Yahweh's Character Shines Through Again

The marvelous, loving god of the Bible shines

through again. I wonder how many Christians are
aware of this part of Yahweh's character. From
the Errancy II discussion list, 7/21/07:

Augat

Someone explain to me how this command from

Yahweh was objectively moral:

"But if the thing is true, that the tokens of virginity where not found in the young woman, then you shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones..." Deuteronomy 22:20 As a Registered Nurse, we learned in our maternity classes that a large percentage of women do not bleed or have "the tokens" of losing their virginity during their first intercourse. So, was this command from Yahweh moral or not moral, considering the number of innocent virgins that were stoned on their wedding night.

TILL

A political problem in Illinois has been the refusal of some pharmacists to fill prescriptions for drugs like Plan B (also known as the morning-after pill), which they think could possibly result in the termination of a pregnancy in its initial stages. The refusal is illegal, but some pharmacists continue to do it. Women who are raped in this area know not to go to the Catholic hospital in Peoria, because the staff will refuse to administer anything that might interfere with a pregnancy.

I wonder if any of these health officials, who no doubt base their morality on their objective Bible source, ever stop to think about the biblical command to stone those who committed adultery. If they won't administer Plan B to a woman who was raped and taken to the hospital an hour or so later because they are afraid that they might terminate a pregnancy, then surely the practice of stoning women accused of adultery in biblical times resulted at least sometimes in the killing of the "persons" who had been conceived a short while ago in their wombs.

Farrell Till

Reliability Of New Testament Documents

Farrell Till comments on a response to his 1994 debate 

with Christian apologist Norman Geisler. From the 

Errancy discussion list, 10/8/95:

Someone has posted a response to my analysis of Geisler's first speech in the Columbus College debate on the resurrection. I can very easily respond to this posting. In the quotation below, the poster accused me of setting up a straw man:"This is a straw-man argument. The massive number of extant New Testament manuscripts (MSS) does not prove the accuracy of the content, nor is Geisler claiming that it does."

I was both a participant in the debate and one of the transcribers of the tapes. I think I understand what Geisler was arguing on this point, and he was either arguing that the "massive number of extant New Testament manuscripts" proves the accuracy of their content or else I can't understand plain language.

Let's just let Geisler's own transcript speak for itself. The third sentence that Geiser read from his opening speech said this: "First, the New Testament documents are historically reliable accounts." After making this assertion, he spent over two pages discussing the number of manuscripts in existence, the "early" dates of the manuscripts, and the accuracy with which the originals were copied.

This brought him to the second division of his first speech, which he began with this statement: "In brief, there is nothing like this kind of evidence for any other historical event from the ancient world. *Now, if the New Testament documents are reliable,* it remains only to show that they affirm that Jesus died and rose from the dead a few days later."

Notice the conclusion that Geisler obviously reached from the three points he had just made. He argued that (1) MSS of the New Testament are more numerous than any other ancient documents, (2) these manuscripts were copied within only a generation of the time of the events that they recorded, and (3) the manuscripts were accurate copies of the originals. Then he *immediately* concluded that "if the New Testament documents are reliable, it remains only to show that they affirm that Jesus died and rose from the dead a few days later."

Now if this does not mean that Geisler sees that the number of NT manuscripts has a direct bearing on the historical accuracy of the claims recorded in the NT, I simply can't understand plain language. I would like to hear from the person who posted this "reply" and see him show what is wrong with the interpretation that I have drawn from Geisler's own statements.

I think my response to Briggs demonstrated that the number of extant NT MSS has nothing to do with whether the content in them is historically accurate.

Furthermore, my response to Briggs asked for proof of why the dates of the manuscripts would have anything to do with their historical accuracy. I said in this response that even if we had the very original autographs themselves that would constitute no proof at all that their content was historically accurate. Since any writer of an original document can make mistakes or deliberately falsify information, the historical accuracy of the document must be decided by other means. That is true of the NT documents too. My response to Briggs also pointed out that accuracy in copying the originals constitutes no proof at all of historical accuracy. Even if we knew positively that all copies of the original MSS had been copied with 100% accuracy that would prove absolutely nothing about the historical accuracy of the MSS.

JUST WHERE IS THE STRAW MAN?

The poster of the reply stated that I did not prove that any of the 30,000 variations in the NT MSS have any significant effect on doctrine. In the first place, I don't have to prove this, because, as I have repeatedly noted, even if there were no variations *at all* in *any* of these manuscripts, that would not prove historical accuracy. I did attempt to show how that a variation in the gospel of Mark [the absence of the Marcan Appendix in some manuscripts] would have a very significant effect on the doctrine of baptism as taught in the Chruch of Christ, and somehow this was interpreted as a desire to discredit the Church of Christ rather than refute the claim that the variations have had no effect on Christian doctrine. Several on the list have been debating the meaning of the word "Christian," and the best that I can tell, no agreement has yet been reached. 

Doctrinal disputes and controversies are so widespread in Christianity that there will always be some group who would say that variation X (no matter what it might be) has no effect on its doctrines. The fact that 30,000 variations exist in the NT documents is enough to discredit the claim that the MSS were copied with 99.9% accuracy. The fact that even 100% accuracy would prove nothing about historical reliability makes this argument a non sequitur if not the real straw man in this debate.

Whoever posted the reply to my analysis should take notice of the fact that several Christians on the list have tried to pull this same argument about the number of NT MSS on us, and it has been shot down enough that anyone should be able to see that neither I nor anyone else on the list is setting up straw men when we point out that the argument is totally without merit.

"I think you have misunderstood Geisler's purpose. Unless you can produce a quotation of Geisler saying that 'the number of New Testament manuscripts proves that the content of the New Testament is accurate', I think your complaints are groundless."

I have not produced a statement from Geisler in those exact words, but the quotation that I cited above from his speech clearly shows that this is what he meant. When he spoke at length about the number of manuscripts, the dates they were copied, and the accuracy with which they were copied, AND THEN SAID, "Now if the New Testament documents are reliable, it remains only to show that they affirm that Jesus died and rose from the dead a few days later," if he didn't mean to say that the number of manuscripts in existence had a direct bearing on their historical accuracy, then please tell us what he did mean.

All through Geisler's second speech (which he simply read from a previously prepared manuscript rather than trying to answer my counterarguments), he referred to how he had established the historical reliability of the NT documents, yet he said nothing to prove the historical accuracy of these documents except to talk about how many of them exist, when they were copied, and how accurately they were copied. So please explain why I am setting up a straw man when I say that Geisler argues that the number of NT manuscripts in existence somehow proves their historical accuracy. Someone is having a problem understanding what Geisler meant, and I don't think I'm the one with the problem.

Farrell Till

Genealogy Problems

From the Errancy discussion list, 9/11/97:

TILL

If Lenny ever decides that he can feel comfortable discussing them, I will be happy to show him that the two genealogies of Jesus result in a biblical discrepancy.

LENNY

Post away big boy,  I would like to see your argument.

TILL

Well, the problem is quite obvious. Matthew and Luke both recorded a genealogy of Jesus. Both recorded the descent from Abraham through Isaac through Jacob through Judah through Perez through Hezron through Ram through Amminadab through Nahshon through Salmon through Boaz through Obed through Jesse through David, but suddenly at David, the pedigrees go in different directions.

Matthew claimed that Jesus descended through Solomon (1:6), but Luke says that he descended through Nathan (3:31), who was Solomon's brother. Thereafter, the genealogies are necessarily different, except that for some strange reason Shealtiel and Zerubbabel are in both genealogies (Luke 3:27; Matthew 1:12). But if Shealtiel and Zerubbabel were direct descendants of Nathan, they couldn't have been direct descendants of Nathan's brother, Solomon.  Furthermore, 1 Chronicles 3:17 indicates that Shealtiel was the son of Jeconiah, as Matthew also claimed (1:12), but Luke claimed that Shealtiel was the son of someone named Neri (3:27), who is mentioned nowhere else in the Bible. If that were not bad enough, 1 Chronicles 3:19 indicates that Zerubbabel was the son of Pedaiah, who was Shealtiel's brother, but Luke claimed that Zerubbabel was the son of Shealtiel (3:27). So I am posting away, Lenny, and what I see are some serious discrepancies in the genealogy of Jesus as reported by Matthew and Luke.

(btw, Lenny never replied)
Farrell Till

"Explaining" Problems In Holy Books

Questions all Christian apologists need to answer:

Maybe you can explain to us something we have repeatedly asked Bible believers but never get an answer to. Your argument above is simply, "God did it," and so that is enough to explain any problems that can be found in the flood story. What we want to know is whether you are willing to grant to Muslims, Mormons, Zoroastrians, etc., the same right to "explain" problems in their holy books? If not, why not?

In answering this question, would you please try to refrain from special pleading and question begging?

Farrell Till
Skepticism, Inc.

He Opened Not His Mouth?

Christians claim that the suffering servant in Isaiah 53 
is a prophecy of Jesus Christ. Verse 7 says "He was 
oppressed, yet when he was afflicted he opened not his 
mouth." Farrell Till proves that this couldn't be a prophecy 
of Jesus Christ. From the Errancy Discussion list, 8-8-97:

Magill is arbitrarily asserting, without any textual proof to support his claim, that the suffering servant in Isaiah 53 was Jesus Christ and that any other interpretation is absurd. I have presented another interpretation that I am waiting for Magill to respond to, and I have cited the reference to the "seed" [offspring] of this servant in verse 10 to show that Magill's interpretation is really the one that is absurd. There is even more in the context of Isaiah 53 that is inconsistent with the view that the prophet was speaking about Jesus Christ. Verse 7 says, "He was oppressed, yet when he was afflicted he opened not his mouth." If Magill thinks that this is a prophecy of Jesus Christ, then he must explain why Jesus DID open his mouth during his oppression.