An absolutely devastating article for the perfect-harmony Bible theorists. From The Skeptical Review, 1995:
The Bible is so perfectly harmonious from cover to cover that
only divine inspiration can explain its unity. You don't believe
it? Well, just ask any Bible fundamentalist, and he will assure
you that it's true.
Critical works of the past two centuries have shot the
perfect-harmony
theory so full of holes that by now it should be lying rusted
out at the bottom of an ocean of biblical scholarship. Instead,
Christian fundamentalists continue to proclaim to gullible pulpit
audiences that there are no contradictions or inconsistencies
in the Bible. As we have shown repeatedly in past issues of The
Skeptical Review, this claim is patently false. Let's take as
an example the fact that the Bible plainly teaches that God is
no respecter of persons: "(F)or there is no respect of persons
with God" (Romans 2:11, KJV).
Acts 10:34,
Ephesians 6:9,
Colossians 3:25,
and 1 Peter 1:17
all claim that God judges all men fairly without respect of person.
In boasting of having stood his ground against the pillars of
the Jerusalem church who wanted to force Titus to submit to
circumcision,
the apostle Paul said that the positions of prominence held by
his opponents in the dispute didn't matter to him, because "God
shows personal favoritism to no man..." (Gal. 2:6,
NKJV). There is no doubt, then, that the Bible teaches that God
is impartial toward all men.
Well, okay, let's see how consistent the Bible is in presenting
God as an impartial deity. We could begin by pointing out that
God at one time favored an entire nation, because he selected
the Israelites to be his chosen people "above all peoples
that are upon the face of the earth" (Dt. 7:6).
That certainly sounds like favoritism to me. If a teacher should
select Bobby to be her chosen student above all students that
are in the class and even proclaim to the world that she had done
so, who would argue that she was not showing favoritism?
Inerrantists are fond of arguing that God had a plan of
redemption
for mankind that required him to select a special people. Bible
fundamentalists constantly use this marvelous "plan of redemption"
to cover a multitude of divine shortcomings, and they apparently
can't see that an omniscient, omnipotent deity would not have
been required to select a plan of redemption that necessitated
racial favoritism, because such a deity could have redeemed mankind
in any one of several ways that would not have entailed racial
favoritism and the various atrocities committed against the non-Hebraic
people of biblical times. To argue otherwise is to argue that
God is not omniscient and omnipotent. At any rate, this is the
quibble that inerrancy defenders resort to in this matter, so
I'll just let the readers evaluate the merits of it so that we
can go on to other examples of divine favoritism that will give
the inerrantists plenty more to cavil about.
We could cite the case of Aaron's sons being ordained as
priests
of Israel (Num.
3:2-3)
when God's law specifically banned bastards and their descendants
from entering the assembly of Yahweh for at least ten generations
(Dt. 23:2).
Aaron's wife, as noted in an earlier article, "No Bastards Allowed", TSR 1994, was a fourth-generation
descendant of the bastard son of Judah, so her sons would have
been fifth-generation descendants. Nevertheless, they were ordained
as priests (so says the inerrant Bible) by specific instructions
from Yahweh himself (Num. 3:5-10).
Bastards and their descendants for at least ten generations were
to be excluded from Yahweh's assembly, yet the fifth-generation
bastard sons of an important Hebrew official were not only made
exceptions but were appointed to important positions of leadership
in the assembly. This certainly seems like favoritism.
At the Portland, Texas, debate last May, Marion Fox, Jerry
Moffitt's
moderator, announced to the audience that he was going to write
an article to show that Deuteronomy 23:2
is not inconsistent with the appointment of Aaron's sons to the
priesthood. I'm still waiting for that article. Fox made a smart
play to the gallery to get Moffitt out of a jam, but now it's
time for him to make good his promise. In Numbers 12:1,
Miriam and Aaron spoke out in public opposition to their brother
Moses, who had married a Cushite (Ethiopian) woman. They had every
right to make this complaint, because Yahweh had forbidden the
Hebrews to marry foreigners (Ex. 34:15-16;
Dt. 7:3).
However, rather than taking Moses to task for breaking this command,
Yahweh made Miriam and Aaron the heavies, and especially Miriam.
Yahweh came down in a "pillar of cloud" and stood in
the door of the tabernacle (that must have been a sight to behold)
to announce in no uncertain terms that Moses was his prophet to
whom he spoke face to face, so how dare they speak against his
servant Moses (Numbers 12:4-8 NKJV).
Yahweh's anger had been so aroused that when he departed, Miriam
was left standing white as snow, stricken with leprosy (v.10).
Well, okay, if Miriam had challenged the leadership of Yahweh's
prophet whom he spoke with face to face, then by all means teach
her a good lesson; go ahead and afflict her with leprosy. But
why not afflict Aaron too? He was in on the rebellion as much
as Miriam was. Read the passage and see for yourself that both
of them had complained about Moses' marriage to the Cushite woman.
So why wasn't Aaron afflicted with leprosy too? Whatever happened
to this wonderful impartiality that the Bible attributed to Yahweh,
the god of gods? For that matter, whatever happened to the wonderful
harmony and unity that is supposed to permeate the Bible?
Well, in the matter of Yahweh's alleged impartiality, there is
no unity at all in the Bible. King Ahab and his wife Jezebel were
so notoriously wicked that their names have become synonyms for
evil. When Jezebel conspired to have Naboth murdered so that Ahab
could have his vineyard (1 Kings 21:1-16),
Yahweh was so outraged when Ahab took possession of the vineyard
that he sent the prophet Elijah to denounce the deed and pronounce
a sentence of death and destruction upon the whole house of Ahab
(vv:17-24).
When Ahab heard the curse, he rent his clothes, put on sackcloth,
and fasted (v:27),
after which Yahweh said to Elijah, "See how Ahab has humbled
himself before Me? Because he has humbled himself before Me, I
will not bring the calamity in his days. In the days of his son
I will bring the calamity on his house" (vv:28-29).
Whoa, wait a minute! Ahab was the culprit here, but because he
put on sackcloth and fasted, Yahweh decided not to destroy his
family but to wait until Ahab was dead and then do it "in
the days of his son." Where's the fairness in that? Is this
Yahweh's idea of impartiality? If Yahweh had rewarded Ahab's repentance
by simply forgetting the whole matter, that would have been commendable
and quite compatible with the character of an omnibenevolent god,
but to let the guilty live and later punish his son, that's downright
tacky. We might also mention that it flagrantly contradicts Yahweh's
decree that said the son would not bear the iniquity of the father
(Ezek. 18:20).
One just doesn't have to look very hard at all to find holes in
the perfect-harmony theory.
Yahweh's law decreed death for the sin of adultery: "The
man who commits adultery with another man's wife, he who commits
adultery with his neighbor's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress,
shall surely be put to death" (Lev. 20:10).
Now that's plain enough that anyone should understand it. Certainly,
an omniscient deity should have no difficulty understanding what
he had meant when he "verbally" inspired the writing
of this law, yet we learn that Yahweh apparently did have problems
understanding it when David committed adultery with Bathsheba,
the wife of Uriah the Hittite (2 Sam. 11:2-5).
No sentence of death was executed against David, not even after
he had murdered Bathsheba's husband Uriah (vv:21),
another offense for which Yahweh's divine law demanded the death
penalty: "But if a man acts with premeditation against his
neighbor, to kill him by treachery, you shall take him from My
altar, that he may die" (Ex. 21:14).
In cases of murder by treachery, then, one could not even seek
sanctuary in the tabernacle by clinging to the altar (see 2 Kings 1:50-51),
but if ever there was a case of "murder by treachery,"
David was guilty of it. He sent written orders for his commanding
general to put Uriah (Bathsheba's husband) in "the forefront
of the hottest battle" and then to withdraw the other soldiers
and leave Uriah to die (vv:14-17).
So if adultery was a capital offense, surely David had deserved
to die far more than some poor sap who in a moment of ardent
indiscretion
had had the misfortune to be caught in a compromising position
with his neighbor's wife. We can well imagine that such as this
had happened many times in the primitive eye-for-an-eye society
of the ancient Hebrews, yet no death sentence was pronounced on
King David for a far more flagrant case of adultery. According
to the story, while walking on the palace roof, he saw Bathsheba
bathing, inquired about her, and sent messengers to bring her
to him, so this was no moment-of-weakness indiscretion. It was
a flagrant, premeditated case of adultery, but, for reasons presumably
known only to the inscrutable Yahweh, the death penalty was waived
for David--and for Bathsheba too, whom David added to his harem
after her husband had been put out of the picture.
To those who might try to argue that Yahweh was not to blame
for
waiving the penalty demanded by the law in this case but the religious
leaders who lacked the courage to apply the law to their king,
I will simply urge them to read the story again. After Bathsheba's
mourning was over (and it was downright decent of her to go through
a proper period of mourning), David sent for her, brought her
to his house, and married her. When all of this was done, Yahweh
"sent Nathan [the prophet] to David" (2 Sam. 12:1).
Why? To tell David that he had broken divine law and so now he
would have to pay with his life? Hardly. "Why have you despised
the commandment of Yahweh to do evil in His sight?" Nathan
asked. "You have killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword;
you have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with
the sword of the people of Ammon." There is no doubt that
Yahweh considered David guilty of murder, because the prophet
that he sent to David plainly said, "You have killed Uriah
the Hittite." So why wasn't David sentenced to death as the
law of Yahweh had commanded? According to that law, David and
Bathsheba both should have been executed. Instead, Yahweh let
them both off and, in clear violation of his decree that "the
wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him" (Ezek. 18:20;
Dt. 24:16),
proceeded to pronounce punishment upon innocent parties for the
sin of David and Bathsheba. The divine message that Nathan delivered
to David contained this curious provision:
Thus saith Yahweh: "Behold, I will raise up adversity against
you from your own house; and I will take your wives before your
eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall be with your
wives in the sight of this sun. For you did it secretly, but I
will do this thing before all Israel, before the sun (2 Sam. 12:11-12).
Now besides this not being the punishment that Yahweh's perfect
law had decreed for adultery, it was a punishment directed against
others rather than David and Bathsheba, who were the guilty parties.
In other words, Yahweh was saying to David, "You committed
adultery, and now I am going to subject your wives to the humiliation
of rape." Admittedly, David would have suffered embarrassment
and humiliation if this decree had been executed, but that would
not have compared to the humiliation that his wives would have
experienced. How could the mind of a fair and impartial god "who
shows personal favoritism to no man" have conceived of such
a scheme as this?
The rape of David's wives never occurred, of course, because
David
repented. "I have sinned against Yahweh," he said in
response to Nathan's message (v:13),
and apparently that was all it took to get him off the hook. "Yahweh
also has put away your sin," Nathan said. "You shall
not die." Here is the only suggestion in the story that Yahweh
had at any time considered imposing the full penalty of his law
for David's offense, and all that it had taken to obtain divine
pardon were five little words: "I have sinned against Yahweh."
We can only wonder how many adulterers before David had also said,
"I have sinned against Yahweh," before the stones had
started pelting them. If repentence had not earned them Yahweh's
mercy, then by what twist of logic can anyone argue that sparing
David's life for the same offense was not a flagrant case of Yahwistic
favoritism?
This story didn't end with Nathan's telling David that Yahweh
had put away his sin, because it just didn't seem to be in the
nature of Yahweh to let a thing like this pass without showing
his temper in some way. However, instead of punishing the offenders,
he chose instead to punish the child conceived during their adulterous
relationship. "(B)ecause by this deed you have given great
occasion to the enemies of Yahweh to blaspheme," Nathan said
to David, "the child also who is born to you shall surely
die" (2 Sam.
12:14).
So David and Bathsheba had violated a divine law that decreed
death, but rather than killing either David or Bathsheba, Yahweh
chose instead to kill their child. We will admit that such a punishment
would have inflicted considerable grief on David and Bathsheba,
but that is beside the point. They were the ones who had violated
Yahweh's law, but an innocent baby was the one who paid with his
life for an offense committed by others. It's so... well, so typically
Yahwistic.
We see the appalling partiality in Yahweh's character when we
compare the ease with which he forgave David and Ahab to the harsh
judgment that he pronounced on others, who were far more deserving
of mercy. All David and Ahab had to do was say, "I have sinned,"
and Yahweh immediately forgave them and then later punished their offspring. As we saw earlier in "Another Flaw in the Perfect-Harmony Theory", TSR 1994, such was not the case when Josiah repented and instituted a religious reformation that was unparalleled in Israel's history. Like Ahab, Josiah "rent his clothes" in a gesture of penitence (2 Kings 21:11),
but unlike the generosity that Yahweh showed to Ahab, he did not
show mercy to Josiah. Even after Josiah had eradicated idolatry
in the kingdom, destroyed all the pagan altars, and celebrated
a Passover the likes of which "surely had never been held
since the days of the judges who judged Israel, nor in all the
days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah" (vv:21-22),
Yahweh still "did not turn from the fierceness of His great
wrath, with which His anger was aroused against Judah" (2
Kings 23:26). One would have to be completely devoid of intellectual
objectivity to argue that these are not inconsistencies in the
biblical depiction of Yahweh's character.
David, of course, was no stranger to the appalling unfairness
that Yahweh often demonstrated in the treatment of his "chosen
people." In 2
Samuel 24:1-9,
David ordered a census of Israel that for some reason greatly
offended Yahweh. In this case, Yahweh sent the prophet Gad to
give David his choice of three punishments: (1) seven years of
famine, (2) three months of flight while his enemies pursued him,
or (3) three days of plague in the land (vv:11-13).
A parallel account of this story in Yahweh's perfectly harmonious
word (1
Chron. 21:12)
has Gad offering David three years of famine rather than seven,
but we will let this inconsistency pass for the moment to make
a point about Yahweh's idea of impartiality.
Eventually Yahweh settled on three days of plague in the land
as a way of punishing David for presuming to number Israel (for
whatever reason this was so horribly sinful). As biblical plagues
go, it was typically Yahwistic in its scope. "From Dan to
Beersheba, seventy thousand men of the people died" (v:15).
Now let's try to put this story into perspective. For some reason
known only to the inscrutable Yahweh, David sinned by ordering
a census of Israel, and as punishment for the sin, Yahweh sent
a plague that killed seventy thousand men. Meanwhile, not a hair
on David's head was touched. Is this what inerrantists call
impartiality?
Apparently so, because in the face of passages like this, they
will still argue that the Bible is perfectly harmonious from cover
to cover. Don't try to figure it out, because you won't.
The absurdity of their position is underscored by the fact that
not even David would agree with them, for after Yahweh had finally
relented just short of allowing his death angel to destroy Jerusalem
(v:16),
David, who had watched the angel striking the people, spoke to
Yahweh and said, "Surely I have sinned, and I have done wickedly;
but these sheep, what have they done?" (v:17).
That's a good question, and inerrantists should give it some
serious
thought. David was the one who had sinned in this matter, but
Yahweh killed 70,000 others for something they had not done. What
is the fairness of that? By what stretch of imagination, can anyone
say that a silly yarn like this is perfectly harmonious with the
biblical passages that say "God shows personal favoritism
to no man"?
This story obviously conflicts with Yahweh's law that decreed
individual responsibility and punishment for one's own sins (Ezek. 18:20;
Dt. 24:16),
and even David was apparently able to see the injustice of it.
After asking Yahweh, "What have these sheep done?" he
went on to say, "Let your hand, I pray, be against me and
against my father's house" (v:17).
Well, it seems that even David's understanding of justice was
a little tarnished too, for even he thought that it would have
been proper to punish his father's house for the sin he had committed.
Nevertheless, the point is crystal clear: the Bible teaches an
abysmally inconsistent concept of fairness and impartiality in
the character of the Hebrew god Yahweh. This character flaw was
effectively verbalized in a question that Genesis 18:25
attributes to the patriarch Abraham. According to the story, Yahweh
had informed Abraham that he was going to destroy Sodom, upon
which Abraham asked, "Would you also destroy the righteous
with the wicked?" In other words, Abraham recognized the
truth that we are focusing on in this article: it is inherently
unfair to punish innocent people.
As the story continued, Abraham attempted to bargain with
Yahweh
in an effort to save the city. He asked Yahweh if he would spare
Sodom if 50 righteous people could be found in it. "Far be
it from You to do such a thing as this," Abraham said, "so
that the righteous should be as the wicked; far be it from You!"
Obviously, then, Abraham recognized that it would be fundamentally
unjust to kill everyone in the city, the righteous along with
the unrighteous. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do
right?" he asked Yahweh. Today, Bible fundamentalists lack
the basic common sense that Abraham demonstrated in this story
(which, needless to say, is undoubtedly fictional), because they
continue to defend the appalling moral conduct that the Bible
attributes to the god Yahweh. They do so, of course, because they
have to. Numerous biblical stories attribute utter moral depravity
to their god Yahweh, so they are stuck with the embarrassing task
of having to defend them with the same old tired arguments that
have failed over and over again to explain the problem: "If
God can give life, then he has the right to take life." "Those
heathen children and babies went to heaven instead of growing
up to be evil like their parents."
Is there any hope for mankind as long as presumably intelligent
people sit in pews and gullibly swallow such drivel as this?
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