Clearing Things Up

Till brings a biblicist back down to earth. From the Yahoo group, Alt. Bible Errancy, April 20, 2003:

Gray
Give the slightest objective proof, if possible, that Jesus still

exists, or ever existed, for that matter. You can't.

Larry
Gray, since you believe that he doesn't or ever has existed,

wouldn't you have to prove your point also? Do you believe 
that he doesn't exist, or do you know he doesn't exist? Could 
you give me conclusive evidence that Jesus doesn't exist? 
Maybe it's like trying to prove that you are Steve Gray! How 
would you prove that you are who you say you are?

TILL
Uh, excuse me, Larry, but he who asserts must prove. If I 
asserted that fairies exist, would you feel any obligation to 
prove that fairies do not exist?

Farrell Till

An Omni God And His Eternal Hell (2)

by Kenneth W. Hawthorne

The Bible presents its god, Yahweh, as having amazing supernatural characteristics:

1) Omniscient- It is claimed that this god knows all, past, present and future. One very interesting bit of knowledge that this god is claimed to have is found in Mt 7:13-14. This verse teaches that man's ultimate destination is either heaven or hell. And that this god knew before creating the first human, that if he went ahead with this plan to create man found in the Bible, that this version of man would be so flawed that most would wind up in hell.

How Likely Is It? (4)

From the Errancy Discussion list, 5-4-97:

TILL
After the Israelites saw another demonstration of Yahweh's power 
when he afflicted Miriam with leprosy for daring to challenge the 
leadership of Moses, they traveled from Hazeroth and camped in 
the Wilderness of Paran. Surely, the people had seen enough by 
now to understand that their god Yahweh was all-powerful, able 
to provide them with their every need, and above all not to be 
crossed in any way, but such was not the case. While they were 
at Paran, Moses sent spies into the land of Canaan to "see the
land, what it is, and the people therein, whether they are few or 
many, and what the land is that they dwell in, whether it is good 
or bad, and what cities they dwell in, whether in camps or in 
strongholds, and what the land is, whether it is fat or lean, 
whether there is wood therein, or not" (Num. 13:17-20). At 
this point, rational readers of these stories can only ask, "Why 
would Moses, of all people, have sent spies into Canaan to find 
out all these things?" He had routinely met and chatted with the 
all-powerful Yahweh, who had already told him that Canaan was 
a land "flowing with milk and honey" (Ex. 3:8, 17), so are we 
supposed to understand that after all of the demonstrations of 
Yahweh's might and power, Moses wasn't quiet sure to believe 
him about the abundance of the land unless he had independent
confirmation from a band of spies? We also have to wonder why 
Moses would have been concerned about whether there was 
"wood therein," because the Israelites had been incinerating 
animals by the millions in the wilderness of Sinai, on an altar 
whose fire never went out, so if they could find enough wood 
for that in a desert wilderness, Moses shouldn't have been too
concerned about whether there was wood in the land flowing 
with milk and honey.

The Omniscient Yahweh Changes His Mind?

From the Errancy Discussion list, 12-24-98:

Exodus 32:7-14

>BROTHER MICHAEL
Perhaps I did not make myself sufficiently clear; only 

in the rarest of instances is one justified in disobeying 

God or one of His prophets. These three instances are, I 

believe, the only such instances in the OT. Let's look 

briefly at them.

>     

>A. Exodus 32:7-14: Although Moses resisted God, and God 

changed His mind, it is still possible that if Moses had 

stepped aside and allowed God to destroy that disobedient 

generation of Israelites, and start over again with just 

Moses and his immediate family, things ultimately might 

have turned out better all around, although there is no 

way of knowing for sure. So I cannot say for certain that 

Moses did the right thing in resisting God. After the same 

manner, God gave Israel a king when they rejected Him as 

being their only King, and wanted a king just like the 

nations round about.

>

>DAVIS
Hold it, Michael! I may not be as learned and erudite as 

other posters, but I can tell when something's rotten. Why 

am I expected to believe that an omniscient, prescient, and 

omnipotent being like YHWH can be argued out of His intention 

by a former shepherd? Admittedly, YHWH was a bit out of sorts 

that day, acting like a child throwing a temper tantrum, but 

still, to lose an argument with a mere human?  What kind of 

god are you selling here?  This is a god who changes his mind?  

To use biblical language a god who can "repent"?


TILL
The incident that Michael referred to here is just one of many 

that could be cited to show the absurdity of believing that the 

Bible is the inspired work of an omniscient, omnipotent deity.  

I cited this example in my series of postings about a year ago 

that were intended to show the logistic impossibilities in some 

of the wilderness-wandering stories.  Few inerrantist attempts 

were made to resolve the many problems that I identified in those 

postings.  If Fitzpatrick keeps spamming us with cut-and-paste 

jobs, I'm going to forward those postings to him and ask him

to resolve the problems identified in them.

Farrell Till

How Likely Is It? (3)

From the Errancy Discussion list, 5-3-97:

Till

After the Israelites had seen Yahweh deliver them from the Egyptians by

parting the Red Sea so that they could cross on dry land and then sending

the water crashing in on the Egyptian army, they sang a hymn of praise to

Yahweh and turned inland to march across the Sinai, but they had traveled

only three days from the Red Sea when they began to complain because

there was no water to drink (Exodus 15:22-24).

How Likely Is It? (2)

From *The Skeptical Review*, 1993/July-August:

by Farrell Till 
When Pharaoh refused to release the Israelites from Egyptian bondage, the Hebrew god Yahweh performed wonders unlike anything the world had ever seen. Ten plagues were rained down on Egypt with the implication--and sometimes even direct statement--that the Israelites were spared the horrors of the plagues. When hordes of flies swarmed over Egypt, the land of Goshen, where the Israelites dwelt, was "set apart" so that "no swarms of flies [would] be there" (Ex. 8:22). Likewise, when the plague of murrain decimated the flocks of Egypt, the livestock of the Israelites was spared (9:6). When the hail came, which was more grievous than any hail that had ever struck Egypt (9:24), none fell on the Israelites in the land of Goshen (v:26). When darkness fell over the land, the Israelites "had light in their dwellings" (10:23), and when the firstborn of Egypt were struck dead, the firstborn of the Israelites were saved through the Passover ceremony.

To say the least, those Israelites witnessed some amazing miracles while Moses and Aaron worked to gain their release from bondage, but the wonders didn't cease when Pharaoh finally relented and gave permission for the people to leave Egypt. They saw Yahweh going before them in "a pillar of cloud" by day and in "a pillar of fire" by night (13:21). And these were not just occasional appearances that Yahweh made to the people, because "the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night departed not from before the people" as they marched out of Egypt (v:21).

How Likely Is It? (1)

The following is a very thought-provoking post by the late Farrell Till (1933-2012) from the Errancy Discussion list from May 2, 1997. I will be posting a lot of the comments of Farrell Till from the Errancy Discussion list and elsewhere. Till was a former Church-of-Christ preacher; and being a former member of the Church of Christ myself, I appreciate his perspective on the errancy of the Bible. I hope to preserve many of his scholarly, insightful thoughts on this blog:
 
The postings I have been sending about absurdities in the stories of the

exodus and subsequent wilderness wanderings have not been intended to
establish contradiction but to show that the stories are so obviously
unreasonable that no rational person can believe that they actually
happened. Since ancient literature in particular is characterized by
widespread references to miraculous events, the only reasonable way to
assess the events is to critically examine each one in terms of how likely
it is that such events did indeed happen. When this principle is applied to
the conduct of the Israelites throughout the exodus and the wilderness
wanderings, rational people must conclude that it is not very likely that
most of these stories happened as recorded in the Bible.

A detailed analysis of Israelite behavior during and after the exodus may
take as many as two or three postings, but before I begin them, let's first
make a comparison that will help illustrate the problem. [Note: Please find 
under the label, *How Likely Is It?*, a 13-part series entitled *Tall Tales of 
Wilderness Wanderings*, kwh] On this list, we have seen that biblical 
inerrantists will cling to their belief in their god and the inerrancy of the 
Bible no matter how much compelling evidence to the contrary is presented. 
When confronted with glaring biblical inconsistencies or discrepancies, 
they will simply fabricate some how-it-could-have-been interpretations and 
stubbornly insist that biblical errancy has not been proven. Not a one of 
them has ever seen their god, talked to him, or seen him perform miracles 
like the parting of the Red Sea, bringing water from rocks, sending manna 
from heaven, and such like, yet despite the absence of such convincing 
evidence as this, they still maintain their belief that this god exists and that 
he verbally inspired the Bible.

Only very rarely is the faith of an inerrantist shaken badly enough to cause
him to reject his belief. On the other hand, we have the Israelites who had
their god going before them in a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night,
coming down and speaking to them, and performing all sorts of wondrous
miracles. Despite these amazing demonstrations of their god's presence
in their midst, they were constantly bellyaching and rebelling. My postings
that follow this one will be designed to show that it is not at all likely that reasonable people would have behaved as the Israelites did; hence,
it is not at all likely that these stories happened as they are recorded in
the Bible.

Farrell Till

"God's" Inconsistency

They say that God says to me, "Forgive your enemies." I say, "I do;" but he says, "I will damn mine." God should be consistent. If he wants me to forgive my enemies he should forgive his. I am asked to forgive enemies who can hurt me. God is only asked to forgive enemies who cannot hurt him. He certainly ought to be as generous as he asks us to be. ~Robert Ingersoll

The "Everything Problem"

From the Mailbag section of *The Skeptical Review* (sorry, I don't remember which issue):

Letter to Hatcher...

I read your articles in The Skeptical Review. I was raised a Christian and am now an unbeliever, and wanted to share with you what I believe to be the greatest problem with the Bible.

I used to be an attorney (I now work in high tech), and I once represented a young man who was accused of stealing a lot of money from his employer. There was a lot of accusatory evidence, and for what it's worth his wife and his attorney both believed him to be guilty. For every piece of incriminating evidence he had an answer. For example, he had forged someone's signature on a number of documents; he said that person had verbally authorized him to do so. (The person had since died and was not available to either corroborate or disprove my client's statements.) He claimed to have made a trip on company business but there was no record of the trip having actually been made; he claimed that company officials had instructed him to travel incognito because of the highly sensitive nature of ongoing negotiations. And on and on it went.

At some point, the problem with his case became no one piece of evidence, but the cumulative weight of everything. And at some point it really didn't matter that he had an answer for everything; people just stopped listening.

That's the problem I have with the Bible. It contains a whole lot of what on the surface appears to be contradictions, historical inaccuracies, scientific inaccuracies, absurdities and outrages. Inerrantists such as you have an answer for every blessed one of them, your current discussion with Farrell Till about the Book of Daniel being a case in point.

But the real problem with your case, as I see it, is not whether you can answer this skeptical argument or that one; it is that there is such a multitude of problems with the text that at some point it just doesn't matter any more. The cumulative weight of contradictions, inconsistencies, historical inaccuracies and the like are just too much. I call this the "Everything Problem," and, brother, you've got it bad.
(Mel Dahl)

The Historicity Of Jesus

More common sense from Farrell Till concerning the 
historicity of Jesus (read Mt 27:45-55 to get the 
background for the following comments). From the 
Errancy Discussion list, 19 June 1997:

> TILL
> Peter, there are arguments from silence, and there are arguments from
> silence. It is unreasonable, for example, to suppose that certain events
> could happen and go unnoticed in contemporary records. How likely 
   would it be that the bombing in Oklahoma City would not have been 
   mentioned in contemporary records?

KIRBY
OK, I'll buy that. I would agree with you that the saints and the darkness
probably didn't happen. This only seems to have relevance to the doctrine
of inerrancy, not the historicity of Jesus.

TILL
But can't you see! The complete silence of secular contemporary records on
the life of a man who allegedly attracted multitudes from foreign countries
and surrounding towns and cities, and performed in their presence all sorts
of amazing signs and wonders makes it extremely important that the writings
about him that were left by his avowed disciples be exceptionally
trustworthy, but how can anyone consider records trustworthy that contain so
many impossible-to-believe entries like the three-hour period of darkness
and the resurrection of the many saints? If we wouldn't give claims like
these the time of day if we found them in any other book, why should we
accord them any more consideration just because they are found in a book
with "Holy Bible" embossed on the cover?

My argument all along has been that the NT gospels are so saturated with
fantastic claims about this man Jesus that, without extrabiblical
corroboration, it is impossible to determine what is fact and what is
fiction. Unfortunately for the Christian position, there just are not any
extrabiblical corroborations for its central claim of a resurrection from
the dead.

>TILL
> Far more likely than that a three-hour period of
> darkness from the failure of the sun's light would go unmentioned.
> Josephus's father was a priest "of great reputation in Jerusalem" (*The
    Life of Flavius Josephus,* 1:2), who would have therefore moved in priestly
> circles at the time Jesus was allegedly tried, crucified, and resurrected.
> Chapter 1 of the autobiograph will give a chronology that establishes the
> time frame. Matthias would have been in his 20s at the time. Chapter 2
> discusses Josephus's education, but he makes no mention of his father 
   ever having referred to the extraordinary events that allegedly 
   accompanied the crucifixion of a man named Jesus. I find this very 
   unbelievable and a most compelling "argument from silence."

KIRBY
I think you mean "believable."

TILL
No, you missed the point I was making. I was saying that I find it
unbelievable that Josephus's father could have witnessed three hours of
darkness at midday and a resurrection of many saints and yet not talked
about them enough to have made an impression on Josephus that would
have been reflected in his works by references to those events. When
World War II ended, I was 12 years old. I had a first cousin who piloted
an LST (landing barge) on D-Day that ferried soldiers from ships out at
sea to Omaha Beach. When he returned home, family members would
sit mesmerized and listen to him tell about his experiences that day, and
all that he experienced were only ordinary, perfectly natural events that
accompanied a massive invasion. I had another cousin on the other side
of my family who was a tail-gunner on a B-29 in the pacific area, and
we enjoyed listening to his reflections on bombing missions his crew
had flown, but there was nothing miraculous about any of the events
he talked about. Are we to assume that Josephus's father and countless
other contemporaries saw very phenomenal events in Jerusalem one
day and just shrugged them off and never talked about them or reported
them to people they had contacts with. Again, I will say that I find this
very unbelievable.

Farrell Till

Did Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob Know Yahweh by His Name?

From the Errancy Discussion list, 8 May 1997:

TILL
This guy has already shown us that he is going to be just another biblical
inerrantist, who declares with Christian honesty that he can't see a
contradiction, no matter how glaring it is. Now as Tod pointed out, Exodus
6:2-3 has Yahweh saying very clearly to Moses that he was not known to
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob by his name Yahweh, yet there are numerous
examples in Genesis that dispute this:

Genesis 22:14 states that Abraham named the place where he was going to
offer up Isaac Yahweh-jirah, which meant "Yahweh will provide." How did
Abraham know to call the place this if he did not know that the name of his
god was Yahweh?

Genesis 24:25-52 certainly shows that Abraham's servant, who was
sent to find a wife for Isaac knew Yahweh's name. When he encountered
Rebekah, he bowed his head and "worshiped Yahweh" (v:25). He said,
"Blessed be Yahweh, the God of my master Abraham who has not forsaken
his lovingkindness and his truth toward my master. As for me, Yahweh has
led me in the way to the house of my master's brethren" (v:27). Several
more times in this passage, Abraham's god was called Yahweh. It is certainly
strange that Abraham's servant knew the name Yahweh, but Abraham,
despite evidence to the contrary, presumably didn't.

Genesis 26:22 says that Isaac dug a well and called the name of it Rehoboth
and said, "For now Yahweh has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in
the land." How could Isaac have said this if he did not know that his god's
name was Yahweh?

Genesis 26:23-25 says that Isaac went to Beersheba and there "Yahweh
appeared to him the same night" and told Isaac that he was the God of
Abraham." Isaac then built an altar and "called upon the name of Yahweh."
I guess we are supposed to believe that Isaac called on a name that he
didn't even know.

Genesis 28:10-13 says that Jacob saw Yahweh on the way to Paddanaram,
and Yahweh said to him, "I am Yahweh, the god of Abraham your father,
and the God of Isaac." I guess Jacob was hard of hearing and didn't catch
the name Yahweh.

Genesis 28:20 says that Jacob awoke the next morning and made a deal
with God, vowing that if God would keep him in the way, give him bread
to eat, raiment to wear, and bring him back again to his father's house in
peace, he would make Yahweh his God and would surely give him a tenth
of all that God would give to him." How could Jacob have made Yahweh
his God if he didn't even know the name Yahweh? (By the way, if you
wonder where the idea of tithing began, this is it, but it certainly gave
Jacob no room to brag about his godliness. Why, gee, if Yahweh will give
me a lot of money, I will gladly give him a tenth of it. I would do the same
to anybody.)

Farrell Till

Another Great Quote

When did I realize I was God? Well, I was praying and I suddenly realized that I was talking to myself. 
                                               ~ Peter Barnes, The Ruling Class