Did They Or Didn't They? (4)

This is the fourth in a series of four articles from *The Skeptical Review* designed to show inconsistencies in the resurrection accounts of the four gospels:

By Farrell Till 

In the Autumn 1991 issue, we began a series of articles designed to show inconsistencies in the resurrection accounts of the four gospels. Gallons of ink have been used in attempts to explain away these inconsistencies, but some of the variations in the accounts are so discrepant that only the very gullible could possibly believe the far-fetched scenarios that bibliolaters have resorted to in trying to harmonize them. Of these discrepancies, none is more obvious than the variations in what the gospel writers said that the women did to spread word of the empty tomb after hearing from the angel(s) that Jesus had risen from the dead.

Matthew and Luke both said that the women hurried from the tomb to tell the disciples what the angel(s) had told them (Matt. 28:8; Luke 24:9). Even John, whose version of the story differs significantly from the synoptic accounts, said that Mary Magdalene ran to find Peter and "the other disciple" to tell them that the body of Jesus had been taken away (20:2). Three of the gospel writers, then, clearly depicted the eagerness of the women to report to the disciples what they had found at the empty tomb.

Mark, however, recorded this part of the story in an entirely different way. After telling of their encounter with an angel, who told them that Jesus was risen and that they should go tell the disciples to meet him in Galilee (16:6-7), Mark said that the women were too frightened to tell others what they had seen:

And they went out, and fled from the tomb; for trembling and astonishment had come upon them: and they said nothing to anyone; for they were afraid (v:8).

The discrepancy is obvious, but it is even more obvious if Matthew's and Luke's accounts are juxtaposed with Mark's:

And they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to bring his disciples word (Matt. 28:8).And they remembered his (Jesus's) words and returned from the tomb, and told all these things to the eleven, and to all the rest (Luke 24:8-9).

Luke's account even recorded an alleged conversation between Jesus and two disciples (on resurrection day) in which one of the disciples said that the women had reported finding the tomb empty:

Moreover, certain women of our company amazed us, having been early at the tomb; and when they found not his body, they came, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive (24:22-23).

So the facts in this matter are apparent enough: three gospel writers said that the women ran to report the empty tomb; one said that they were so frightened by what they had seen that "they said nothing to anyone." A rule of evidence noted in an earlier article in this series ("The Resurrection Maze," Spring 1992, p. 12) states that two or more contradictory statements cannot all be right. So who was right in the way this part of the resurrection story was told? Were Matthew, Luke, and John right in saying that the women ran to report the empty tomb to the other disciples? Or was Mark right when he said that they were so frightened that they said "nothing to anyone"? Did they tell anyone what they had seen or didn't they? That's the problem that inerrantists must resolve.

The Resurrection Maze (3)

This is the third of a series of four articles from *The Skeptical Review* designed to show inconsistencies in the resurrection accounts of the four gospels:

By Farrell Till 

When two or more statements contradict one another, they cannot all be right. If we apply this rule of evidence to the testimony of the "eyewitnesses" to the resurrection, we have to conclude that at least some of the testimony was erroneous. If some of it was erroneous, then the Bible inerrancy doctrine itself must be erroneous.

Inconsistencies in the four gospel accounts of the resurrection are too numerous to discuss in a single article, so I will limit discussion at this time to just a few. Matthew began his narrative of the events of that day by telling us that Mary Magdalene and "the other Mary" went to the sepulcher "as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week" (28:1). The time factor that he identified contrasts sharply with the testimony of Mark, Luke, and John, who said, respectively, that the time was "very early on the first day of the week... when the sun was risen" (16:1) or "on the first day of the week, at early dawn" (24:1) or "on the first day of the week... while it was yet dark" (20:1). By stretching imagination, perhaps we could reconcile the testimony of Matthew and Luke. If it was "beginning to dawn toward the first day of the week," we could maybe grant that this could be called "early dawn," but how could the sun already be risen if it was only beginning to dawn? And if the sun had already risen, as Mark claimed, how could it have been "yet dark," as John said? For that matter, how could it have been "yet dark" if the morning had reached any stage that could be correctly described as "dawn"? I grew up on a farm, so I can remember getting up many times as it was "beginning to dawn" or while it was still "early dawn," but it certainly wasn't "yet dark." By looking outside, I could see clearly enough to recognize objects. Certainly by the time the sun had risen, it was never "yet dark" outside. So how could it possibly be that John was right in the time factor that he specified but the other three were also right in their time factors? This is a chronological discrepancy that bibliolaters have never satisfactorily explained.

As noted, Matthew said that Mary Magdalene and "the other Mary" went to the tomb. Mark identified the women as "Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome" (16:1). Luke said that the women who went to the tomb were "Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them" (24:10), and John mentioned only Mary Magdalene (20:1). We have all heard the Gleason Archer-John Haley type of explanation for the "variances" in these names. Matthew chose to identify only two of the women, John chose to identify only one, but their failure to mention the presence of Salome or Joanna or "the other women" would not mean that they were not there. The same line of reasoning is usually applied to the variations in the number of angels reported at the scene. Matthew said that "an angel" (one) descended from heaven (28:2). Mark spoke of "a young man... arrayed in a white robe" (16:5), who was presumably an angel, but Luke (24:4) and John (20:12) wrote of two angels. If there were two, then there had to be one, inerrantists will say, but in a matter as vitally important as the testimony to a resurrection, inspired by an omniscient, omnipotent deity, this kind of "explanation" has dubious merit at best. However, it is the stock explanation of inerrancy defenders in matters like these, so I will simply mention it, leave it to the readers to judge its merit, and go on to other discrepancies that no stretch of imagination can satisfactorily resolve.

Did They Tarry In The City? (2)

This is the second of a series of four articles from *The Skeptical Review* designed to show inconsistencies in the resurrection accounts of the four gospels:

By Farrell Till 
So much depends on the resurrection of Jesus. Without it, the whole superstructure of Christianity would collapse. To this, agreed even the Apostle Paul, whom some New Testament scholars consider to be the real architect of Christianity:

(I)f Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable (1 Cor. 15:17-19, KJV).

As vital to Christianity as the resurrection is, it rests upon the flimsiest of evidence: four contradictory "gospel" accounts and some scattered references in the New Testament epistles to a risen Messiah. And that's it. As far as scholars have been able to determine, none of the gospel accounts of the resurrection were written by anyone who could have been an eyewitness to the event, and most of the epistolary references to it were made by the Apostle Paul, who by his own admission did not witness it either. He claimed that he had seen the resurrected Jesus in a vision on the road to Damascus.

The contradictory nature of the hearsay accounts of the resurrection constitute the most damaging evidence against it. If alleged eyewitnesses to an event as extraordinary as the revivification of a dead man should contradict themselves in a court of law as patently as did the writers of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in their telling of the resurrection story, no intelligent jurors would give a speck of credence to their testimony, yet millions of Christians have accepted a resurrection story that is riddled with discrepancies.

In future issues of TSR, we will look at several points of discrepancy in the four resurrection accounts, but for now I will focus on just one: an alleged post-resurrection appearance of Jesus on a mountain in Galilee. If one were to ask a Christian versed in the scriptures if the disciples of Jesus met him in Galilee after his resurrection, the answer would surely be, "Yes, they did." After all, Matthew, writing about postresurrection events, clearly said, "But the eleven disciples went into Galilee, unto the mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And when they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted" (28:16-27).

That seems clear enough, and if Matthew had been the only one to write about postresurrection events, this meeting in Galilee would certainly be believable to anyone who could accept the premise that a dead man had been resurrected. Considered in the context of all four gospel accounts of the resurrection, however, this meeting in Galilee poses tremendous credibility problems, because Luke said in his gospel that Jesus told his disciples on the night of his resurrection that they were to stay in Jerusalem until they were "clothed with power from on high" (24:49). According to the same writer (Luke), this power came to them about fifty days later when they were baptized in the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost (Acts 1:3-5; 2:1-4), but by then Jesus had already ascended back to heaven, because he had remained on earth only forty days after his resurrection (Acts 1:3). So if Luke was right and Jesus did tell his disciples on the night of his resurrection not to leave Jerusalem until they received "power from on high" and if this power from on high did not come to them until fifty days later and if Jesus remained on earth for only forty days after his resurrection and if the disciples obeyed Jesus's command not to leave Jerusalem until they had received power from on high, how could they have possibly met him on a mountain in Galilee as Matthew claimed?

How Did The Apostles Die?

The following article is from *The Skeptical Review*, 1997/July-August:

By Farrell Till 

Christian apologists, both real and would-be, argue that the willingness of the apostles to die for their faith is proof that the resurrection of Jesus was a real experience in their lives. People will die for what they believe to be true, the argument goes, but they would not die for what they know is not true. In this issue (pp. 10-11), Dave Matson has rebutted this argument by showing how that the postresurrection appearances of Jesus could well have been only imaginary or psychological experiences of those who allegedly claimed that they saw Jesus alive after his death. If so, then the apostles who were martyred (if indeed any were) would have died not for what they knew to be true but only for what they thought they knew was true. There's a big difference.

Just Read It!

*The Skeptical Review*, From the Mailbag, 1996 / November-December:

You recently sent me the first three issues for 1996, and I can hardly believe my eyes. It is so comforting to know that there are so many other people out there who have beliefs similar to my own. Thank you!

I am 21 years old and was raised Catholic. I live in a small religious town in the middle of the bible belt. People my age go to church functions for fun, families give a percentage of each paycheck to their churches, and even go to church to vote! About five years ago, I decided the Catholic religion was a joke and set out to find the truth about God and the "right" religion for me. After reading the bible and applying some common sense, I came to the conclusion that all religions are basically the same and God does not exist. This was a great relief to me, and I have been (happily) an atheist ever since. In fact, I am kind of embarrassed that I believed in something for so long just because other people told me to.

When I told my family that I no longer believed in God, they said I was going through a phase, rebelling, etc. and assured me that I would snap out of it when I grew up. I hope they're not holding their breaths.

Thanks again for The Skeptical Review. I thought I was alone for so long and you have shown me differently. Enclosed is a check for a 2-year subscription.

(Name and address removed, kwh)

The Invention Of Religion

Religion was invented when the first conman met the first fool. ~ Mark Twain 

Biblical Inerrancy And Common Sense

I Samuel tells the story of Yahweh ordering the 
massacre of a whole  nation of people, including 
children--even infants, for something their ancestors 
did approximately 400 years earlier. I have to 
wonder how many Christians even know this story 
is in the Bible. But, alas,  I know how Christians 
reason in other situations found  in the Bible that 
are just as incriminating for their god. They manufacture 
how-it-could-have-been excuses for their god which in 
their deluded minds gets him off the hook. The problem 
is these are nothing but baseless hypotheses--i .e.,  
theories that have nothing to back them up to establish 
them as true. Sad. The following is from the the II Errancy 
discussion list, December, 1999:

CHAD
Did they follow in the ways of their ancestors?

POPE CHARLES
No, god states it was because of their ancestors actions long ago.
See I Samuel 15:2-6. Not because they were bad. But because
of what their ancestors did centuries earlier.

Tim
Chad has been informed of this three times (me, you, Farrell).
I wonder how long he will cling to this explanation, which is not
supported by the Bible.

TILL
This massacre, if it happened, was purely and simply an act 
motivated by a 400-year-old grudge.

2 Thus says Yahweh of hosts, 'I will punish the Amalekites for

what they did in opposing the Israelites when they came up 
out of Egypt.
3 Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that
they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, 
child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.'"

4 So Saul summoned the people, and numbered them in

Telaim, two hundred thousand foot soldiers, and ten thousand 
soldiers of Judah.

5 Saul came to the city of the Amalekites and lay in wait in

the valley.

6 Saul said to the Kenites, "Go! Leave! Withdraw from

 among the Amalekites, or I will destroy you with them; 
for you showed kindness to all the people of Israel when 
they came up out of Egypt." So the Kenites withdrew from 
the Amalekites.

The reason--and the only reason--that Yahweh gave for 

ordering the destruction of the Amalekites was "what they 
did in opposing the Israelites when they came up out of 
Egypt." The reason--and the only reason--that Saul gave 
for allowing the Kenites safe passage out of Amalekite 
territory was that "you showed kindness to all the people 
of Israel when they came up out of Egypt."

All of this inerrantist nonsense about how "wicked" the 
Amalekites were is just a desperation attempt to rationalize 
an atrocity that would shock the moral sensibilities of the 
world community if an army should do something like this 
today. There is nothing--NOTHING--in the Bible that suggests 
that the Amalekites of that time were any more "wicked"
than any other contemporary nation, but even if there were 
such an indication in the Bible, this would not justify the 
order to include even children and infants in the massacre.

If the US army should raid an Indian reservation today for 
the express purpose of avenging an attack that the ancestors 
of these people had made centuries ago, even Bible inerrantists 
would be morally outraged, yet they read the story of the 
Amalekite massacre and lean over backwards to try to
find some way to justify it.

That is what belief in biblical inerrancy will do to a person's 
common sense.

Farrell Till

A Jerusalem Lunatic Asylum

The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence from Jerusalem of a lunatic asylum. ~ Thomas Paine

Kookoo The Tree God

Farrell Till shares a letter to the editor he sent to his local newspaper--From the II Errancy Discussion list, Sept., 2003:

TILL
Here is a letter that I sent to my local newspaper in response to a woman's letter about how prayer had saved her son from death in a car wreck.
----------
Sir/Madam:
In a recent letter to the editor, Mahala Lafferty offered a personal experience she had recently had as evidence that her god answers prayers. After relating a close call her son had had while hauling a tractor on I-474, she concluded that a prayer she had said had saved him from dying 
in a horrible accident. She asked if anyone could now question that her god answers 
prayers.

I regret to say that I do have to question that her prayers had anything to do with her son's narrow escape, because she gave no indication that she had prayed to Kookoo the tree god, who lives in a small grove of trees behind my house. If her prayers were not directed to Kookoo, then she did not pray to the one and only true god, so there is no way that her prayers could have been heard. Kookoo will hear only the prayers of those who believe in him.

I have kept Kookoo's existence a secret for a long time, but Mrs. Lafferty's letter has finally given me the courage to speak out and reveal him to the world. I, of course, have known of Kookoo's existence for a long time. I have had a personal experience with Kookoo and have accepted him as my personal god, and nobody can convince me that I have not experienced what I know that I did experience.

Many times I have prayed to Kookoo, and he has heard my prayers and answered them. I often talk to Kookoo, and he talks to me. How can I deny that I have walked and talked with Kookoo when I know that I have?

Whenever I go on a trip, I ask for Kookoo's protection, and he has always answered my prayers. Even though I have made several airline trips, some of them international flights, none of the airplanes I have flown on ever crashed. In view of such evidence as this, who can deny that Kookoo has not watched over me and answered my prayers?

On a motor trip once, a front tire blew out on my car when I was traveling 70 miles per hour. (Yes, I was fudging a little bit on the speed limit.) The moment I realized what had happened, I uttered a quick prayer to Kookoo, and soon I had the car under control and was able to bring it to a safe stop on the shoulder. I shudder to think of what would have happened to me if Kookoo had not heard my prayer.

To be honest, I must admit that Kookoo has not always given me the things I have prayed for, but I understand why. It wasn't that Kookoo didn't hear and answer my prayers; it was simply that Kookoo's answer was no on those occasions. His ways are higher than my ways, so he understands what is best for me. I always respect the wisdom of his decisions even when I don't get the things I pray for. I know that someday I will understand why Kookoo has often had to tell me no when I prayed.

The good news for everyone is that Kookoo lives and abides everywhere that trees grow. If you have a tree in your yard, you can be assured that Kookoo is there. If you will believe in Kookoo and pray to him in your time of need, you too can know the great joy of a personal experience with Kookoo. I urge everyone to pray to Kookoo in his/her hour of need. There is no joy comparable to the joy of knowing Kookoo the tree god as your personal god.
--------------

This paper has always been willing to publish my letters, but I guess this one was a bit too strong for the editor's taste. It was never published.

Farrell Till

A Discussion On The Believability Of Alleged Bible Miracles

The following is a discussion between Farrell Till and a Christian on the believability of miracles. I have not used the Christian's actual name rather I've used "CHRISTIAN" as the designation for this person. The Christian's irrational logic is amazing--I doubt this person uses such logic in other areas of their life:

       CHRISTIAN 
     Your reasoning is circular.

theist - there are examples of miracles in both biblical and nonbiblical historical accounts - and here are some specific examples.  The presumption in reading historical accounts must be first in favor of the accounts. 

Till - miracles are unbelievable.

theist - why is that? 

Till -   I don't accept proof for miracles. 

theist - why is that? 

Till - because the credibility of any proof is impeached by the claim itself. 

theist - why is that? 

Till - because miracles are unbelievable

TILL

No, no, you are misrepresenting my position, so I will have to rewrite your little script.

CHRISTIAN  

No, I think I got it right.

TILL
Yes, we know you think you are **** on a stick.  (That's a saying from the 1940s that you may not understand, but it isn't a compliment.)

Till: Miracles are unbelievable. 

Theist: Why is that? 

Till: Because no verifiable miracle has ever been demonstrated.

CHRISTIAN
First, you must define what you mean by "verifiable."