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...

Miracles today?

Just listened to last week's 'Unbelievable' radio show on Miracles in the bible - did they happen? Tomorrow's show is on Miracles - do they happen today?

I'm thinking these issues through at the moment, and will blog about them in due course. So just out of interest, please leave comments below regarding any miracles - other than medical healings - that have happened to you or those you know.

I know that healings happen today. Its the other stuff I'm unsure about, so please tell me if you know any good stories...

Gay marriage?

Having read a load of nonsense on both sides of the debate this week, and having read some really quite sensible comments on both sides of the debate as well, I feel like making a few comments.

If "marriage" is defined as a union of a man with a woman, as is commonly stated by many folk on the no-gay-marriage side of things, then what we need for gays who want to get married is something which is like marriage in every way, but simply has a different name. Then it wouldn't be marriage, it would be something different, and the no-gay-marriage bunch could just give up and go away.

If "marriage" is not defined as involving different genders, then why is there a debate going on?

And why is there no such thing as a heterosexual 'Civil Partnership'?

That is all.

Proofs of the resurrection?

"Proofs of the Resurrection" is a video lecture series by Mike Licona on YouTube. Someone posted links to all of the episodes in a comment on one of my previous posts. You can watch the lectures here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. I thought I would watch the lectures. But I don't have time for that, so I ripped the audio content from them and put it on my iPod and have been listening to the lectures on my daily commute to work. There's a lot in here, most of which I won't comment on in detail, but here are my main thoughts and opinions on these lectures.

Despite the title of the lecture series, the first 5 hours of lectures offer no proofs or even evidence for the resurrection or anything else. Licona starts by explaining why only the opinions of experts who have studied the resurrection as historians really matter. Thus the opinions of textual critics like Bart Ehrman or people with a background in theology, but not history, do not matter. These people are not qualified to give informed opinions. Unlike Licona, of course. It seems that only he and his mentor Gary Habermas are really qualified to make historical judgements on this topic. And they both conclude that the resurrection really happened, so it must have done. QED. Licona also (strangely) dismisses the need for consensus - consensus doesn't mean anything if it is a consensus among non-experts. He then relies on consensus in some of his later arguments.

Next Licona, by way of anecdote, implies that the science of physics is very imprecise and that history is at least as precise as this, so therefore history is science. No it is not. Here he is trying, once more, to persuade his (already believing) audience that his conclusions are as firm as anything in science, before he has even discussed the evidence that led him to those conclusions. This is not science or history, this is apologetics. Indeed, later on in the lecture series it becomes clear that this is intended as apologetics, the aim here is not to find out the truth, but to defend the faith.

Can the historian ever conclude that a miracle happened? Well, if history is science (as Licona claims) then I would say only if the same kind of miracle can be observed to happen today (that's a topic for a future blog). Based on this, I don't think the historian can ever conclude that the resurrection happened, as it was a unique event with no other historical or contemporary parallels. Licona redefines miracles here as events which happen with no apparent naturalistic cause and which occur in a religious setting. He contends that you can conclude miracles by historical methods.

After the discussion of miracles (we're now in hour five) we get the biggest and most ludicrous claims in the whole series - firstly, that the 'burden of proof' regarding the resurrection is actually on the side of the skeptic, and unless a skeptic can disprove it, beyond reasonable doubt, then we are entirely justified in believing in it. Then, on the back of this comes his response to Sagan's "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" statement, here he basically claims that it is not required to provide enough evidence to change someone else's worldview, only enough evidence to convince someone who is already predisposed to believe in miracles. Eh? What? I think I'll have to come back to this in a future posting. But this makes it clear that he is dealing with the kind of apologetics which exists only to entrench the beliefs of those who are already believers, not to convince anyone else that Jesus actually came back from the dead. Thus, he fails in the stated purpose of the series, he fails to convince skeptics and, essentially, he fails as an evangelist!

Finally, after a lot of preamble, he gets to the evidence - evidence from the gospels, evidence from the epistles, evidence from 'pre-Pauline' material, evidence from the church fathers, evidence from early non-Christian sources. Despite claiming to be an inerrantist, he (repeatedly) states that he doesn't require the inerrancy of the biblical writings as part of his argument. What he does is he looks at all the evidence and starts labeling it as 'possible', 'probable', 'definite', and so on, using historical criteria. Many of his arguments here appeal to consensus, which is odd as he dismissed consensus as being irrelevant in lecture one!

Along the way, he assumes the gospels and epistles were all written by single authors (OK, Matthew may not have been written by someone called 'Matthew', but it was written by a single individual) and have not been modified by later editors. He also assumes that the gospel accounts are trustworthy and were written as history. He does assume that at least one of the gospel authors (the 4th one) was an eyewitness of the resurrection. He also assumes the earliest dating of most of the documents.

Based on all this he establishes a number of 'historical facts' which are 'beyond doubt', including:

1. Jesus died by crucifixion
   
2. The disciples believed that they saw Jesus raised from the dead
3. Paul, a persecutor of the church, converted because of an encounter with the risen Jesus
4. Jesus' brother James, who had been skeptical, came to faith and was martyred for it
5. There was an empty tomb

Only after he establishes those 'facts' does he consider the skeptical arguments against the resurrection, and he only considers the skeptical arguments which accept that some of the above are historical facts. Thus, crucially, he does not even mention the 'Christ Myth' hypothesis, which claims that all of the above 'facts' are part of the same fiction.

The problem for me is that the above reasoning 'puts the cart before the horse' the facts are established before the source documents are questioned. And then the source documents look good - because they contain facts!

Wearing a slightly skeptical hat (and it doesn't need to be radically skeptical), there is reasonable doubt over those five facts.

1. Jesus died? What we are sure of is that in the early 2nd century (Tacitus wrote circa 116AD), perhaps the very late 1st century (Josephus wrote circa 95AD) there were 'Christians' who were believers in a Messiah who they claimed was killed by crucifixion by the order of Pontius Pilate. We know when Pilate had responsibility in Palestine, so we can roughly date this alleged event. All the secular references to Jesus death show that there was a belief in this event by Christians, not that the event actually happened. But if there was a real, historical Jesus, then it is reasonable to assume, on the basis of the evidence, that he was crucified and died.
   
2. Disciples saw? The evidence is one or two steps removed for this. What we have is evidence that Christians in the late first century believed that their predecessors in the faith had seen the risen Christ. We do not have any eyewitness accounts and the letters attributed to Peter are widely held to be pseudopigrapha.
3. Paul's vision? This comes from Paul's letters and from Acts. There is good evidence that these documents were edited in the 2nd century, and the accounts are contradictory, so it is hard to conclude 'facts' from this.
4. James martyred? Someone called James, the brother of Jesus 'called the messiah' was killed. We know this from a secular source (Josephus), but it doesn't tell us what he believed. Had he seen a risen Jesus? We don't know. That comes from 2nd century tradition.
   
5. Empty tomb? The earliest stories of the empty tomb that we know of were not widely circulated until 50 or more years after the alleged event, so there is no way of confirming these stories, even then, the stories could not be confirmed as this is over a generation later.

So. If, and only if, we accept the NT writings as accurate historical reportage, can we conclude that the resurrection of Jesus happened.

Unfortunately, it appears that many of the documents we have have been redacted, edited, tampered with and perhaps even rewritten by people up to a century after the alleged events. Given this, it is nearly impossible to figure out what, if any, of the content of the NT writings is original or dates back to a time within living memory of Jesus.

Licona makes a big deal out of the fact that he only considers documents which originated within 150 years of Jesus' death. What he fails to point out is that in that society, at that time, 150 years is about 8 to 10 generations after Jesus and that the average life expectancy was only of the order of thirty years! Even a document written 50 years after the event would likely have been written by the grandchildren or the great-grandchildren of the 'first disciples', or whoever was around at the time of Pontius Pilate.

Proof? No. Its a good case, enough to convince those who already believe that the Bible is trustworthy, but nobody else.

OT prophecies of the Messiah...

Following some comments made in response to a previous post, I thought it would be a good time to look over the Christian claim that Jesus fulfilled many OT prophecies and is thus demonstrated to be the messiah. Some preachers claim that Jesus fulfills 'over 300' prophecies in the OT, but I don't really have the time or inclination to consider that many now, so I'll consider the 39 main ones, which I have taken from this list. If your favourite OT prophecy of Jesus isn't one of the ones on the list, please comment with a specific chapter and verse reference, and I'll have a look at that one too.

In commenting on this list, I'll be looking at a number of issues, two of the main one being whether the OT passage was actually intended or viewed as a messianic prophecy when it was written or first known, and whether or not it looks like the gospel accounts were written specifically to tick the boxes of some of the OT prophecies, that is, the gospel accounts contrived to make Jesus fulfill the prophecy, whether the historical Jesus actually did. Point 1 is case in point:

1. Micah 5:2. The Messiah will be born in Bethlehem.
This was clearly understood as a Messianic prophecy.
However, two of the gospels and all of the epistles make no mention of this. Luke's story of the census does appear contrived (what sort of census counts the population in places where they don't live?), so there are hallmarks of the story being contrived to tick the prophecy box. I'm not sure this one counts as evidence that Jesus fulfilled prophecy.

2. Genesis 49:10. The Messiah will be a descendant of Judah.
“The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from his descendants, until the coming of the one to whom it belongs, the one whom all nations will obey.”
Only two of the gospels (Matt and Luke) make explicit that Jesus was a descendent of Judah. Mark has Jesus himself questioning the claim that he is a descendent of David. But none of that really matters, the main point to raise here is that Jesus had no association with a 'ruler's staff' or a 'scepter' during his time on earth and, thus far, not all the nations obey him. So, at best, this is a prophecy still awaiting its fulfillment. Of course, that means it is not evidence in favour of Jesus being the messiah.

3. Psalm 72:10-11. Great kings will pay homage and tribute to the Messiah.
The website I took this list from quotes the verse from the New Living Translation: “The western kings of Tarshish and the islands will bring him tribute. The eastern kings of Sheba and Seba will bring him gifts.” I looked this up in other translations and the sense is somewhat different: "May the kings of Tarshish and of distant shores bring tribute to him. May the kings of Sheba and Seba present him gifts. May all kings bow down to him and all nations serve him" (NIV). In context, the whole psalm is a prayer or blessing clearly intended for the coronation ceremony of any king. The hope is that all the blessings listed, including the favour of foreign kings and nations, will be evident in the reign of whichever king was being enthroned. This would, by implication, have also been applied to the coming messiah. However, only one of the gospels relates the visit of the Magi (not kings!) to the infant Jesus, and they came from the east, perhaps Sheba (possibly modern day Yemen), but not Seba (which was not a place, but the son of Cush, thus linked with Ethiopia; South not East) and certainly not from Tarshish (thought to be Tarsus, Asia Minor; North West). This passage is debated by many scholars and thought by most critical scholars to be fiction, intended to show that Jesus fulfilled prophecy, rather than being historical.

4. Psalm 132:11, Jeremiah 23:5-6, Jeremiah 33:15. The Messiah will be a descendant of David.
“The Lord swore to David a promise he will never take back: ‘I will place one of your descendants on your throne. If your descendants obey the terms of my covenant and follow the decrees that I teach them, then your royal line will never end.”
“‘For the time is coming,’ says the Lord, ‘when I will place a righteous Branch on King David’s throne. He will be a King who rules with wisdom. He will do what is just and right through the land.”
“At that time I will bring to the throne of David a righteous descendant, and he will do what is just and right throughout the land.”
Two things here, firstly, and most importantly, Jesus has never yet sat on any throne or ruled over Israel or Judah. So, at best, this is a prophecy still awaiting its fulfillment. But beyond that, the gospels are unclear that Jesus was a son of David:
Mark 12: 35-37 "While Jesus was teaching in the temple courts, he asked, “Why do the teachers of the law say that the Messiah is the son of David? David himself, speaking by the Holy Spirit, declared: “‘The Lord said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.”’ David himself calls him ‘Lord.’ How then can he be his son?” The large crowd listened to him with delight." (Matthew and Luke copy this story and don't change it, even though both their genealogies of Jesus feature David).
Here, Jesus is clearly challenging the concept that the Messiah would be the son of David. There is no resolution to the story, so left as is, the only conclusion to draw is that, as far as Mark was concerned, Jesus was not a son of David. This is further emphasised by an implication in another Markan story, whereby the only person who calls Jesus 'Son of David' in Mark's gospel is Blind Bartimaeus. And he only says this while blind, after he has been healed of his blindness, he praises God, but makes no further mention of the 'Son of David' thing. Is there a wink and a nudge to the reader there?

5. Isaiah 7:14. The Messiah will be born of a virgin.
“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.”
This is one of the biggies, and is one of the most hotly contested. Does 'almah' mean virgin or young girl? Well, I don't think it matters, because the verse is part of a larger prophecy which goes on to say: "for before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste. The Lord will bring on you and on your people and on the house of your father a time unlike any since Ephraim broke away from Judah—he will bring the king of Assyria.”
Did Assyria attack Judea during Jesus' lifetime, but before he knew the difference between right and wrong? No. Indeed, if Jesus was the Son of God from all eternity was there ever a time when he didn't know the difference between right and wrong? And was he called Immanuel? No. He was called Jesus. For these reasons, I cannot see how Jesus fulfilled this prophecy. Furthermore, it certainly does appear that Matt and Luke included the virgin birth theme to tick boxes, but even if it happened, a partial fulfillment of a prophecy is actually not a fulfillment of a prophecy.

6. Jeremiah 31:15. Children will be killed in effort to kill the Messiah.
The website I took this list from quotes the NLT: “This is what the Lord says: ‘A cry of anguish is heard in Ramah – mourning and weeping unrestrained. Rachel weeps for her children, refusing to be comforted – for her children are dead.”
Having compared the other translations and looked at the Hebrew (on Biblos), the original text would appear to be better translated "her children are not there" or "her children are gone". Given that this verse sits in the middle of a large prophecy about the return from exile, and the immediately following verse says "This is what the LORD says: "Restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears, for your work will be rewarded," declares the LORD. "They will return from the land of the enemy", this verse must be understood to relate to the absent exiles who would return, not to dead children who couldn't return. Furthermore, Ramah is about as far North of Jerusalem as Bethlehem is south of it. Thus I think Matthew was entirely wrong to use this quote in connection with the slaughter of the innocents which he relates. So, once again, this is not a prophecy fulfilled by the life of Jesus.

7. Hosea 11:1. The Messiah will be taken to Egypt.
“When Israel was a child, I loved him as a son, and I called my son out of Egypt.”
In context (and even out of context) this verse is clearly not a prophecy regarding the future, it speaks about the events recorded in Exodus. Here, the 'son' in question is unmistakably the nation of Israel, not a future messiah. This verse is only understood as prophecy through the lens of Pesher, which I will probably discuss in another post, sometime soon.

8. Psalm 2:7-8. The Messiah will be the Son of God.
“The king proclaims the Lord’s decree: ‘The Lord said to me, ‘You are my son. Today, I have become your Father. Only ask, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, the ends of the earth as your possession.”
Scholars seem to think that this psalm was one spoken by the (pre-exilic) king of Israel or Judea as part of his enthronement ceremony, or as part of an annual festival. So it wasn't originally messianic in intent. However, it clearly became understood as part of messianic expectation in the post-exilic period. Thus, if Jesus is the king, then it does relate to him. However, Jesus has yet to return as king, thus this is another prophecy which remains, as yet, unfulfilled.

9. Isaiah 40:3-5. The Messiah will be heralded by the messenger of the Lord.
“Listen! I hear the voice of someone shouting, ‘Make a highway for the Lord through the wilderness. Make a straight, smooth road through the desert for our God. Fill the valleys and level the hills. Straighten out the curves and smooth off the rough spots. Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all the people will see it together. The Lord has spoken!”
The funny thing about this prophecy is that the original sense of the passage is that the wilderness would be the place where the way of the Lord would be made, whereas the claimed NT fulfillment is that the wilderness is where the voice was heard shouting. So John the Baptist is only a partial fulfillment of this. But this is one of the clearest prophecies fulfilled in the story of Jesus.

10. Isaiah 11:2. The Messiah will be anointed by the Holy Spirit.
“And the Spirit of the Lord will rest on him – the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord.”
This is another passage that is clearly messianic expectation. But has it yet been fulfilled in Jesus? Certainly, out of context Isa 11:2 seems to be fulfilled by Jesus in the gospel stories, but what about the rest of the prophecy? Has Jesus (yet) judged the poor? Has he (yet) struck the earth with the rod of his mouth? Has he (yet) slain the wicked with the breath of his lips? (all in verse 4). No, no and no. So once again, this is one of those prophecies which Christians believe will be fulfilled by Jesus, but thus far in history, it hasn't.

11. Isaiah 9:1-2. The Messiah will bring light to Galilee.
“Nevertheless, that time of darkness and despair will not go on forever. The land of Zebulun and Naphtali will soon be humbled, but there will be a time in the future when Galilee of the Gentiles, which lies along the road that runs between the Jordan and the sea, will be filled with glory. The people who walk in darkness will see a great light – a light that will shine on all who live in the land where death casts its shadow.”
These verses are part of a larger messianic prophecy which ends up with the messiah on the throne judging for ever and ever. As noted above, this hasn't happened yet. However, the opening verses claim this messiah will be in some way connected to Galilee. So if you can separate verse 1 from the 7 verses that follow, then this has been fulfilled (even if it is vague) in Jesus, but if not, then this is still a prophecy awaiting fulfillment.

12. Isaiah 61:1-2. The Messiah will preach good news to the poor, comfort the broken hearted, and announce the year of the Lord’s favor.
“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me, because the Lord has appointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted and to announce that captives will be released and prisoners will be freed. He has sent me to tell those who mourn that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.”
The gospel accounts say Jesus claimed this prophecy was fulfilled in himself, so this one is pretty clear cut. Jesus apparently did bring good news to the poor. Not sure about the freedom for prisoners bit, unless you read that metaphorically, of course.

13. Psalm 35:19. The Messiah will be hated without cause.
“Don’t let my treacherous enemies rejoice over my defeat. Don’t let those who hate me without cause gloat over my sorrow.”
This psalm was clearly not written as a messianic prophecy, and only later Pesher has turned it into one. And the clause quoted is only a minor one in the psalm. Also, it is clear for the gospels that the pharisees had good reason to hate Jesus - he was challenging their way of life. So not a clear fulfilled prophecy.

14. Isaiah 35:5-6. The Messiah will make the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk, and the mute speak.
“And when he comes, he will open the eyes of the blind and unstop the ears of the deaf. The lame will leap like a deer, and those who cannot speak will shout and sing!”
Yes. This one is clearly fulfilled by Jesus in the gospel stories.

15. Zechariah 9:9. The Messiah will enter Jerusalem riding a donkey.
“Rejoice greatly, O people of Zion! Shout in triumph, O people of Jerusalem! Look, your king is coming to you. He is righteous and victorious, yet he is humble, riding on a donkey – even on a donkey’s colt.”
This is a messianic prophecy, clearly, but the original context was all to do with judgement on all Israel's neighbours, a judgement that had already happened by the time of Jesus as all of them were under the dominion of Rome. Yes, the gospel accounts do have Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey (Matthew actually has him riding in on a donkey and a colt - at the same time - specifically to tick this box). However, it is fairly clear in the gospels that Jesus did this act intending to fulfill this prophecy, so is that a true fulfillment? Bus as I'm going to tally these up at the bottom of the post, then this is a yes.

16. Daniel 9:25. The Messiah will arrive in Jerusalem at a specified time.
“Now listen and understand! Seven sets of seven plus sixty-two sets of seven will pass from the time the command is given to rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One comes.”
This is one of those prophecies that needs unpacking. If you calculate the time of the prophecy of Daniel in a certain way and you make some assumptions about the length of a year (basically that a year is not 365 days, but is only 340!) then the numbers work out almost perfectly for the messiah coming at passover in the year 31AD. Which is (give or take a year) when most people think Jesus was crucified and resurrected. Sorry, but that's too contrived for me. And most critical scholars think that Daniel was written late, so the dates wouldn't add up. So, at best, I'm not convinced by this. Maybe I'll return to this in a future post.

17. Malachi 3:1. The Messiah will enter the Temple with authority.
“‘Look! I am sending my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. Then the Lord you are seeking will suddenly come to his Temple. The messenger of the covenant, whom you look for so eagerly, is surely coming,’ says the Lord Almighty.”
This is another prophecy where those who claim that Jesus fulfilled it are reading his claimed future actions into its fulfillment. Yes, Jesus entered the temple with (violent) authority, but the judgement and 'day of the Lord' stuff that fills the rest of the prophecy was not fulfilled for another 40 years, at least, and perhaps has not been fulfilled yet. So this is another partial fulfillment.

18. Isaiah 53:3. The Messiah will be rejected.
“He was despised and rejected – a man of sorrows, acquainted with bitterest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way when he went by. He was despised, and we did not care.”
Well, it depends which part of the gospel story you read. For part of the story, Jesus was accepted and welcomed by many, while he was rejected at other parts. But yes, it does look like this messianic expectation was fulfilled at the time of Jesus trial and crucifixion.

19. Isaiah 53:7. The Messiah will be silent in front of his accusers.
“He was oppressed and treated harshly, yet he never said a word. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter. And as a sheep is silent before the shearers, he did not open his mouth.”
This is part of the same prophecy as above, so I'm not sure it counts as a separate point. The gospel accounts do tell the story that Jesus was silent for most of his trial. Was that fulfillment or box ticking? This one is hard to tell.

20. Psalm 118:22. The Messiah will be rejected by the Jews.
“The stone rejected by the builders has now become the cornerstone. This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous to see.”
Well, Peter 2:7 says that Jesus fulfills this one. Beyond that, it is unclear in the original context what the verse is about. It doesn't look like it was written as a messianic expectation but, like many other Davidic verses in the psalms, it may have gained a messianic expectation in the post-exilic years. The original context does not suggest that 'the builders' refers to 'the Jews', so it is only reading this using Pesher and reading this using non-Jewish Christian reasoning that you can call this one a fulfilled prophecy.

21. Psalm 41:9. The Messiah will be betrayed by a friend.
“Even my best friend, the one I trusted completely, the one who shared my food, has turned against me.”
Was Judas Jesus's best friend? None of the gospels make this claim. Luckily the original language isn't as strong as 'best friend', and 'close friend' might be better. So yes, if this was understood to be a messianic expectation, then it was fulfilled in Jesus.

22. Zechariah 11:12. The Messiah will be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver.
“And I said to them, ‘If you like, give me my wages, whatever I am worth; but only if you want to.’ So they counted out for my wages thirty pieces of silver.”
There is nothing messianic in this OT passage. In order to relate this to Jesus it has to be taken completely out of context. However, I think that Matthew did read this as messianic and included it for box ticking purposes.

23. Zechariah 11:13. The 30 pieces of silver will be thrown in the potter’s field.
“And the Lord said to me, ‘Throw it to the potters’ – this magnificent sum at which they valued me! So I took the thirty coins and threw them to the potters in the Temple of the Lord.”
As above, part of the same prophecy. I think this is box ticking.

24. Psalm 35:11. The Messiah will be accused by false witnesses.
“Malicious witnesses testify against me. They accuse me of things I don’t even know about.”
Another non-messianic verse from the psalms that appears to have somehow become part of messianic expectation. Also, this translation (NLT) is not the sense of the verse preferred by most translations. Most translations drop the 'accuse' sense of it and translate as "ask me things I don't know", which is certainly not a parallel with the gospel story.

25. Isaiah 50:6. The Messiah will be beaten, mocked, and spit upon.
“I give my back to those who beat me and my cheeks to those who pull out my beard. I do not hide from shame, for they mock me and spit in my face.”
I can see how this has become 'messianic' after the stories of Jesus were circulated, but in its original context, it was clearly a passage about how the prophet ('2nd' Isaiah) was badly treated for being faithful to the Lord, and how the Lord looked after him.

26. Isaiah 52:13-14. The Messiah will be beaten, bloodied, and disfigured.
“See, my servant will prosper; he will be highly exalted. Many were amazed when they saw him – beaten and bloodied, so disfigured one would scarcely know he was a person.”
First things first, the verse clearly says it is about the 'servant' of the Lord (i.e. a prophet), not about his Son. But anyway, this is the beginning of the 'suffering servant' prophecy which certainly appears to parallel parts of the gospel story.

27. Psalm 22:7-8. The Messiah will be mocked and told to save himself.
“Everyone who sees me mocks me. They sneer and shake their heads, saying, ‘Is this the one who relies on the Lord? Then let the Lord save him! If the Lord loves him so much, let the Lord rescue him!’”
Psalm 22 doesn't appear to have been written as a messianic psalm, but by the time Christians were trying to get their heads around the idea of a crucified messiah, this psalm would have resonated greatly. The parallels are so striking that many believe that Mark wrote the crucifixion story with psalm 22 in mind. That is, it was not prophecy fulfilled, but rather a story told using building blocks from a familiar narrative.

28. Psalm 22:16. The Messiah’s enemies will pierce his hands and feet.
“My enemies surround me like a pack of dogs; an evil gang closes in on me. They have pierced my hands and feet.”
As above.

29. Psalm 69:21. The Messiah will be given vinegar and gall to drink.
“But instead, they give me poison for food; they offer me sour wine to satisfy my thirst.”
A different psalm, but the same reasoning as above can apply here. Mark used this text to build his narrative, not the other way about. And even if it is fulfilled prophecy, it is only partial fulfillment as nobody offered Jesus poisoned food.

30. Psalm 22:17-18. The Messiah’s enemies will divide his clothes among themselves and cast dice for his garments.
“My enemies stare at me and gloat. They divide my clothes among themselves and throw dice for my garments.”
Psalm 22 again. As above.

31. Psalm 34:19-20. The Messiah’s bones will not be broken.
“The righteous face many troubles, but the Lord rescues them from each and every one. For the Lord protects them from harm – not one of their bones will be broken!”
An odd verse to claim regarding Jesus. I don't think you could say that the Lord had 'protected him from harm', or that he was 'rescued'.

32. Psalm 22:14. The Messiah’s life will be poured out like water.
“My life is poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax, melting within me.”
Psalm 22 again. As above. And this one is quite tenuous anyway.

33. Zechariah 13:7. The Messiah will be struck down, and his disciples will be scattered.
“Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, the man who is my partner, says the Lord Almighty. Strike down the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered, and I will turn against the lambs.”
Well, on the night he was betrayed, the disciples certainly scattered, but the story is quite clear that they were all back together again only a few days later. Beyond that, it is hard to say what the Zechariah passage is on about. It could be interpreted in a number of ways, and the prophecy fulfilled in Jesus way is certainly not the most obvious reading.

34. Isaiah 53:9. The Messiah will be buried in a rich man’s grave.
“He had done no wrong, and he never deceived anyone. But he was buried like a criminal; he was put in a rich man’s grave.”
OK. That one fits.

35. Daniel 9:26. The Messiah will be killed, appearing to have accomplished nothing.
“After this period of sixty-two sets of seven, the Anointed One will be killed, appearing to have accomplished nothing, and a ruler will arise whose armies will destroy the city and the Temple.”
If this is a prophecy fulfilled, then it would seem that the 'truth' of Jesus victory on the cross would not be known until after the city and temple were destroyed. Yet most people seem to agree that the claim that Jesus death bought salvation was widely known long before the destruction of the temple in 70AD.

36. Psalm 16:10 & 49:15. The Messiah will be raised from the dead (resurrected).
“For you will not leave my soul among the dead or allow your godly one to rot in the grave.” “But as for me, God will redeem my life. He will snatch me from the power of death.”
Well, 49:15 speaks of being saved from death (i.e. not dying), so it is not relevant. But the other wasn't really written as a messianic psalm and only took on that role long after its composition. But I'll concede that this one appears to be a fulfillment.

37. Isaiah 53:4-6, etc. The Messiah will bear the sins of many and intercede for sinners.
“Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God for his own sins! But he was wounded and crushed for our sins. He was beaten that we might have peace. He was whipped, and we were healed! All of us have strayed away like sheep. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the guilt and sins of us all.”
This is certainly the understanding of Christians. But it is not clear to non-Christians that Jesus bore any sins or was an atonement. So I can't see how this is proof of anything, it is only part of a belief structure. And as a side point, it is not clear from some of the gospels that Jesus died an atoning death, but that's a discussion for another blog post.

38. Psalm 68:18. The Messiah will ascend to heaven.
“When you ascended to the heights, you led a crowd of captives.”
Erm, did a crowd of captives ascend with Jesus? No. So its not a prophecy fulfilled, is it?

39. Psalm 22:30. The Messiah will be served by future generations.
“Future generations will also serve him. Our children will hear about the wonders of the Lord. His righteous acts will be told to those yet unborn. They will hear about everything he has done.”
OK. I'll grant you that one.

So where does that leave us? Did Jesus fulfill some prophecies in the OT? It appears so. Did he fulfill all the messianic prophecies? No, far from it. Did the gospel writers arrange their stories to tick some of the prophecy boxes? Some of them did.

Out of the 39 prophecies listed here, I'd say that 10 of them are reasonably clear prophecies fulfilled in the story of Jesus. That's 25%. Not a great hit rate, given that there are thousands of prophecies in the OT and this list of 39 is someone's list of the best candidates for fulfillment.

I don't think the 'evidence' of prophecies fulfilled is that great...

(if you comment on this post, please quote the specific verses you're commenting on, thanks)

"Why I am not a Christian"

The title of this blog post refers to the short book by Richard Carrier which I have just read, just in case you are concerned for my eternal salvation. Although, I have to say, the argument put forward in this book is very strong and compelling, such that, after reading this book, I am considerably closer to not being a Christian than I was before reading the book!

This is a short book, with an introduction, four chapters, and a short conclusion. Each chapter discusses an issue which leads Richard Carrier to believe that Christianity is false. The aim here is not to show that there is no God (although many of the things he says can be taken that way), the aim is to demonstrate to the reader that there is simply no justifiable reason to believe in the Christian God. The issue of whether or not there is a morally neutral, limited in power type god is not discussed, but the idea of an all powerful, good and loving God is considered and effectively refuted.

Don't believe me? Read the book. It is deliberately short and cheap (only £2.53 on Kindle in the UK, and less than £5 in paperback on Amazon UK). No, seriously, go and read the book. If you are a Christian, read the book. If Christianity is true, you will hopefully find the flaws in Carrier's argument, but if not, maybe you will find the truth. The truth will set you free, right? What have you got to lose?

The four reasons Carrier gives for his non-belief are:

1. God is Silent: that is, if God is as most Christians describe him, he should be able to make his message clear to everybody. And what's more he should be willing to make his message clear to everybody. The reality is, however, that most people are not aware of a clear message from God, and the message that seems to be heard by believers is not a consistent or even a non-contradictory one. Different believers get different messages and these conflict, and these lead (quite literally) to conflict. God appears to be unable to deliver a simple message to his people, let alone to everyone else. Thus, the Christian God is refuted by his silence.
   
2. God is Inert: that is, there is no evidence that there is a loving and supremely powerful God at work in the world. Innocent children suffer and die. Good people suffer and die. Innocent children of good Christian people suffer and die. God apparently does nothing to stop this. This is inconsistent with the claimed character of the Christian God, thus, God is refuted by his inactivity.
   
3. Wrong Evidence: basically, extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence, and the biblical evidence is barely even mundane. The best evidence for the death and resurrection of Jesus is four non-eyewitness accounts, which contradict each other on important issues, and a bunch of letters, ostensibly from someone who never met Jesus in the flesh and only had a vision of him. And all these were written a couple of decades after the alleged events, at the earliest. How is all that sufficient evidence for the greatest claim ever made?
   
4. Wrong Universe: the Christian claim is that God made the universe and put us, the pinnacle of creation, into it. So why is 99.99999% of all creation hostile to us? As far as we can tell, if you scaled the entire universe down to the equivalent size of a house, then the tiny zone which is capable of sustaining human life is as small as a single proton! Invisibly and insignificantly small. This is not what we would expect if the universe was intelligently designed for us, but is exactly what you would expect if we are merely an accidental by-product of a chaotic universe. Carrier goes into some interesting stuff about current cosmological theories which I can't summarise here, but his case is very compelling. He also contrasts the ancient view of the universe, as assumed by the New Testament writers and which is consistent with the theory of God, with the current scientific view of the universe, which is not. Fascinating stuff, and justified in the conclusion that the Christian view of God is false.
   

My intention, when I started reading this book was, in the way of the scientific method, to attempt to refute each of these in turn. But the problem is, Carrier actually discusses and refutes all the 'evidence' I would have used in my attempt to rebut him. So I'll leave it to you.

If you think you can demonstrate that any of Carrier's arguments are wrong, read the book and refute them. Let me know (by commenting on this post) when you have. Seriously, I'd love to hear your reasoning. I actively want to believe in the Christian God, but my faith is currently crumbling under the weight of evidence against this position.

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?

Evidence for God: Arguments 42-50 (The Bible); and my final summary

I've made it to the end of the book "Evidence for God: 50 Arguments for Faith from the Bible, History, Philosophy, and Science" edited by William Dembski and Mike Licona. My thoughts on the first 41 chapters of the book can be found in these four posts: 1,2,3,4.

The final section of the book is disappointing (for me) in that it simply doesn't address the central issue: is the bible historically reliable? It skirts around this issue, and throws some actual evidence into the pot, but fundamentally doesn't demonstrate that we can use the bible as a collection of reasonably accurate historical writings, so all the arguments in the previous section (on Jesus), fall completely flat. Anyway, here are my brief comments on each of the chapters, in turn, followed by my summing up of the book:

42. Is the bible today what was originally written? by Andreas J. Kostenberger
More or less, yes, but what do you mean by 'originally'? This chapter does a good job of explaining how we can be reasonably confident that the bible we have today is pretty much the same as the 'bible' that was in existence around about 300AD. It doesn't give this date, of course, but reading between the lines, its there. The chapter completely ignores all the evidence of redaction and editing of the various books of the NT before they emerged in 'authorised' form sometime in the 2nd or 3rd centuries. The evidence of the lack of any extant copies of the Marcionite Canon, clearly show that the early church was very good at destroying unauthorised versions of any and all NT books. If the authorised version of, say, the epistle to the Galatians is different to the 'original', as the evidence suggests, then no, today's bible is not the same as that which was originally written.

43. Inerrancy and the text of the New Testament: Assessing the logic of the agnostic view by Daniel B. Wallace
This is very odd. This chapter admits that there are some very big issues with the doctrine of inerrancy, but deliberately (and explicitly) ignores them in order to focus on one tiny, tiny, side issue regarding inerrancy. Given that we no longer have 'the original manuscripts' (whatever that means), is there any point in justifying that these (now lost) documents were inspired and inerrant? Well, no, but this chapter thinks 'yes' and details why. As I've said countless times already, this is not evidence for God, so why is it in this book?

44. Why all the translations? by Denny Burk
Because the English language keeps evolving, we keep finding new manuscripts, and people read different interpretations into the text. Next...

45. Archaeology and the bible: How archaeological findings have enhanced the credibility of the bible by John McRay
Apparently space did not allow this chapter to look at Old Testament archaeology, but only New Testament archaeology. The author states this, but I think the title of the chapter should have reflected this too. The Old Testament details stories of wars, battles, kings, exiles and other events which, if they happened, would leave clear remains in the archeological record. The New Testament details stories of preaching and teaching, individual men doing healings, going on journeys, being crucified, etc. - exactly the sort of events that would leave no trace in the archaeological record. So focusing on the NT period is an odd choice. Perhaps it is because OT archaeology has raised some serious questions about the events described. In many cases, the OT record and the archeological findings contradict each other. In other cases, the evidence is inconclusive.

But what of the NT archaeology which is presented? Well, this boils down to confirmation of details in the setting of the stories: we know there was a pool of Siloam, we know that tombs in those days had stones which could be rolled away, we have evidence that Caiaphas was a real person, that there was a synagogue in Capernaum within a century of the time of Jesus, that the civic leaders in Thessalonica really were called by the unusual name used for them in the book of Acts, that a named character in one of the Corinthian letters (Erastus) was a real historical character, and a few other similar pieces of evidence.

All of these findings confirm the setting of the gospels and Acts. That is, it is clear from this that the writers of the stories knew details about the places, locations and people in the stories. None of this confirms the stories which are written in these settings. Its just like the way in which there are historical facts about places and people in the Sherlock Holmes stories, but that doesn't imply he was a real person, only that the author knew the details.

Nobody is in any doubt that the NT writings were written by people who knew the setting of the stories. The question is whether or not the stories are reliable, and archaeology cannot really answer that for us.

46. The Historical reliability of the Gospels by Craig L. Blomberg
Finally, the chapter I've been waiting for. Shame it is a short one that doesn't really grapple with the issues. It assumes that the gospels were based on eye-witness testimony and were written only a few decades after the events described. It uses the fact that issues like circumcision of gentiles (clearly an issue in the early church) are not discussed in the gospels as evidence that these are based on something real, rather than creations of the early church (actually, that's quite a good argument). But fundamentally, it does not address issues like the apparent 'redaction' of the gospels by a later 'ecclesiastical redactor' (as identified by Rudolf Bultmann), or the synoptic problem, which implies that Matthew and Luke copied Mark and changed it. Disappointingly shallow.

47. The new testament canon by Craig L. Blomberg
How did the canon of the NT get formed? This very short chapter presents the orthodox view of the selection and compilation of the documents based on the tree criteria of 'apostolicity', 'orthodoxy' and 'catholicity'. So how the heck did Hebrews and Jude get in there, they fail on at least one criterion? Only passing mention is made of Marcion, and no mention is made of the fact that the Marcionite Canon came first. The more I read on this issue, the more convinced I become that the 'Catholic' canon was formed as a reaction and a rebuttal to the Marcionite one. This is not discussed.

48. What should we think about the Coptic Gospel of Thomas? by Craig L. Blomberg
Not much, its probably late.

49. What should we think about the Gospel of Peter? by Charles L. Quarles
Not much, its even more probably late. (Excellent author name though! I hope the L represents 'Larles'. Although that's pretty unlikely.)

50. What should we think about the Gospel of Judas? by Craig A. Evans
Not much, its certainly late.

These last three chapters are clearly just filling up space to make this up to 50 chapters, much like most of the 'Science' section earlier. Sigh.

And there we have it. Didn't go out with a bang, but with a whimper.

In conclusion

The editors of this book set themselves a big task, finding 50 pieces of 'evidence' for God. Clearly, they never achieved this. Being generous, there are perhaps 10 good solid arguments or pieces of evidence for God in this book. The other 40 chapters are just filling, they bulk up the book without really adding anything to the debate.

With hindsight, this book is not intended to contribute to the debate. This book is intended for an audience of Christians, who have heard skeptical arguments from their friends or in the media. The aim of this book is to bolster the faith of the Christians without ever getting them to consider the real and valid issues that some skeptics make. I think the authors hope the Christian will read this book, be confused by the philosophy, be battered into submission by the science, be relieved by the weight of 'evidence' in favour of Jesus (without questioning the unstated suppositions), and be reassured by the apparent scholarship in the bible section.

The implication in lots of bits of this book is this: "Clever people have thought through all these issues in detail, so you don't have to..."

Is the evidence for God strong? Well, the philosophical and ID arguments for a Deistic creator are quite strong, although these don't fully tally with the God of the bible. The evidence for the Biblical God is quite a lot shakier. The intended readership of this book, however, won't notice the problems in harmonising the two, because those problems are not in this book.

So its been quite an ordeal, I've got angry at some chapters and been really disappointed by the lack of proper scholarship in others. The problem, for me, is that my crumbling Christian faith has not been in any way strengthened by reading this book, which actually disappoints me a great deal. I genuinely went in to this book with an open mind, actually hoping to find reasons to believe in here, but they are simply not there in any compelling way.

Why do the atheists have all the most compelling arguments?

Science vs Intelligent Design

If you've read my last few posts, you'll know that I got pretty fed up with some Intelligent Design (ID) arguments in a book I've been reading. What I want to discuss here is how ID relates to 'science' in general.

Science is:

"a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe"

(from Wikipedia, paraphrasing Webster's Dictionary)

I would like to tighten that definition up slightly. I would argue (perhaps controversially) that science is a method of testing and explaining how the universe works, in the current moment. Science is fundamentally based on a (usually unstated) presupposition that the way the universe works now is the same as the way it has always worked. "Ye canna change the laws o' physics" as a great man once said. Or, more importantly, the laws of physics don't change. (Whether an agent can change them is a discussion for another day.)

When I do experiments in the lab, I assume that, given the same environmental conditions, the experiment would work in exactly the same way in Beijing as in Edinburgh, and in exactly the same way in 1812 as in 2012. Experience bears this out. When we find discrepancies between experiments carried out in one place and time from results obtained in another place and time, we always find that it is the environmental conditions that are different, not the laws of physics.

Fundamentally, science is the study of the ways things work now, assuming that this will not change in the future and would have been the same in the past.

Science works by proposing a hypothesis (or a range of hypotheses), then carrying out experiments or observations to collect data, which can be used to either confirm or refute the hypothesis.

If a hypothesis has gone through this cycle of experimentation and analysis sufficiently many times, has not been refuted but has been confirmed many times over, then the hypothesis gets upgraded to the rank of 'Theory'. Like the theory of evolution or the theory of gravitation.

In common parlance (particularly in the minds of anti-evolutionists) there is no distinction between a hypothesis and a theory. "It is only a theory" is used to scoff at evolution. The phrase "It is only an experimentally validated hypothesis" should be equivalent, yet this doesn't sound so dismissive, so isn't generally used...

When we come to evolution, we have a problem as far as science goes. In an ideal world we'd simply set up an experiment, wait a couple of hundred thousand years, then examine the data. If we could do that, I have little doubt that the theory of evolution would be validated. Then, evolution would be what I can real science - we'd have proof that evolution is how the world works now.

In the absence of that data (which our descendents will get eventually!) we have to rely on observations rather than experiments. (OK, yes, we can do experiments with bacteria and the like and observe 'micro-evolution' over many hundreds of generations, but we still don't have the timescale to observe 'macro-evolution' whereby those bacteria evolve into non-bacteria.) We can observe the fossil record and we can study the DNA of living (and preserved) animals and make inferences from that. In essence, we can construct an 'experiment' where we take the evidence at the start of the trial (i.e. fossils from a particular early stratum) and compare these with evidence midway through the experiment (i.e. fossils in a more recent stratum) and also with evidence at the end of the experiment (i.e. animals now) and see if the evidence supports or refutes the theory. Much of the evidence examined in this way does indeed support the theory of evolution.

Thus, from a scientific viewpoint, the theory of evolution is validated. Micro-evolution is observed at the micro-scale, and has been shown to have predictive capabilities - predictions have been made regarding bacteria evolution (or adaptation, if you would rather) and these have been demonstrated by experiment.

But evolution only goes so far. It is, by definition, a theory which shows how a population of organisms can change over many thousands of generations. What it can't do is explain how the original population came to be. This is where ID likes to jump in.

The basic point of ID is that because science has no explanation how the original population of organisms came to be, it is plausible to suppose that perhaps an Intelligent Designer started the whole ball rolling. To be honest, I don't have an issue with that line of reasoning, but it is philosophy, not science.

The ID hypothesis has no predictive power. It tells us nothing about how organisms in the present day will react, adapt, evolve, or otherwise change with subsequent generations. Given this, it is not and should not be regarded as science.

ID also pre-supposes the actions of an agent from outside of science effecting change inside science. This basically constitutes a discontinuity in reality, whereby we must (if we accept ID) assume that science changed at the time of the action. In other words, there was a change in the laws of physics. Once again, this is not science, based on the fundamental assumptions of what science is.

ID should only be discussed in the philosophy class, not the science class.

Evidence for God: Arguments 27-41 (Jesus)

See the previous three posts on this book before reading this one [1,2,3]. Reading the last post on the evidence of the Gospels might help too.

This post covers the 'Jesus' section of the book "Evidence for God: 50 Arguments for Faith from the Bible, History, Philosophy, and Science" edited by William Dembski and Mike Licona.

In some ways, this section is both the most interesting bit of the book (for me) and the most frustrating.

Interesting in that, for me, all of Christianity stands or falls on the question of who Jesus is (or was) and what are the facts we can know about him.

Frustrating, in that every chapter in this section of the book is fundamentally based on the assumption that the gospels contain accurate reportage about Jesus, with no editorial bias. Basically, it is assumed that all the NT writings are true. Furthermore, they assume that the gospel accounts are fully harmonious and speak with a single voice (i.e. they assume that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John would agree with everything that each of the others said, which is an assumption I have already discounted). They also assume that Paul wrote all the letters attributed to him (and Hebrews), and so on. No attempt is made to defend the (unstated) claim that the NT writings are true. Maybe that comes in the final section of the book (on 'The Bible'; which I haven't read yet) but if that's the case, it is a very odd editorial decision to address that assumption after all the chapters which rely on it. Maybe its only unintentional slight of hand, or maybe it is leaving the weakest link until the end, in the hope that the reader is utterly convinced before they get there.

The problem here is that for almost all of the chapters in this section, the argument runs along these lines:

1. The bible says A, B and C are true.
2. Because A, B and C are true, we can deduce that big claim D is also true.
3. Furthermore, the bible says big claim D is true, validating our belief.

This is very, very, very circular reasoning. The claimed thing (Jesus, the resurrection, the trinity, whatever) is true because we assume it is true beforehand.

Anyway, here are a few comments on the chapters, one by one:

27. Did Jesus really exist by Paul L. Maier
This chapter aims at tackling a serious question, but doesn't take it seriously. The overall approach is very much one in the style of 'of course Jesus existed, Herod didn't attempt to kill a baby ghost'. I've dealt with this reasoning above, and this chapter doesn't really use any other method, other than an appeal to the majority: most Christian scholars believe in Jesus, so he must have existed. It does consider the evidence of the Jewish Talmud (written long after the time of Jesus) and the secular evidence of Josephus, et al. - which (as I've said before) only shows that there were Christians, not that the beliefs of Christians are necessarily based on real events, several decades previously.

28. The credibility of Jesus's miracles by Craig L. Blomberg
This is more of the same, although it turns the thing around and ends up concluding that if you discount the miracles as historical, then you have to discount the non-miraculous stories of Jesus, and of course we're not going to do that...

29. The Son of Man by Darrell Bock
A short chapter that boils down to saying 'the bible says that Jesus called himself the Son of Man, so he must have done this', with a few paragraphs suggesting what is meant by this.

30. The Son of God by Ben Witherington III
More of the same. Certainly no evidence or good arguments in favour of God here.

31. Jesus as God by Ben Witherington III
More of the same.

32. Did Jesus predict his violent death and resurrection by Craig A. Evans
Oddly enough, this chapter ignores the sort of reasoning used in the last few chapters and basically assumes that Jesus was human, but could see the way the wind was blowing, and knew he would die because of his convictions.

33. Can we be certain that Jesus died on a cross? A look at the ancient practice of crucifixion by Michael R. Licona
It is shown that there are comments in the gospel accounts which correlate with facts we know about crucifixion from other sources. From this the conclusion is drawn that Jesus must have been crucified, whereas all I can see from that is that the authors of the stories knew how Romans did crucifixions - something not very surprising as Romans crucified people all the time.

34. The empty tomb of Jesus by Gary R. Habermas
This is a perfect demonstration of the circular reasoning above. In this case it is basically, the bible says that B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, and K are true, so we conclude that big claim A of the empty tomb is demonstrated. Its all part of the one story, and we can't use parts of the story independently as evidence.

35. The resurrection appearances of Jesus by Gary R. Habermas
Same again. Habermas says he only uses evidence that is accepted by 'non-evangelical' bible scholars, as if that matters. Non-evangelical Christians are still Christians and still, by definition, believe in the death and resurrection of Christ. How about only using evidence that is agreed upon by atheist scholars? (of whom there are very few, and they don't agree on much)

36. Were the resurrection appearances of Jesus hallucinations? by Michael R. Licona
No.

37. The Trinity by Bill Gordon
This is no evidence for anything. It is an attempt to show that the doctrine of the Trinity is consistent with the NT writings. OK, maybe it is, but how is this evidence for anything other than that some Christians believe what the bible says. I hadn't thought that that was in any doubt.

38. Is Jesus superior to all other religious leaders? by Tal Davis
Up until this point, the chapters have been presented as if they were written for a non-Christian audience, but the curtain slips here and it becomes evident that the intent of this book is to reinforce the beliefs of those who already believe. As evidence, it fails. The reasoning basically goes: Buddhism doesn't claim the Buddha was divine, Christianity claims that Jesus was, so Christianity is better... and so on.

39. Is Jesus the only way? by Michael R. Licona
More of the same, clearly written for already-convinced Christians.

40. What about those who have never heard the gospel? by Michael R. Licona
This chapter uses an amazingly placed 'apparently' as the central part of its reasoning. This is just there to say to Christians ' don't worry about this issue, its OK...' with poor reasoning and no evidence.

41. Did Paul invent Christianity? by Ben Witherington III
This chapter, like the 'Jesus didn't exist' chapter simply doesn't treat the question seriously.

To he honest, I found all of Ben Witherington III's chapters very simplistic and therefore frustrating. He is the most blinkered of all the writers in this section, unable to see past his own (big) assumptions. At least Licona pretends to see things from both sides, although the 'both' sides he seems to have looked from are both theistic - he appears to have considered other religions, but not to have considered that there might simply be no god.

And there we have it. 15 chapters on Jesus, all based on the same unstated assumptions, and therefore all flawed in the same way... unless of course the final section of the book can make a strong case for the reliability of the bible.