Luke, A Historian "Par Excellent"[sic]? (2)

From the Errancy discussion list, August 18, 1997:

TILL
Otsen has cited the amazing historical accuracy of Luke as an argument
for biblical inerrancy, as if he somehow believes that because one
biblical writer was accurate in some geographical, political, and social
matters, he was therefore right in everything he wrote and that the entire
Bible must, as a consequence, be inerrant. In an earlier posting, I listed
over two dozen references that Luke made in the book of Acts to
extraordinary events. I challenge Otsen to present to us some kind of
extra-biblical evidence to prove that at least some of these events actually
happened. Until he can do this, he is in effect arguing that because Luke
knew the geography of the region he wrote about and the names of some
public officials and such like, we can thereby know that Luke was also
accurate in his reporting of the various miracle claims found in his gospel
and the book of Acts.

Luke, A Historian "Par Excellent" [sic]? (1)

From the Errancy discussion list, August 17, 1997:

TILL

Otsen has posted the trite fundamentalist argument about Sir William

Ramsay, who was presumbably a biblical skeptic until he studied the

writings of Luke, after which he was so impressed by Luke's historical

accuracy that he became a dedicated Christian.  When Ramsay was

discussed earlier on the list Steve Carr noted in a posting to Errancy

date May 10th that Ramsay was actually a "Bible-believing historian." 

Carr made the following statement in his posting:

"In Ramsay's book, he describes how as a young man at Oxford ( a place

which *did* not accept religious sceptics), he studied the 39 Articles

of Faith for his Divinity exam. He corresponded with Bishop Lightfoot.

He spent months studying the NT and the OT (which he described as life-

giving). He describes the Epistle to Galatians as especially moving. He

was reminded often of his mother's love for Paul."

A Letter To A Concerned Christian Friend

by Kenneth W. Hawthorne
[Edited 12-31-13 from previous post]

I’m writing this letter to let you know the main reason why I am no longer a Christian, no longer believe that Yahweh is God and no longer believe that the Bible is the word of God. These decisions were not made lightly; they were made after much thought and study, and I hope you will see these were the only real choices I had. But if not, as always, I am ready to consider what you or anyone else has to say on this issue.

Simply, the omni characteristics that the Bible writers give Yahweh are incompatible with the New Testament teaching that he will send the vast majority of humanity to his eternal hell.

The Bible claims that Yahweh is:

1) Omniscient- If he is all knowing, then he knew if he went with the creation of man and the “plan of salvation” for man as revealed in the Bible that the vast majority of humanity would eternally perish (see Mt. 7:13-14).

2) Omnibenevolent- The word benevolent means “characterized by kindness and concern for others” (Answers.com). There are many verses that express his love, compassion and mercy for humanity; 2 Peter 3:9 says that it is not his will that any perish.

I think any Christian would agree that the Creator is greater than the creature (man). So God’s love must be of a much greater magnitude than man’s. But no loving human would conceive a child and allow it to come into the world knowing beforehand that this child would wind up in an eternal hell. So certainly a loving Creator would not do so. But the Bible teaches that this is just what Yahweh did--multiplied billions of times, and continues to allow millions to come into the world every year knowing that most will wind up in his eternal hell.

3) Perfect and Complete- Acts 17:25 says “Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything…” The Bible teaches that Yahweh doesn’t need anything and certainly doesn’t need anything from man. The thought comes to mind--why then did he create man knowing the eternally terrible outcome? It couldn’t have been for anything that he needed; so it must have been merely for something that he wanted but didn’t have to have. However, this is completely inconsistent with his alleged love for man and his will that no human perish. So the only conclusion is that it was not necessary that he create humanity in such a way that any would perish

4) Omnipotent- If he is all powerful this means that if it was his will that no one perish, then no one would perish. And if he is also all knowing, he could have and would have come up with a plan in which no one would perish. For example, he could have created humans like himself with free will and the inability to sin.

5) Sovereign- This means that there is no authority higher than him, and thus nothing could have overruled him in achieving his will that not one human perish.

Conclusion:

No God with these omni characteristics could/would have allowed even one, much less multiplied billions of humans to eternally perish in hell. However, the Bible teaches that the alleged omni God Yahweh will do just that, allow untold billions of his human creation to eternally perish. Therefore, the Bible, being contradictory on this most important of subjects, loses all credibility and cannot be the inerrant, inspired word of God and its alleged omni God, Yahweh, cannot be God.

Some Objections Answered:

But God wants man to have free will and choose to serve him. There would be no value to God in creating robots who had no choice but to serve him.

The omni love, compassion and mercy that he has for man could not have wanted this—knowing what such a flawed, sin-prone creation (Romans 3:23; I John 1:8) would do with this type of free will and the terrible eternal results.

Yahweh also allegedly has a different want. However, this want is consistent with his omni characteristics. That want is that no one perish. Because of his love for man, he could not have wanted something that would cause an infinite eternal calamity to befall his beloved human creation. It is obvious that his love for man, together with his omniscience, omnipotence and sovereignty would not have permitted this eternal tragedy to happen. Therefore, this type of free will could not have been something that he wanted nor could/would have allowed.

Another type of free will is the type that Yahweh allegedly has. He has free will but can’t sin. He is said to have created man in his image; why then wouldn’t he have truly created man in his image with the type of free will that he has? Because he loves man, wants no one to perish, is omniscient, omnipotent and sovereign, and there was no necessity that man be created in a scenario in which the vast majority would perish, he would had to have created man this way (or something similar). And since Yahweh has value, has this type of free will and is not derogatorily considered a robot, then why wouldn’t man also have value (which Yahweh doesn’t need from man anyway) if he had this type of free will and also not derogatorily be considered a robot?

Jesus died for your sins. Why won't you believe in him, obey him and save yourself?

The New Testament and Christians make much of Jesus’ alleged sacrifice to save man from eternal hell and the love that was shown by Yahweh in providing it. But if Yahweh has the omni characteristics that the Bible claims, he would had to have known, before he created the first human, that this sacrifice by Jesus would not accomplish his will that no human perish. He had to have known that it would only save a comparative handful. So, knowing this, the only way that his love could really have been shown toward man would have been in creating man in a way that would achieve his will that no one perish (it not being necessary that he create man in any other way).

Sending Jesus as a sacrifice was part of the “plan of salvation” revealed in the New Testament that would not achieve his will of no one perishing. In fact, under this New Testament plan the vast majority of humanity would wind up eternally perishing (refer back to Mt. 7:13-14). So the “plan of salvation” in the New Testament involving Jesus’ sacrifice has to be considered a puzzling claim, being inconsistent with the characteristics alleged for the omni God Yahweh. This enormously underachieving act is not what Love (see 1 John 4:8) could/would have done if Love is omniscient, perfect and complete, omnipotent, and sovereign. It would have been Love’s will that no one perish—exactly what 2 Peter 3:9 claims—and with these omni characteristics his will that no one perish would have been accomplished.

God cannot do two mutually exclusive things at the same time. He cannot give man free will and make him incapable of sinning.

This objection assumes that free will and the inability to sin are mutually exclusive; i.e., in the same class with the impossiblity for Yahweh, even with his alleged omni characteristics, to be able to make a square circle.

However, free will simply means that one is free to choose between one or more options. But options can be limited. For example, neither I nor any other human has the physical ability to jump to the moon. Although I have free will, jumping to the moon is not a choice that I can make. Indeed, mankind has many such limitations on his free will.

It would not be possible for a God with the omni characteristics that Yahweh is alleged to have to give man the option to choose anything that would cause man to eternally perish.

What possible motivation could such a God have to not limit man's available free-will options to those that would not put him in jeopardy of eternally perishing?

Beliefs--Be Careful

An excerpt from an internet debate I recently read:
 

Christian:

"when people are on the outside, they aren't going to understand it. Being on the inside, I just can't explain it. God's love is something you have to experience firsthand." 

 

Skeptic: 

I was a Christian until age 21. Therefore, I was on the inside, and I do understand it. When you think God loves you, it feels great. When you think you're going to heaven, it feels great. When you think you won the lottery, it feels great. The belief can make you feel great, independent of whether [the] belief is true or not.       

 

People love to believe in gods. That fact makes it prudent to carefully vet one's beliefs to try to make sure they are in line with the evidence, rather than being in line with what we want to believe.

Self-Deception

A great article from The Skeptic's Dictionary  about self self-deception. Confirmation bias is something that we all have a tendency for. And knowing this, we should be forewarned so that we will make a concerted effort to nullify this tendency in our search for truth:

Self-deception is the process or fact of misleading ourselves to accept claims about ourselves as true or valid when they are false or invalid. Self-deception, in short, is a way we justify false beliefs about ourselves to ourselves.

When philosophers and psychologists discuss self-deception, they usually focus on unconscious motivations and intentions. They also usually consider self-deception as a bad thing, something to guard against. To explain how self-deception works, they focus on self-interest, prejudice, desire, insecurity, and other psychological factors unconsciously affecting in a negative way the will to believe. A common example would be that of a parent who believes his child is telling the truth even though the objective evidence strongly supports the claim that the child is lying. The parent, it is said, deceives him or herself into believing the child because the parent desires that the child tell the truth. A belief so motivated is usually considered more flawed than one due to lack of ability to evaluate evidence properly. The former is considered to be a kind of moral flaw, a kind of dishonesty, and irrational. The latter is considered to be a matter of fate: some people are just not gifted enough to make proper inferences from the data of perception and experience.

The Garden Of Eden Myth And The "Messiah"

A comment by Farrell Till from the II Errancy discussion list, 11-29-06: TILL What we have here is just another spin that NT writers put on an OT text to make it appear that the Jewish scriptures pointed to the coming of Jesus. Jewish literature itself, however, indicated that the Garden of Eden yarn was intended as nothing more than an explanation of traditional concerns like why is survival such a struggle, why do snakes crawl instead of walking on legs, why are people almost universally afraid of snakes, and why is childbirth so painful? The answers are in the Garden of Eden myth. God pronounced curses on all parties involved in the first "sin." The man was doomed to have to earn his living by the sweat of his brow tilling land that brings forth thorns and thistles, the serpent was condemned to crawl on its belly and eat the dust of the earth, enmity between the seeds of the serpent and the woman was decreed (the one would bruise the heel of the seed of the woman; the other would bruise the head of the seed of the serpent), and women would bring forth offspring in pain. See Josephus's Antiquities 1:1,4 (49-51). When humans encounter snakes, they risk being bitten [on the heel], so their first inclination is to kill the snake, usually by crushing its head. Christians have distorted a myth, intended to explain puzzling aspects of life, into some mystical prophecy of their Messiah. As I have previously asked, is there anything sillier than theological assumptions?

 

The Uniqueness Of The Bible

Farrell Till answers Josh McDowell's, "The Uniqueness of the Bible", link.

A Simple Question

by Kenneth W. Hawthorne

The following is a comment that I made on a Church of Christ 
discussion group in 2011 (slightly edited):

The question I asked you: "If you wanted to have a child but you knew

before conceiving this child that if you conceived it and brought it

into the world that it would wind up suffering forever in hell, would

you go ahead and conceive that child and bring it into the world?" is

not a question like, "Are you still beating your wife?", which is an

example of a complex question fallacy. Such a fallacy is when a question

is asked that is composed of a presupposition that is false--you have

been beating your wife. It would be possible, though, that the question

could be a legitimate question if it was a known fact that the man being

asked the question had in fact been guilty of beating his wife.

The question that I asked you is not such a question. The question I

asked you is a simple, legitimate, hypothetical question. The question

that I asked you is comparable to, If you knew that you would die in a

car accident tomorrow if you drove to Little Rock, would you drive to

Little Rock tomorrow? The answer is so obviously "No", that the question

is ridiculously absurd. And I think I can safely say that you would

quickly answer that question with a "No", and laugh at the questioner

for asking such a question. But, in regard to my question about whether

you would conceive and bring a child into the world, knowing it would

wind up suffering for eternity in hell, which is even more absurd and

which calls for an even quicker response and even more obvious answer
of "No", you stammer and hesitate...and you won't answer the question.
Why? Because of your fanatical, credulous, unfounded, delusional
devotion to Yahweh. Your answer might make Yahweh look bad. Well,
he is bad. He's worse than bad. He's so fiendish and so infinitely horrible
that taking into consideration his alleged omni qualities--he is a
contradiction, an impossibility.

My question to you involves what we know the Bible teaches about
Yahweh and his eternal hell and is a legitimate question based on
what the Bible admits to. So why the hesitation to answer what should
be a very easy question for a devoted Yahwehist to answer? If Yahweh
has no problem in sending multiplied billions of his sentient, beloved(?)

humans to his eternal hell, having had this knowledge before he created

the first human, why would a Yahwehist who looks to him as our example

to follow, have a problem with allowing only one child to come into the

world, knowing that child will wind up in hell?

Arguments From Absence Of Evidence

The following is part of an excellent discussion between Farrell Till and a Christian, Paul Smith, on when absence of evidence, where there should be evidence, is a good argument against a claim. From the alt. Bible. errancy Yahoo group, May 21, 2000:

TILL (1)
Kent, you and David Sparrow need to put your heads together. The two of
you, working independently, have yet to provide a sensible explanation for
this absence of evidence that should be there if these [Exodus] wilderness
stories are historically accurate.

SMITH: (2)
Woah! ...does this mean that arguments from absence are now
considered weighty here? Cool! Someone please let me know,
'cuz I have a BUNCH of arguments from absence that I think bode
well for the God Hypothesis -

TILL (3)
Now, come on, Paul, you have to know that the absence of evidence
where evidence would have to be if certain alleged events had happened
is a compelling reason not to believe reports of the events. If someone
tells you that a flash flood swept through Podunk Valley last week, what
are you going to conclude if you go to Podunk Valley and see no evidence
that would have to be present if such a flood had occurred? This is so
simple that you can surely see it. I'm sure that if you saw absolutely no
evidence of a flash flood, you would view with suspicion any claims that
the civic pride in Podunk Valley was such that everyone had worked
diligently to clean up and repair the damage and that this is why no signs
of the flood remain. You would know that such would be too unlikely
to believe.

Credulity Or Critical Thinking?

by Kenneth W. Hawthorne

Is the phrase, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" (with all due respect to Carl Sagan), sufficient to describe miraculous claims and the evidence needed to prove them? (miracle, "a surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency:") (extraordinary, "1 a: going beyond what is usual, regular or customary...; b: exceptional to a very marked extent," and is normally used to describe naturally occurring events that are out of the ordinary.) So it seems to me this phrase is lacking--the word extraordinary just seems too generic for this purpose.

We need a phrase that immediately and unambiguously gets to the heart of the type of evidence it would take to prove miraculous claims. Let's take the miraculous claim that a man came back to life after being dead for three days. It is more than a claim that something beyond what is usual or regular occurred; it is more than a claim that something exceptional to a very marked degree occurred. This claim is more than extraordinary it is miraculous. It is a ridiculously absurd, and preposterous claim if it is not accompanied by unimpeachable, unequivocal, irrefutable evidence. A more appropriate phrase in regard to miraculous claims such as a man coming back to life after being dead for three days, would be: Miraculous claims require unimpeachable, unequivocal, irrefutable evidence.

The New Testament  presents the miraculous claim that Jesus Christ came back to life after being dead for almost three days and says that if you don't believe it you will die in your sins (John 8:24) and suffer eternally in hell (Mt. 7:13-14). With allegedly so much on the line what kind of evidence does the New Testament give us that this miraculous claim actually happened? Unimpeachable, unequivocal, irrefutable evidence that would put an end to all doubt and thus prove this miraculous claim? Hardly. What the loving, merciful Yahweh, who allegedly is not willing that any should perish, has given us is completely inadequate hearsay testimony that this miraculous event happened.

If miracles were allegedly performed to "attest" (Acts 2:22) deity to humans in the first century A.D., in order "[to] provide...clear evidence" for them to believe in and obey this "divine agency", why would this type of evidence be withheld by God today? It is impossible for testimony (especially hearsay testimony) to even come close to the level of evidence needed for a rational person to believe miraculous claims. Is this what the God of the Universe wants from his intelligent creation--credulity rather than critical thinking? I don't think so. (By the way, I know my heart and if Yahweh is God he also knows my heart and both of us know what it would take for me to be a believer--so, what is Yahweh waiting on?)

Pro-Supernatural Bias (2)

Part two (of two) of Farrell Till's rebuttal of Dr. James Price's response to Jim Lippard's article "The Fabulous Prophecies of the Messiah":

TILL

Contemporary records were also strangely silent about the earthquake at the time of Jesus's death, which allegedly shook open the graves of many saints who then went into the city and appeared unto many (Matt. 27:52-53).  Like the supernatural darkness at midday, word of such a remarkable event as this would surely have been spread through the region, if not the known world, so that references to it would have been left in contemporary records, but none exist.  The historian Seneca was born in 4 B.C., the same year that most New Testament scholars fix the time of Jesus's birth.  He and Pliny the Elder, another contemporary of Jesus, wrote detailed accounts of all of the known natural disasters and phenomena, past and present, earthquakes, floods, meteors, comets, eclipses, etc., but neither one mentioned either a three-hour darkness at midday or an earthquake that shook open tombs and resurrected "many" dead people.  In chapter 24 of *The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,* Edward Gibbon refers to the silence of Seneca and Pliny on the midday darkness and accepts this as reason to believe that no such event ever happened.

The silence of Josephus about such remarkable events as these is also hard to imagine.  His father, Matthias, was a priest in Jerusalem at the very time that Jesus was allegedly crucified and resurrected (*The Life of Flavius Josephus,* 2:7-12), so we can hardly imagine Josephus's father witnessing such phenomenal events as the midday darkness and the resurrection of "many" saints and not talking about them in the family circle as Josephus was growing up.  Likewise, we can't imagine Josephus not referring to these events if his father had indeed mentioned them. Josephus mentioned several minor Messianic claimants, whom history has now all but forgotten, but he made only two short, disputed references to a Messiah whose life was accompanied by truly amazing events. There is argument from silence; there is argument from unreasonable silence, and it is unreasonable to think that really remarkable events like these could have happened without any contemporary references to them having survived.

Pro-Supernatural Bias (1)

This is part one of a rebuttal by Farrell Till of 

part  of Dr.  James Price's response to Jim 

Lippard's  article The Fabulous Prophecies of 

the Messiah. It, along with part two which will be posted later,is an excellent short summary 

of many of the problems with the "evidences" Christian apologists give for Christianity. 

Regrettably, I have not been able to find the 

rest of Till's rebuttal. All Christians need to 

read this--a classic by Mr. Till from 1996:

From: Farrell Till

Subject: For M. Dawud: Response to Price 

Mr. Dawud: 

You have asked me to reply to Dr. James Price's response to Jim Lippard's article "The Fabulous Prophecies of the Messiah," which Lippard had posted on his home page.  You wanted me to respond to it in *The Skeptical Review,* but Price's response totals 130k, and it would require more than two complete issues of TSR just to publish the text of Price's article.  Since his response consisted of many unsupported assertions, to adequately rebut many of his points, I would need much more space than he took to make the assertions.

This requirement is due to the obvious fact that assertions are generally brief but rebuttals of assertions require  detailed analysis and support. For that reason, I will not be publishing Dr. Price's response, because I would probably have to devote more than an entire year of publishing space in discussion of this one issue.

As a compromise, I intend to respond to Dr. Price via the internet.  I will have to do this in a series of replies that I can see taking at least a year to complete, because I do have many other demands on my time.  I will probably post these replies on my "Errancy" list, and I will send CCs to Dr. Price and people who have challenged me to debate him.  Dr. Price, of course, will be entitled to respond to any of my rebuttals, and I will also post them on the errancy list. 

GENERAL IMPRESSIONS: 

My general impression of Dr. Price's rebuttal article is not at all favorable.  It is slightly better than many attempts I have seen to prove biblical prophecy fulfillment, and it is certainly better than Dr. Hugh Ross's article on the subject that I published in the January/February 1996 issue of TSR and responded to in a series of three rebuttals.  This, however, is not saying very much, because Ross's article was, in my opinion, incredibly simplistic.  Price did at least try from time to time to present evidence to support his supposition rather than simply make bald assertions, and for that he is to be commended.  This compliment should not be construed to mean that Dr. Price did not at times make bald, unsupported assertions, because he certainly did, as I will be pointing out.  I am merely recognizing that some of his rebuttal arguments were accompanied by supporting information.

Quoting The Bible

The inimitable Farrell Till, not allowing a Christian to get by with merely quoting the Bible to prove that the resurrection of Jesus is true (amazing that they would even try that).

From the Errancy discussion list, February, 1998:

Christian: 

You are coming from the viewpoint that the Bible is errant; I am coming from the viewpoint that it is from God and therefore accurate. If you do not want me to use what the Bible says in order to discuss the Bible, then I see no point in being here. You were just asking about spiritual/resurrected bodies. If you don't believe in the Bible, why even discuss it? If you want to discuss the Bible among yourselves with no opposing viewpoint, please tell me why the group is looking for Christians to be involved? To what purpose? 

TILL 

You have a strange way of thinking. Of course, I understand  that you think that the Bible is accurate, but I won't allow  you to use this assumption to settle any issue that's being  debated. I would have to be crazier than a loon to permit that. Don't you think I know that the NT clearly teaches that Jesus was resurrected from the dead and that there will be a final resurrection of all the dead? The issue is not whether the NT teaches these things, because clearly it does. The issue is whether the NT is correct in making these claims. I have no objection to you or anyone else quoting scripture as long as it is quoted simply to show what the NT says, but I have serious objections to your apparent belief that the mere citation of a scripture should be sufficient to settle an issue. If you are going to quote 1 Corinthians 15 as proof that there will be a final resurrection, then you have the obligation to present arguments that will show there are good reasons to believe that what this text says is true. You say that you have no objections to debating the errancy of the Book of Mormon, but if a Mormon were on the list to debate this issue, you surely would not stand still for allowing him simply to quote the Book of Mormon as proof of its own accuracy, would you? 

Farrell Till

Quote Of The Day

“For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise.”
Benjamin Franklin  (1706-1790)

Blood In Heaven?

Farrell Till points out a discrepancy between the 9th chapter of Hebrews and I Cor 15:50. From the Errancy Discussion list, June 23, 1997:

TILL
In a posting that I will send simultaneously with this one, I showed how
that the Hebrew writer argued in the 9th chapter of his epistle that the
Holy Place and the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle were figures of things
to come. The priest entering the Holy of Holies once per year with blood to
offer for the sins of the people prefigured the entry of Jesus into heaven
with his own blood to offer a final atonement for the sins of all people.
This analogy is obvious from the following verses:

6 Such preparations having been made, the priests go continually into the
first tent to carry out their ritual duties;
7 but only the high priest goes into the second, and he but once a year,
and not without taking the blood that he offers for himself and for the sins
committed unintentionally by the people.

11 But when Christ came as a high priest of the good things that have
come, then through the greater and perfect tent (not made with hands,
that is, not of this creation),
12 he entered once for all into the Holy Place, not with the blood of
goats and calves, but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal
redemption.

In the Hebrew writer's analogy, the items in the tabernacle and the
ceremonies performed there were figures of things to come under the
new covenant, and the Holy Place that the high priest entered once per
year with blood to offer prefigured the entry of Christ into heaven as a
high priest to offer his own blood for the sins of mankind. This is evident
from the following verse:

23 Thus it was necessary for the sketches of the heavenly things to be
purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves need better
sacrifices than these.
24 For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made by human hands, a mere
copy of the true one, but he entered into heaven itself, now to appear
in the presence of God on our behalf.
25 Nor was it to offer himself again and again, as the high priest enters
the Holy Place year after year with blood that is not his own;
26 for then he would have had to suffer again and again since the
foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the
end of the age to remove sin by the sacrifice of himself.

There can be no doubt at all that the Hebrew writer was arguing that
just as the items in the tabernacle had to be dedicated with blood, the
"heavenly things" that they had prefigured also had to be dedicated
with blood. He claimed, however, that the "sketches" or "copies" in
heaven had to be purified with a better sacrifice than those used to
purify the original types. Hence, to accomplish this purification
of the heavenly "sketches" or "copies," Jesus entered into HEAVEN
ITSELF with that "better sacrifice" (his own blood) to purify the
heavenly copies.

Now here is the problem. The apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:50 that
"flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven," but the Hebrew
writer claimed that Christ entered into heaven with his own blood to make
a "better sacrifice" than those that were used under the law to purify the
tabernacle. Isn't there a problem here?

Farrell Till

Take Your Pick

The late Joseph Crea was a fixture on the old alt.bible.errancy discussion list. He along with Farrell Till and a few others brought rationality and common sense to their discussions with die-hard inerrantists--pointing out with clarity the many discrepancies in the Bible. The following from May 17, 2000, is one of those instances:

frixen3 wrote:

Christians then do not pray to the cross. The cross is a reminder 

to us what was done there. We must also remember that "without 

the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin." (Hebrews 9:22).

CREA
Funny, that's not what YHWH tells the Israelites back in the 
Old Testament. Take a look at Leviticus chapter 5, which 
covers the sacrifices needed to expiate sins. Starting at verse 

5 we read that the optimal sacrifice is a female sheep or goat, 

but [continuing at verse 6] if the contrite sinner can't afford 

such, then two doves will do. Proceeding to verses 11-13 we 

learn that if the repentant sinner can't even afford 2 doves, 

THEN AN OFFERING OF FLOUR would suffice to produce 

forgiveness of his sins. Blood, we can therefore see, is NOT 

A NECESSITY for the forgiveness of sins. Either the writer of 

Hebrews got it wrong, or else the author of Leviticus did. 

Take your pick.

  With Mettaa,
  Joseph Crea

Very Strange

Strange, that no disinterested, independent, contemporary corroboration exists from any of the many thousands of alleged witnesses to the signs and wonders that Yahweh supposedly used to attest the man Jesus of Nazareth--very strange. So strange in fact, someone who is honestly searching for the truth just might be led to believe that none of these "attesting" miraculous signs and wonders ever happened.

One would think that if Yahweh truly doesn't want anyone to perish (2 Peter 3:9) that he would have providentially given this type of supporting documentation. Instead, all we have is the biased testimony from the anonymous authors of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Acts.

From the Errancy Discussion list, June 14, 1998:

Commonplace, ordinary events of the past were often corroborated

by records left by various sources, but in the case of extraordinary 
or miraculous events, with which claims the Bible is filled, not a 
single disinterested, independent, contemporary source ever 

corroborated any of them. Biblicists rave about the fact that Luke

knew geography, topography, social customs, historical persons, 

etc., etc., etc., all of which can be considered only commonplace 

information. Miracles, however, would have been so extraordinary 

that they would have received wide attention. 

In Acts 2:22, Luke had Peter saying to an audience that numbered 

into the thousands that "Jesus of Nazareth [was] a man attested to 
you by God with deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did 
through him among you, as you yourselves know," so the claim 
was that such deeds as these were done in the open and were 
witnessed by many people. If that is so, then why is there no 
disinterested, independent corroboration of them?

Farrell Till

Israelites 40 Years Wandering In The Sinai?

The source of the following information is an article from the News Toronto Bureau by Barry Brown, dated February 27, 1988,  by way of Farrell Till on the Yahoo group errancyn, "The Size of the Hebrew Camps," 5-20-00:

On February 26, 1988, the Israeli archaeologist Eliezer Oren spoke at the Royal Ontario Museum about his excavations at 80 different sites in the Sinai peninsula from 1972 through 1982. He reported that he had found no evidence for a 40-year nomadic residence in this region by two to three million people. He reported finding at the ruins of an Egyptian outpost a record of two runaway slaves who had been spotted, but in all of his diggings, he found nothing about the sightings of a vast horde of people going through the desert. "They [the two slaves] were spotted and the biblical account of 2.5 million people with 600 thousand of military age weren't?" Oren questioned. "This can't be explained unless you invoke miracles here, and I am a member of the department of archaeology and not of miracles."

Oren reported that other archaeological expeditions beside his have been working in the Sinai region for just as long as he has, but they had found no traces of human activity at all from the time of the exodus except for small mining operations that were under the control of the Egyptians. He reported that archaeologists have found none of the cities that the Israelites allegedly conquered on their way out of the region except for the town of Kadesh, but he said, "To our great surprise, there is nothing there earlier than the 10th century." The exodus, however, allegedly happened in the 15th century B. C. The Bible reports that the 2.5 to 3 million Israelites camped at over 40 different sites, taking with them large herds of livestock, but Oren reported that no evidence of such encampments have been found.