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REPLY #68c TO "RELIGION"
Boldfaced statements are parts of the original essay (or a subsequent reply) to which the respondent has directed his comments.
Italicized/emphasized comments prefaced by (R) are those of the respondent and are presented unedited.
My replies appear under the respondent's comments in blue text and are prefaced by my initials (MB).
This is the third of a nine-part reply. Select the "Go to next reply" link at the end of each part to read the next part of the reply.
(R) One day, the antichrist will appear on earth and display all kinds of
miracles and sadly, he will deceive many.
(MB) Who's to say that this isn't what happened 2000 years ago? Certainly, many
have been deceived by the writing and preaching of those who interpret and
spread the story.
(R) TODAY is the day of salvation! Christ has paid it all! Thank God I'm
forgiven!
(MB) Why "today"? Why hasn't the time come and gone or why isn't it still
sometime in the future? What did Christ "pay"? He didn't die or sacrifice
anything. How do you know that you have been "forgiven" of anything and how do
you know that it is Yahweh who is to thank for it? In Hinduism's holy book, the
Bhagavad Gita, it is written that no matter what god you believe yourself to be
worshipping, in reality, you are actually worshipping Vishnu. Can you show this
to be wrong?
Peter, in Acts 15:8-10, counsels that adherence to the Law is no longer
necessary, while Jesus, in Matthew 5:8, advocates strict adherence to the
Law.
(R) What does Matthew 5:8 have to do with adherence to the Law?
(MB) That should have been Matthew 5:18. Now, how does
one harmonize Peter's and Jesus' statements about whether or not adherence to
the Law is necessary?
It's clear that the Bible, when read in toto, presents a rather confusing
story.
(R) Since all those "contradictions" were disproven, this statement is not
valid.
(MB) Since none were disproven and since most have actually been reinforced by
your own arguments, we still have the same confusing story.
(R) Have any more "contradictions" you would like to bring up?
(MB) Hundreds of them -- each at the appropriate time. You haven't yet
successfully defended the original problems and I've given you a few more to
chew on in the course of the previous discussions. I'm sure that your responses
to these will open the door for more of them.
In the meantime, here's another goodie for you to chew on. Matthew 23:35
quotes Jesus as saying, "...the blood of innocent Abel to the blood of Zechariah
the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar."
However the OT story (2 Chronicles 24:20-21) says that the prophet who was
stoned in the temple is Zechariah the son of Jehoiada. It is clear that either
Matthew is quoting Jesus incorrectly or that Jesus himself is wrong in his
statement. Either case is damaging to the picture you wish to paint of the
inerrancy of the Bible.
There is an alternative explanation for the error. It is known that someone
named Zechariah the son of Baruch was murdered in the temple precincts in 68 CE
and Matthew may have mistakenly mixed up his stories while writing his Gospel
since the dating of that event is close to the accepted period of authorship for
that Gospel. Of course, this explanation indicates an anachronism in Matthew's
account -- which is a serious error since he would be putting words into
Jesus' mouth that could not possibly have been said.
(R) There are three kinds of people who read the Bible. Those who believe in
it, those who read it objectively, and those who read it to find contradictions.
I think it is clear that while you claim to be in the second category, you are
really in the third.
(MB) I don't read the Bible to find contradictions. I find contradictions in
the course of reading the Bible objectively. My initial studies of the Bible
were meant to reinforce my beliefs. However, the more I read and studied, the
more problems I encountered. Most people never read the Bible at all and only
"know" the carefully-selected verses that are presented to them in church and in
tracts. They are also more than willing to believe any harmonization (no matter
how nonsensical) of problems that they might encounter in order to preserve
their beliefs. This has been evident in most of your rebuttals -- which seem to
have been largely influenced by (or copied from) popular apologetics materials.
May I ask what your personal favorite apologetics works/authors are?
(R) I am sorry to be harsh, and I know you want to make sure you are making the
right decision, but you are preventing yourself from eternal life because of
your eagerness to understand everything.
(MB) How could a better understanding prevent me from attaining eternal life if
that is actually a fact? Truly, one would have to think that a better
understanding of something that actually exists would inevitably lead to a
stronger belief in it and an *improved* chance of gaining the benefits it had to
offer. On the other hand, if it doesn't exist, a better understanding of that
fact would enable one not to make the mistake of wasting his time trying to
attain that which isn't there. I can see absolutely no downside to increasing
one's understanding of *anything* -- including stories of God.
(R) We can never fully understand God.
(MB) Does that mean we should abandon any efforts to try to get as close as we
can to that goal?
(R) And if you are waiting for the moment you do, that day will never come, and
it will be to late.
(MB) It is not necessary to have a full understanding of anything in order to
believe in it or to know that it is true. All that is required is sufficient
evidence for a reasonable and rational decision. At this point, the
overwhelming preponderance of evidence indicates that non-belief is the only
rational alternative.
However, I am willing to believe in anything should the evidence support it.
I would believe in the existence of one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people
eaters if shown compelling evidence of their existence and the same applies to
God or any other proposed deity. Is that not a reasonable
methodology?
(R) Everyone will bow before Jesus as Lord.
(MB) Assuming, of course, that he actually exists and is as you describe him to
be. If the reality of the situation is that Odin is Lord, those who are
worshipping Jesus are in trouble. If no deities exist at all, no amount of
bowing and scraping will be anything other than a waste of time and
effort.
(R) You can do it in this lifetime, and be with Him forever, or on Judgment day
and spend an eternity apart from Him. The chose is yours. Choose
wisely!
(MB) I already have. You, also, are advised to choose wisely since there are so
many alternative possibilities.
(R) I am praying for you nightly that God would make Himself known to you in a
real and undeniable way.
(MB) Why do you think that your prayers could possibly have any influence over
the actions of an all-powerful and omniscient God? He's going to do what he's
going to do whether or not you pray. If such a deity exists at all, my fate (as
well as that of everybody else) has already been determined and no amount of
bended knees will change it.
Also, you may wish to check out the prayer challenge that I will be offering
near the end of the last part of this response.
Yes, it holds that God and Jesus are #1, but that's about it as far as any
"unity" goes between the stories.
(R) So you admit that both God and Jesus are held as #1 in the Bible thus making
Jesus equal with God?
(MB) I have admitted no such thing (as previously stated). Jesus is #1 in the
New Testament, but that is not the entirety of the Bible and Jesus isn't even
mentioned in the Old Testament. Only God is mentioned throughout.
(R) Until convincing contradictions are brought forth, the unity of the Bible
still stands.
(MB) I await your responses to what was presented previously. The "unity" of
the Bible is still on shaky ground.
The Gospels were written *after* the epistles. It is now widely accepted that
the Epistles of Paul were the first writings concerning Christian
belief.
(R) Galatians was written around 49 AD. 1 and 2 Thessalonians were written
around 50-51 AD. 1 and 2 Corinthians were written around 54-55 AD. Romans was
written around 55 AD. MARK was written in the late 50's early 60's. Philemon
was written around 60 AD along with Colossians and Ephesians. LUKE was also
written around 60 AD. Phillipians was written around 61 AD. 1 Timothy was
written around 62 AD along with Titus. 2 Timothy was written around 63 AD
Matthew was written in the 60's. John was written in the late 80's early 90's.
Thus, some of the epistles were written before the Gospels and some were written
after making your above statement false.
(MB) The following commentary on the question of the dates
of authorship of the Gospels was recently posted to the Biblical Errancy mailing
list and provides current scholastic support for dating them after 70 CE:
The gospels were written after the break between Jews
and Xians had taken place, i.e., after the destruction of Jerusalem and the
Temple in the year 70. I think [name of list member deleted] will agree that
Jesus was not associated with the Sadducees, who were Jews of the conservative
sort, who did not believe in a soul or life after death.
Jesus, however, believed in the Jewish Law and a resurrection and judgment
after death. This would make him a Pharisee. The Roman destruction of the
Temple in 70 destroyed the Sadducees along with it, leaving the Pharisees
as the principal upholders of the Jewish religion. But by this time some of
the Jewish followers of Jesus had broken away and formed their own
religion, in which Jesus was no longer a Jewish man but a divine savior who
had been sacrificed to God in order to save those who believed in him. Such
a religion was at the opposite pole from Judaism, where one is judged by
one's own deeds, just as the Hebrew Bible and Jesus the Jew had taught.
So after the conversion of Jesus the Jew to Christ the
Savior, it was no wonder that enmity grew between the Jews and the upstart
Xians. So when the gospels were composed, Jesus had been changed from a
Pharisaic Jew to a Pharisee-hating Xian. And we mustn't forget that at the same
time the Xians were most anxious to disassociate themselves from the Jews in the
eyes of the Romans.
Paul considered himself a Jew, not a Xian; he was proud
to be a Pharisee. But he lived, and possibly died, before the cataclysm of 70,
so he had no reason to condemn the Pharisees for apologetic reasons, as the
later Xians did.
This is further reinforced with the knowledge that Mark
is considered to contain a collection of the preachings of Peter that weren't
written down until after his death in 67 CE. It is also instructive to note
that Pope Clement I, who died in 97 CE, never quoted nor even mentioned any of
the Gospels nor acknowledged any of the Gospel writers by name.
It is more likely, therefore, that the Gospels were written to flesh out the
philosophy of Paul.
(R) Where do you get this idea?
(MB) Since Paul laid the groundwork for the belief system that would come to be
called Christianity, since he never once quoted from any of the four Gospels,
and since his writings were well-known prior to the authorship of any of those
Gospels, it is reasonable to conclude that the primary purpose of the Gospels
was to provide detailed stories in support of the emerging religion and its
central character.
(R) The Gospels were written to preach the good news of Jesus. Where in the
Gospels are the writers ever trying to sort out the philosophy of Paul?
(MB) I didn't say that the Gospels "sorted out" Paul's philosophy. I said that
they provide the details of the purported life and teachings of Jesus upon which
Paul bases his philosophy.
The four Gospels that made it into the New Testament were the survivors of
several dozen Gospels that were considered for inclusion at the Councils of
Nicea, Hippo, and Carthage between 325 and 397 CE.
(R) The vast majority of the New Testament canon was settled in the second
century.
(MB) Untrue. That is a Protestant revision of history that even most apologists
acknowledge as being a fabrication. For example, Richard Sisson ("Answering
Christianity's Most Puzzling Questions") writes:
In fact, after the death of Jesus a whole flood of books that claimed to be
inspired appeared. Disputes over which ones were true were so intense that the
debate continued for centuries. Finally in the fourth century a group of church
leaders called a council and took a vote. The 66 books that comprised our
cherished Bible were declared to be Scripture by a vote of 568 to 563.
In "The Light of Reason", Schmuel Golding writes:
First the NT was not written by any of the disciples of Jesus nor by persons
who even lived in that era. When the church fathers compiled the NT in the year
397, they collected all the writings they could find and managed them as they
pleased. They decided by vote which of the books out of the collection they had
made should be the word of God and which should not. They rejected several,
they voted others to be doubtful, and those books which had a majority of votes
were voted to be the word of God. Had they voted otherwise, all the people since
calling themselves Christians would have believed otherwise. For the belief of
the one comes from the vote of the other.
I think the real truth of the matter is crystal clear.
(R) We can discern this just from the way early church fathers cite the New
Testament as authoritative.
(MB) How could the early church fathers cite the NT as "authoritative" when it
didn't even exist yet and they couldn't agree on which books were
"inspired"?
(R) Over 90 percent of the New Testament can be reconstructed from quotes of the
early fathers up through the third century.
(MB) The individual books certainly existed (along with many others that didn't
make it into the NT). Referencing any of those books prior to the official
compiling of what was or was not "Scripture" in 397 means nothing special. What
about the references to books that didn't make it into the final version of the
Bible? The Old Testament itself contains references to other books that didn't
make the final cut. Examples are the Book of the Wars of the Lord (Numbers 21),
the Book of Jasher (Joshua 10:13), the Book of Nathan and Gad (1 Chronicles),
and the Book of the Acts of Solomon (2 Chronicles). Even the New Testament
contains such references. For example, Hebrews 11:35 refers to II Maccabees and
James 1:19 refers to Ecclesiasticus. These are in the Apocrypha, but neither
made the cut as voted upon by the fourth century councils to become a part of
the 66 books of the "official" Biblical canon.
(R) The only reason anyone became concerned with canonization is because
heretics came along who hated Jews and rejected parts of the Bible while forming
their own.
(MB) Rubbish. Official canonization would not only unify the various factions
of early Christianity, but would also give some sort of force to declarations
that the Bible is the inspired word of God.
(R) The first know "official" list of canonized books we have is the Muratorian
canon, which dates about 170 AD. The list we have here is almost identical to
the one you find in every Bible today.
(MB) I can see you haven't actually read the Muratorian canon. The books of the
current NT that are mentioned are Luke and John (the only two Gospels actually
named, although it states that there are four Gospels), the Pauline epistles of
1&2 Corinthians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Galatians, 1&2
Thessalonians, and Romans, Revelation (to John), Philemon, Titus, and 1&2
Timothy, Jude, and 1&2 John.
Books mentioned that are not in the current NT are Pauline epistles to the
Laodiceans and Alexandrians, the Wisdom of Solomon, and the Revelation to Peter
along with the author's stated non-acceptance of Arsinous, Valentinus and
Miltiades.
Books that are in the NT but not mentioned in the Muratorian canon include
Acts, Hebrews, James, and 1&2 Peter.
In view of these facts, it is a rather dubious claim to state that the list
of books in the Muratorian canon is "almost identical" to the list contained in
the current NT.
It's difficult to see how the books can make an orderly progression of a unified
story when their selection, ordering, and canonization didn't take place until
three centuries after they were written!
(R) This was already disproven above.
(MB) I think you may now wish to revise that
claim.
So, what does that prove?
(R) What doesn't that prove? It proves that the Bible cannot be explained by
chance or coincidence.
(MB) So, who is trying to say any such thing? You are trying to ascribe divine
inspiration to the Bible solely on the basis that all of its books feature the
same main character(s). This makes no more sense than to say that all of the
books, movies, and TV shows associated with Star Trek must be divinely inspired
since they all feature the same cast of characters and exhibit a unified
theme.
BTW, if you wish to continue to advance your argument, you are going to have
to explain the presence in the Bible of the Book of Esther -- the only book in
which God is never mentioned.
(R) It proves that there was a divine designer.
(MB) It proves no such thing unless you are also willing to accept that Gene
Roddenberry is a divine entity.
(R) If it is unlikely for those people to agree, how much more for the
writers of the Bible!
(MB) Just how difficult is it for different people to write books
about the same character?
I'll bet that those same ten people couldn't agree on *anything* --
important or not.
(R) That's exactly right! If they couldn't agree on anything, how much harder
would it be for the writers of the Bible, speaking different languages with
different backgrounds and culture, during different time periods, with all the
controversial issues with no contradictions, to agree?
(MB) The contradictions are still there, despite your desperate denials. Even
the four Gospel writers can't agree on important details. As another example,
why can't they agree on what Jesus' final words on the cross were?
The longer the time between the event in question and the stated opinions of
those individuals concerning the event, the more muddled the accounts are likely
to be.
(R) Since you don't believe in God or the divine inspiration of the Bible, I can
see how you could have a view like this.
(MB) This has nothing to do with belief in any particular thing. My statement
applies equally to accounts of purely secular history as well as to Biblical
events.
(R) Jesus promised that "the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will
send in my name, will teach you all things and will REMIND you of everything I
have said to you." The Holy Spirit reminded the writers of the things which
ACTUALLY happened.
(MB) Obviously, the Holy Spirit did a rather inadequate job of jogging the
authors' memories. Also, it's difficult to see how authors who did not witness
the events in the first place could possibly be "reminded" of them several
decades after the fact.
(R) Thus, your belief in the divine inspiration of the Bible comes down to your
belief in Jesus as God which is obvious from His resurrection.
(MB) In other words, you gotta believe before you can believe. I think we've
heard that refrain before. As to the resurrection, the idea that any such thing
ever actually happened (much less that it "proves" Jesus to be God) is still
highly debatable. There will be more on this later in this
response...
That's what we observe in the contradictory stories in the Bible which speak of
events that took place anywhere from decades to centuries prior to having been
written down.
(R) Decades? Probably. Centuries? I think not.
(MB) The Bible records events that it dates as taking place thousands of years
before the story tellers even had a written language! The stories had to be
passed down through the many preceding generations as oral traditions. As we
all know, such stories are prone to embellishment and inaccuracies in the
retelling. The longer the time span, the less likely it is that the most recent
version was anywhere near the same as the original.
(R) The Holy Spirit reminded the disciples of events (see above).
(MB) Once again, you are incorrectly confining "The Bible" to the New Testament
alone.
(R) Proven contradictions are yet to be presented as to show
otherwise.
(MB) Once again, you may now wish to revise this claim. Most apologetic writers
would agree. For example, a famous work of apologetics by John Haley ("Alleged
Discrepancies of the Bible") opens with the following admission:
No candid and intelligent student of the Bible will deny that it contains
numerous "discrepancies", that its statements, taken prima facie, frequently
conflict with or contradict one another, may safely be presumed. This fact has
been more of less recognized by Christian scholars in all ages.
The "unity" consists only of the main theme -- as should be expected since that
is the overriding reason for the Bible's existence in the first place.
(R) Yes, the Bible does have a main theme: Jesus Christ. I am glad to hear you
are finally coming around to see that (*grin*).
(MB) I've never said any such thing. I've said that the main character in the
Bible is God and that Jesus is never mentioned in the Old Testament at all.
This is not difficult.
(R) The overriding reason for the Bible's existence is to reveal God's ultimate
plan for the salvation of mankind: Jesus Christ.
(MB) Since the Old Testament says not a single word about Jesus (and you cannot
quote a single verse which contains his name or which refers clearly to him in
any way), a claim that Jesus is the reason for the Bible's existence cannot be
supported.
(R) The unity of the Bible goes far beyond just a main theme.
(MB) Oh? How so?
The details, however, quickly degrade into a murky mess upon closer
inspection.
(R) Evidence to support this statement has yet to be shown.
(MB) The evidence has been shown, it has been supported and more has been
presented. The flaws in your rebuttals have been demonstrated. There is no
other rational conclusion to be drawn.
(R) If the statement is going to be made, at least show some semi-convincing
information (just messin' with ya).
(MB) This is what I have been asking of you in regards to all the claims you
have made for the existence and nature of God and Jesus in addition to all the
wild claims about the Bible.
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