, which Saul did not.

The discussion on Unbelievable was between the Revd. John Allister, an Anglican vicar, and Justin Schieber, an atheist (former Christian) and host of the podcast Reasonable Doubts. I have to say that the role played by Schieber in this debate was mostly to be incredulous and point out the plain meaning of the text, which is apparent to anyone.

John Allister's defence of the Biblical story and the God portrayed therein would have been comical, had the subject in hand not been such a horrible one of slaughter and genocide. His take on the issue was basically as follows:

1. God did issue the command, as given.
2. But armies are slow moving things and people have plenty of time to run away, so the only people who should have fought the Israelite army were soldiers; all able bodied women, children and non-fighting men would have easily got away and would therefore not have been slaughtered.
3. It is reasonable to assume that no children or infants were actually killed as a consequence of this command.
4. The Amalekite people who escaped could have assimilated into other tribes - the aim of this was not to destroy individual people, but a tribal identity.

So, in summary, his defence is that God commanded it, but it never happened, even though the bible stories are true...

This is nonsense on so many different levels. But so is the response of several of the people who called or e-mailed in to Unbelievable the following week. A common theme in their responses was that the slaughter of the innocents must have been necessary, but it is morally acceptable because all innocents who died would have gone to heaven. Once again, this is the use of an unseen, but infinite, good to explain or justify a seen, but finite, evil.

Come again? It appears that a commonly held belief is that any infant or innocent child who dies goes straight to heaven. What about original sin? What about freewill? If the people who believe this actually considered the implications of their belief, they would find that the only logical conclusion - assuming that the general aim of Evangelicalism is to get lost souls to heaven - would be to kill all infants at birth, bypassing their freewill and assuring their salvation. If we let children grow up then we run the risk that they might reject God and be damned. Of course, I'm not advocating this, I'm merely pointing out how this argument - as used by William Lane Craig, I believe - is inconsistent nonsense and provides no solution to the problem inherent in this passage.

John Allister's case is no better. He believes that no children actually died. But if, as he believes, the command came from an omniscient God, then why would God give the command? If God knew that no children would die, then why command anything to do with children? No, that doesn't wash. If the command came from an omniscient God, then he knew there would be children there and he knew that they would die, and furthermore, following my reasoning above, that some of them would be going to hell.

I can't see an acceptable way to understand this passage within an Evangelical mindset. Either we have to abandon an inerrant/inspired view of the passage or we have to abandon a view of an omnibenevolent God. There is no middle ground.

So what are the available options of what happened:

1. That the events happened as described.
   As I've noted above, this necessarily entails that God is not a God of love.


2. That the events happened as described, that Samuel genuinely believed he had a revelation from God, but that he was misguided and God never issued such a command.
   This option gets God off the hook, but undermines any claims about the inerrancy or inspiration of scripture. It also casts doubt over any and all claims of revelation from God. I mean, if Samuel got it wrong and didn't hear from God clearly, then what hope is there for the rest of us?


3. That the events (battles, slaughter) happened, more or less as described, but that the command of God and the human dialogue was added by a later storyteller in an attempt to explain why the events happened as they did.
   The supposition here, made by the later historian/storyteller is that the events must have happened because of a divine command, so a divine command was invented to explain an otherwise senseless slaughter. For several years I have found myself drawn to this line of reasoning when dealing with problem passages of Israelite history where God appears to command an immoral action. The assumption is that the history is basically true, but the analysis was fabricated to shift the blame for the immoral actions from the people to their God. An immoral action becomes acceptable if God commands it, right? Or it could simply be a way to insert God into a story which he really had nothing to do with. But all history is God's story, isn't it? So he must have been involved. However, I have come to realise that the only reason to hold to this line of thinking is an attempt to maintain some sort of inspiration or authority of scripture. Even though logic led me to the conclusion that the whole story couldn't be true because of the problems described above, my natural inclination was to preserve some of the authority of the bible by finding a way to ensure that some, at least, of the story was true. But if we're honest with ourselves here, that simply doesn't wash. Which brings us to the final possibility...


4. That the events simply did not happen.
   Once you've given up on this passage as being in any way an inspired account of a historical event, you have to consider why this passage is included in the bible. Well, its there to teach us about God, isn't it? But if we've rejected the view of God which this passage paints, that is, God simply cannot be like the character described here, and we realise that the main intent of the story is to convey a message about God, not a message about history and human battles, we have to consider the option that perhaps the whole incident is simply made up. Certainly, as far as I know, there is no historical evidence (outside of the bible) for these events. This is just the same as the alleged Canaanite genocide from the days of Joshua, there we get the same arguments, but there we have a greater amount of archaeological evidence. Evidence that the biblical stories of conquest and slaughter simply did not happen. Maybe there were some minor skirmishes, and some children died, etc., but there was no genocide, commanded by God or otherwise.

So a serious consideration of the facts, the evidence and the arguments leads me to the conclusion that the story of the Amalekite genocide in the Old Testament is simply fiction. It was probably written many (tens or hundreds of) years after the time of the alleged events and reflects more the beliefs and wishes of the storyteller than anything in real history.

If that's the case here, why can't that also be the case for the rest of the old (and new) testament?

If the Bible is not true here, then where - if anywhere - is it true, and how can you distinguish the truth from the fiction? I still haven't found an acceptable answer to that question.

---

Update
A couple of the responses to this Unbelievable show which were read out in subsequent weeks expressed the opinion that because God is the author and originator of life, it is therefore entirely within his rights to take it away. Everyone dies at some point, right? And presumably God determines when that point is? So whether you live or die, and how long you live for is all God's choice. He has the right to end life as he sees fit, even if this is the life of an ostensibly innocent child. Right?

No. I can't accept that. Suppose I give you a gift for Christmas. I can't reclaim it in January. That would not be right. So how can it be right for God to take away the gift of life? But even if God has the right to reclaim life at any time, claiming the life of an innocent child, before the child has had the opportunity to exercise their freewill in choosing whether or not to follow God, is still wrong. As we've seen above, the child's eternal destiny cannot be assured, so reclaiming the life of innocent children must mean consigning some of them to hell or, at least, annihilation.

Yawheh?

I've just read a chapter from John Loftus's 2011 book "The End of Christianity". Not chapter 1, I'll go back to that in due course. For reasons I'll explain I started with Chapter 5: 

"Can God Exist if Yahweh Doesn't?" by Jaco Gericke

The reason I turned to this chapter first is that I had listened to an interview between Robert M. Price (a.k.a. The Bible Geek) and the author on Point of Inquiry a few months back and Dr Gericke sounded like an interesting guy and his journey through belief and skepticism seemed to slightly parallel my own, so I was interested to read his thoughts.

You see, where I find myself at the moment is strongly skeptical of many of the stories and details in the bible, but still watching the evidence and seeing that some 'supernatural' things appear to happen in Christian contexts (possibly also of other religions, but I have no experience there). In other words I'm getting increasingly agnostic towards the biblical picture of God, but am still open to there actually being a God of some variety, who interacts with believers in 'supernatural' ways. So the title of this essay caught my eye and my imagination, so I read it first.

Sadly, from my particular (probably skewed) perspective, the chapter does not discuss the issues I thought it would, given the title. The point of the article is much more intended to be a demonstration that Yahweh, as described in the bible, does not and cannot exist, so therefore there is no God. The intended answer to the question in the title is "No".

However, following my slight disappointment that the chapter wasn't what I expected it to be, I found the chapter to be interesting, thought provoking, and generally compelling in its arguments. Which I will summarise here.  

The author's main argument is to present the character of Yahweh as the bible (Old Testament) actually presents him, and point out that such a character is not only incompatible with the way we know the world to be, but is also incompatible with contemporary Christian belief. In other words, Gericke contends, Christians themselves do not actually believe in the God of the bible. As he says: 

"If you read the scriptures and are not shocked out of all your religious beliefs, you have not understood them." 

Yahweh, as presented in the Old Testament, has a face, hands, feet, breast, backside, nostrils, eyes, ears, etc. None of the wording of any of the places where these features are asserted in the Old Testament is implied to be metaphorical, either in context or the language used. In other words, as far as the authors of the OT are concerned, Yahweh has a body. A human shaped body. And he also appears to have no existence beyond that body. Nothing in the OT suggests that he is a spiritual being who only manifests himself in human form occasionally. The OT writers believe that he is physical. Of course, the chapter gives bible references to support all these statements.

In order to harmonise contemporary Christian beliefs about God with the character of Yahweh, as presented in the OT, Christians have to interpret the OT passages as if they were metaphorical.  In other words, contemporary Christian belief is not bible-based, but rather contrary to the bible.

Beyond Yahweh's physicality, the OT also presents God as having human limitations. He needs to rest (e.g. Genesis 2:1 or Exodus 31:17), he has to travel to obtain information or to verify reports (e.g. Genesis 11: The Tower of Babel), he appears to act out of fear of human potential (e.g. Tower of Babel again), and sometimes he appears to need assistance or advice from others (e.g. 1 Kings 22:20-23). There are other instances given. None of this is presented as metaphor. The writers of these stories believed that God was limited in these ways.

The OT also presents Yahweh as having a human-like mind. Not only does he appear to believe things which are not true of the universe (e.g. that it was created in six days), but statements attributed to Yahweh assume the existence of mythical creatures, a literal place under the earth where the dead go, a literal heaven above the clouds, that the earth sits on top of a subterranean ocean, and so on. (NB, not all the verses used to support this reading of the OT are entirely compelling.) Furthermore, he is shown to behave in a temperamental manner on occasions and appears to have moral and ethical values which we would now regard as immoral and unethical. This is not a step in 'progressive revelation', this appears to be exactly the sort of character that a superstitious, bronze/iron age people would create, by amplifying and exaggerating the characteristics of their own tribal leaders.

Having considered all this, Gericke makes the statement that:

"All Christian theology is actually Yahwistic atheism"

Fair point.

The chapter goes on to discuss the world in which Yahweh apparently lives. And here we have the greatest number of verses quoted to demonstrate that the OT presentation of Yahweh is incompatible with both reality and Christian belief. I could cite verses here, but you may as well buy the book if you want to read the whole argument. It is a compelling case, and is more compelling if you actually look up the verses quoted and take them seriously, and at face value.

For example, how about Isaiah 43:10

“You are my witnesses,” declares Yahweh, “And my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me there was no God formed, and there will be none after me. "

The statement clearly says that God is not eternal - there was a time before him, and there will be a time after him. Furthermore, while this does claim that he is the first God and will also be the last, it does not claim that he is the only God. Indeed, if that were the claim this would not be the way to say it. In other words, this verse clearly says that God had a beginning and will have an end. Something that Christian theology rejects. So Christians have to interpret this verse rather than taking it at face value.

The chapter concludes by making a comparison with Zeus. There are a whole host of reasons why we don't believe in Zeus today. Similarly, there are a whole host of the same reasons why we don't believe in Yahweh. Christians interpret the OT through harmonising, Christ-tinted specs. If you take these off and look at the OT on its own terms, it paints a picture of a thoroughly unbelievable God.

My reflections on this chapter bring me back to my ongoing fascination with Marcion and Marcionism. This chapter demonstrates (without actually saying it) that most Christians today are functional Marcionites - they believe that the 'Father' of Jesus is not the same as the biblical Yahweh. I wonder how different the world today would be if Marcionism had won the ideological battle over 'Catholic' Christianity? Perhaps it did and we just didn't notice...

Thought for the day

I read this comment in "The Life of Jesus Critically Examined" by David Friedrich Strauss, first published (in German) in 1835:

"The earliest records of all nations are, in the opinion of Bauer, mythical: why should the writings of the Hebrews form a solitary exception?"

The quote is in section 8 of the introduction, the reference is to G.L. Bauer "Hebraische Mythologie des alten and neuen Testaments" (1802).

When it is put so bluntly, you realise that it is a totally valid question. There is so much in the Old Testament which is similar in style to the myths of all the other cultures of the ancient middle east. Why, indeed, do we consider the bible to be a special case? If it is inspired, why is it inspired to look like everyone else's myths?

The Bible's Buried Secrets

Did you see the recent documentary series on BBC2? Dr Francesca Stavrakopoulou presented a three part series attempting to 'prove' some controversial theories with the aid of archaeology. Conservative Christians up and down the UK tweeted and blogged their outrage.

For what its worth, here's my take on what she had to say. I suppose all this contains spoilers, if you haven't seen the shows.

Episode 1. Was there a King David?
Yes. Next.
Well, the most I think you can say from the evidence presented in the programme was that there probably was a historical King David, but that some of the claims made about him in the bible may be a bit exaggerated. But when you find inscriptions relating to a king 'of the line of David' from a time, supposedly only 100 or so years after the alleged time of David, then I'm happy to believe that, yes, there was at some point a bloke called David. His descendent was a king, so its not unreasonable to think that he might have been a king too.

Episode 2. Did God have a wife?
Now this is the one that got people in a flap. But the bible makes it clear, Ashera was worshiped in the same temple as God, in Jerusalem, for at least 65% of the time that the (first) temple was there. Given the evidence, its not unreasonable to deduce that the people (well, the 'bad' kings and some priests at least, but presumably a significant subset of the people too) considered the goddess Ashera to be worthy of worship alongside God. Its not too far a jump from there to making them a couple. So if the question is 'Was God believed to have a wife by some people?' then the answer is certainly yes. The programme could not possibly address the question 'Did (the real) God have a wife?' as the assumption underlying the whole thing is that there was and is no real God.

Episode 3. Where was the garden of Eden?
This topic didn't actually sound that exciting to me, but I found this theory the most interesting and convincing of the three. The first temple was decorated as a garden? Totally plausible. The Adam character is the priest/king with the divinely appointed task of tending the 'garden'? Yes, I can see that. I'm surprised Melchizedek wasn't invoked at some point, given that he was priest and king in (Jeru)Salem. The Ezekiel stuff makes more sense in this context rather than talking about the fall of Lucifer. So, yes, I'm with the reasoning the whole way. Even the snake stuff. But at the end we never find out which king! Why not? Why not even speculate? Which King was Adam?