An Unbelievable Story

From the Errancy Discussion List, 1997:

Izz 4/29
Three million people leave Eygpt, and we have no records of it by the 
Egyptians. Strong evidence that it simply did not happen, or that the
numbers are highly exaggerated. Maybe at one time 300 people left, 
and the tale later grew in the telling. But we have already swallowed
greater miracles than believing in the size of the exodus. At the start,
we had to believe that sticks turned into snakes and rivers to blood.
And we had to believe in the slapstick story, that it was not enough
that Aaron created a plague of frogs; Pharaohs's magicians created
a plague of even more frogs! I bet that made Pharaoh happy:

Exodus 8:6-7 "So Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt,

and the frogs came up and covered the land. But the magicians did the
same things by their secret arts; they also made frogs come up on the
land of Egypt."

Yoel has pointed out that the Bible was pornographic; here we see it also
invented comedy. Pharaoh probably lined up his magicians and slapped
them all at once, like in the "Three Stooges", for being idiots and making
more frogs.

TILL
This is a point that I made in a written debate with Jerry Moffitt, which
he has apparently abandoned. It is unreasonable to believe that when
Aaron and Moses changed all of the water throughout all the land of
Egypt into blood, pharaoh's magicians would have done "likewise with
their enchantments." Well, as I have already noted in an X but not X
posting, it would have been a logical impossibility for the magicians to
have done likewise with their enchantments, because there would have
been no water left for them to change into blood. But if we assume that
such a feat was logically possible, it was certainly a stupid act on
pharaoh's part. If, for example, terrorists should contaminate all water
east of the Mississippi with a deadly chemical, the president would be
an idiot if he ordered his agents to do the same thing to all water west
of the Mississippi. How idiotic! The story would have been more
reasonable if the magicians had been presented as agents of
pharaoh who undid the plagues that Aaron and Moses inflicted on
Egypt. Instead, we find this tit-for-tat premise in the story of the plagues.
At the beginning whatever Aaron and Moses did, the magicians did
likewise with their enchantments. A & M changed all of the water
in Egypt into blood, and then the magicians somehow changed all of
the water in Egypt into blood. A  M brought forth the plague of frogs,
and then the magicians brought forth even more frogs. Who can believe
such nonsense? Why didn't the magicians show their power by taking
away all of the frogs?

Farrell Till

A Letter To A Concerned Christian Friend [republished from 11-26-13]

(updated 11-26-13)
by Kenneth W. Hawthorne

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. As I hope you will see, these were the only real choices that 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. His love for man, and thus his desire that no one perish, being part of his omni character, he could not have wanted something that would cause an infinite eternal calamity to his beloved human creation. It is obvious that his love for man, together with his omnipotence and sovereignty would not have permitted this eternal tragedy to happen and 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—free will with the inability to sin? Because he loves man, wants no one to perish, is omnipotent and sovereign, and there was no necessity that man be created in a scenario in which the vast majority would perish, he would have had to have created man this way (or something similar) or not have created man at all. 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 the first human was ever created, 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 [Yahweh] cannot do two mutually exclusive things at the same time. He cannot give man free-will and make him incapable of sinning. [This was added 11-26-13]

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 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 would 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?

An Example Of A Valid Inerrancy Test

From the Errancy Discussion List, 11-14-95:

RH All right, I think inerrancy is a good test to use because the Bible is alleged to be the word of God and to be so, it must not contain any errors.

If the Bible contains errors, or is errant, it cannot be the word of God.

Inerrancy is one test that I think we should use to determine if the Bible is the word of God. What else is needed?

TILL: I don't think we are communicating on this point, Roger. I'm trying to find out how one can go about "testing for inerrancy." I can't really see that fundamentalists "test" inerrancy. When confronted with a text whose face-value meaning contradicts the face-value meaning of another text, they just arbitrarily assign a figurative or possible-but-unlikely meaning to one of the texts. I can't see that this is a valid way to test inerrancy. As I have offered to do in past postings, if you or anyone will send me an example of contradiction or inconsistency in a nonbiblical historical document, I will use inerrantist methods to show that the contradiction or inconsistency doesn't exist when my "explanation" is accepted. However, I can't see that such an explanation would constitute a valid test for inerrancy in the document, because it lacks corroborative proof and fails to recognize the possibility that errancy might actually exist in the text.

Let me give an example of what I think would constitute a valid inerrancy test. The Bible says that David killed a Philistine warrior named Goliath who had a spear whose"staff was like a weaver's beam" (1 Samuel 17:7), but 2 Samuel 21:19 says that the Philistine Goliath "whose spear was like a weaver's beam" was killed by Elhanan. Errantists consider this a "doublet" that found its way into the Bible by writers who incorporated two separate versions of a legend into 1 Samuel. In one legend, David killed Goliath; in the other Elhanan killed Goliath. Inerrantists, however, argue that this is not a doublet, but separate incidents. In other words, there were two Goliaths 'whose spear was like a weaver's beam." David killed one of the Goliaths; Elhanan killed the other. Period, end of the discussion! The discrepancy is resolved, and the Bible has passed the "test" of inerrancy.

Inerrantists, however, fail to realize that just because the postulation of two Goliaths conveniently resolves the problem, it in no way proves that there really were two Goliaths. However, the problem could be satisfactorily resolved if archaeologists should discover extrabiblical records left by the Philistines that clearly and unequivocally refer to the existence of two giants named Goliath. We would also need some kind of archaeological evidence that David existed, because many scholars consider him to be sort of the "King Arthur" of Hebrew folklore. To date, archaeologists have discovered only two very questionable references to David in nonbiblical references. Archaeologists have discovered nonbiblical references to Ahab, Omri, and several other Israelite kings less prominent than David but no indisputable references to David, the most famous king of them all, and this seems strange indeed in view of the prominence that he was given in biblical documents. So if confirmation of David's existence and the existence of two Goliaths could be obtained through extrabiblical records, this would be a reasonable confirmation of the Bible's accuracy in its references to two Goliaths. In the absence of such evidence, however, the two-Goliaths explanation of the inerrantists is pure speculation that proves nothing at all about the Bible's accuracy in this matter.

Farrell Till

The Prophecy Farce

From *The Skeptical Review*, May/June 1998:

By Farrell Till 

What about all of the prophecy fulfillments? Biblicists almost always ask this question when their belief in biblical inerrancy is challenged. No doubt those who ask the question sincerely believe that prophecy fulfillment is irrefutable proof that the Bible was divinely inspired, but in reality the question reflects a naive view of the Bible for which no credible evidence exists. The "evidence" most often cited by prophecy-fulfillment proponents will usually fall into two categories: (1) Unverifiable claims by biased biblical writers that certain events fulfilled certain prophecies. (2) "Fulfillments" of prophecies that were probably written after the fact. Anyone can successfully refute prophecy-fulfillment assertions by simply demanding clear evidence when confronted with either category of claims. In other words, if a biblicist cites a New Testament claim that such and such event fulfilled such and such prophecy, simply insist on seeing reliable nonbiblical corroboration that the alleged fulfillment event actually happened. Herod's massacre of the children in Bethlehem would be an example of an uncorroborated event. The massacre allegedly fulfilled an Old Testament prophecy (Matt. 2:18), but no one has ever found an extrabiblical source that corroborates the lone biblical reference to this event. If corroborating evidence of a fulfillment event should exist, then demand evidence that the "prophecy" of this event was undeniably written before the event. In the debate over Jeremiah's 70-year prophecy, which resumes in this issue of TSR (pp. 4-11), the demand for clear, undeniable evidence that this prophecy was made before the fact has proven to be an insurmountable hurdle for Dr. Price, who has yet to produce extrabiblical corroboration of the prophecy.

Another--and even more effective-- counterargument to use against those who claim that prophecy fulfillment proves the inspiration of the Bible requires sufficient knowledge of the Bible to show that many Old Testament prophecies obviously failed. Anyone who is willing to put the time into learning just a few of those failures will have no problems rebutting the prophecy-fulfillment claims of any biblicists he/she may encounter. The prophetic tirades of Isaiah (13-23) and Ezekiel (24-32) against the nations surrounding Israel provide a treasure house of unfulfilled prophecies. Ezekiel, for example, prophesied that Nebuchadnezzar would destroy Egypt and leave it utterly desolate for a period of 40 years, during which no foot of man or beast would pass through it (chapter 29), but history recorded no such desolation of Egypt during or after the reign of Nebuchadnezzar.

Bible Biology

From *The Skeptical Review*, 1991 March-April:

By Farrell Till 

An earlier article ("What About Scientific Foreknowledge in the Bible?" Fall 1990), debunked the fundamentalist claim that the truth of verbal inspiration can be verified by places in the Bible text where writers demonstrated knowledge of scientific facts that were unknown at the time the Bible was being written. The intent of the claim is to "prove" that Bible writers "foreknew" these scientific facts because God revealed them through the process of verbal inspiration, but, as my article showed, scientific foreknowledge in the Bible can be found only in the eisegetical interpretations of bibliolaters shamelessly bent on clinging to an untenable view of the Bible. In reality, there is no more "scientific foreknowledge" in the Bible than in any other literature of the same era.

If it were really true that Bible authors revealed in their works scientific facts that were not discovered until centuries later, this would indeed be a formidable argument for the verbal inspiration of the Bible, but the evidence that bibliolaters point to to prove their theory is entirely too speculative to be convincing. Some inerrantists, for example, have absurdly seen evidence that the Bible foresaw the potential for using electricity to send messages. In speaking to Job from the whirlwind, Yahweh asked him, "Can you send forth lightnings, that they may go, and say to you, Here we are?" (Job 38:35). In Why We Believe the Bible, George DeHoff made this comment on the verse:

Job could not do this but we are able to do so today as we talk on the telephone and radio and send our messages by telegraph. Truly the lightning goeth and saith for us (p. 55).

There are so many absurdities in this application of the verse that I hardly know where to begin commenting on them. For one thing, it violates a principle of common sense that should tell DeHoff and his inerrancy cohorts that a clear-cut, undeniable case of scientific foreknowledge would have to be stated in language so obvious in meaning that there could be no disagreement in interpretation. In my response to Jerry McDonald's article elsewhere in this issue, I used the rule of Occam's razor to discredit his claim that Hosea meant for "the blood of Jezreel" to refer to the murder of Naboth. The rule is equally applicable to DeHoff's claim of scientific foreknowledge in a simple statement about lightning. As long as it is possible for the statement to mean something less complex than the supernatural insight of a primitive writer into the physics of transmitting sound by electricity, then there is no force at all to the claim that this is an example of scientific foreknowledge.

The Absence Of Evidence (2)

From *The Skeptical Review*, March/April 2002:

By Farrell Till 

A favorite saying of apologists who have no evidence to support their positions is that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. In other words, they mean that just because they cannot find evidence that a biblical event happened or a biblical character or place existed is not evidence that what the Bible says did not happen or did not exist. We saw Everette Hatcher pursuing this line of reasoning when he was unable to cite extrabiblical evidence to corroborate the claim in Daniel that "Darius the Mede" was an actual historical character. In defense of the absence of any extrabiblical references to "Darius the Mede," Hatcher took a familiar track and argued that because such references to Darius the Mede had not yet been found did not mean that they would never be found. He quoted a comment that Dr. Wayne Bindle, a professor at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, had made to him in a personal e-mail. It seems that professor Bindle thinks that I haven't learned very much from the archaeological discoveries in the past 200 years of biblical names that had previously been unknown in extrabiblical records (TSR, March/April 2001, p. 3). The professor didn't cite any examples, so I have no way of knowing what specific names he was talking about. His argument, however, was obvious: the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. In this case, Bindle was carrying the argument a step further and suggesting that although no such records of Darius the Mede have yet been found, they will very likely be discovered someday.

Hatcher has joined the Errancy internet list to continue our debate on the authorship and inerrancy of the book of Daniel, and he continues to rely on the absence-of-evidence argument as a catch-all explanation to any lack of real evidence to support his claims. On January 1, 2002, he said the following in defense of his position that "Darius the Mede" was an actual historical person.

Archaeology is silent on the point of who Darius the Mede was, and if Till wants to base his argument on this kind of silent evidence he needs to remember how fast theories against the Bible like this have disappeared in the past when the spade of the archaeologist has turned up new information about ancient civilizations. The Hittites are just one example from the last century.

This is actually an argument that assumes biblical inerrancy, because the person who so reasons is really saying that if evidence to corroborate biblical claims hasn't yet been discovered, it probably will be found someday, since everything the Bible says is true. I'm sure that Hatcher or any other biblical inerrantist wouldn't be at all impressed if a Mormon used the same argument in support of archaeological silence about pre-Columbian civilizations mentioned in the book of Mormon, because he would recognize that it is probable that archaeology is silent about claims in the book of Mormon for the simple reason that the places, people, and events in those claims were not real.

A Question For Readers Of This Blog

The following question is directed to anyone who may be reading this. I ask for an answer as well as an explanation of your answer to this question. Thank you in advance for your participation. I hope that your answers and explanations will help start a lively and rewarding discussion of this important issue:

The Bible teaches that its God is all knowing, all powerful, all loving and compassionate, complete and perfect, therefore having no needs, as well as being sovereign. However, the Bible also teaches that its God will send the majority of people to its eternal hell to suffer forever (Matt 7:13-14). Do you agree that these two teachings contradict each other? Please explain.

The Absence Of Convincing Evidence For An Historical Jesus Christ

An excellent discussion on the absence of any unbiased, disinterested, 
contemporary historical evidence for Jesus Christ. Why wouldn't  the 
god of the Bible, if he is the true God, have providentially provided such 
considering the extreme, eternal consequences for unbelief? From the 
Errancyn Discussion list, 7-21-98:

Till

If the historical evidence for the existence of Jesus of Nazareth is so

overwhelming, why can't you produce records and references that were 

left by disinterested contemporary parties?

KENT

Obviously Mr. Till, any writing which mentions Jesus Christ you would

consider either a "biased writing" or in error. Luke was a Greek doctor

writing an account of Jesus' life and the early church for a Greek

(Theophilus)... but oops! He mentions Jesus... he's a biased religious

writer. Don't you see the fallacy of your position?

TILL

Do you deny that Luke was a proponent of Christianity? After all, he

alleged in the book of Acts that he was a companion of the apostle Paul on

his missionary journeys. That hardly sounds like a disinterested, unbiased

spokesman. So, no, I don't see the fallacy of my position. Why don't you

find records from contemporaries who hated and despised Jesus, just as we

can find contemporary references to Thomas Paine that were made 

by people who disliked him? That kind of evidence would be convincing, 

but, alas, there is no such evidence, and so you can do nothing but cry and 

accuse me of fallacious reasoning.

Is Jesus A Counterfeit?

From *The Skeptical Review*, 1994 / May-June:

By Farrell Till 
In the Till-Dobbs Debate, fundamentalist preacher and editor Buster Dobbs asserted  that the Book of Mormon is an obvious counterfeit and then proceeded to parrot the trite old argument that says the existence of a counterfeit proves the existence of the real thing. A counterfeit dollar, for example, can exist only because real or authentic dollars exist. To Dobbs, needless to say, the Bible is the "real" inspired book that the Book of Mormon counterfeited.

The argument is absurd, of course, because entirely theoretical objects can be conceptualized and made without proving the existence of real or authentic specimens of whatever the objects are supposed to represent. One could make metal coins and claim that they are replicas of coins that are used on Mars, but the existence of these "counterfeits" would in no way prove that Martian coins really do exist. In the same way, the writing of a phony "bible," which a religious group tries to present as a book that was inspired of God, does not prove that a "real" divinely inspired book exists. It is far more probable that such a book is just one more example of a holy book for which sincere but mistaken claims of divine origin are made.

For the sake of argument, however, let's just grant Mr. Dobbs his point: the existence of a counterfeit known as the Book of Mormon does prove that a "real" divinely inspired book exists. Even with this concession, his argument begs the question by assuming that the Bible is the genuine holy book that was divinely inspired. One could just as logically argue that the Book of Mormon counterfeited the Avesta, an allegedly inspired book that antedates the Bible by many centuries. Dobbs, however, would never agree that the Book of Mormon "counterfeited" the Avesta, because he doesn't believe that the Avesta was divinely inspired. He would ridicule the logic of anyone who would use such an argument to prove the divine origin of the Avesta, yet he apparently can't see that the argument has no more merit when applied to the Bible.

What Franchise?

By Emo Philips:
Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, "Don't do it!"

He said, "Nobody loves me."

I said, "God loves you. Do you believe in God?"

He said, "Yes."

I said, "Are you a Christian or a Jew?"

He said, "A Christian."

I said, "Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?"

He said, "Protestant."

I said, "Me, too! What franchise?"

He said, "Baptist."

I said, "Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?"

He said, "Northern Baptist."

I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?"

He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist."

I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region."

I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?"

He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912."

I said, "Die, heretic!" And I pushed him over.

* Voted 44th funniest joke of all time in "The 75 Funniest Jokes of All Time" in GQ magazine (June 1999).