A Reasonable Answer To A Troublesome Question?

The following is my reply to an answer to a question that I had asked the local Church of Christ preacher concerning the Bible doctrine of an eternal hell. He had enlisted the help of an older preacher in answering this question and he published this answer in his weekly publication. Quotes from this preacher's article are in bold black letters--by the way, the local preacher never did respond to my reply:

by Kenneth W. Hawthorne 

A Reasonable Answer To A Troublesome Question, is an article written by Maurice Barnett published in the May 9, 2004, edition of Faith Builder. It was Barnett's attempt at answering this question that you presented to him (a question I had asked you): "Why would a God of love create a race of beings, knowing that He would have to sentence the vast majority of them to suffer forever in hell?" The question you presented to him is troublesome, but more important it is devastating to the truth of fundamentalist Christianity if it can't be answered satisfactorily. And Barnett has no satisfactory answer. He meanders around with a lot of irrelevant thoughts, but never even comes close to a satisfactory answer.

Did Marco Polo Lie?

From *The Skeptical Review*, 1996/July-August:

by Farrell Till

We often hear biblicists argue that there is as much proof for the historicity of Jesus and the events attributed to him in the New Testament as there is for the existence of Julius Caesar and other historical characters. They claim that those who reject biblical characters and events have no logical basis for accepting anything that we have learned through historical records. A recent controversy surrounding a well known historical character will illustrate the erroneous thinking of those who so argue.

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

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)

Muddled Thinking

The muddled thinking of Christians who attempt to defend 
the vicious god of the Bible. From the Errancy discussion 
list, April 29, 1997:

Izz
Such a Lord, who murders innocent babies, is not 
good. God is not good. Of course, the story is a 
myth, it  never really happened. That is besides the 
point. God, as described in the Bible, makes Hitler 
look saintly.  Unfortunately, Hitler was real, but, 
thank God, God isn't. Still, how can you Christians 
worship a God who murders babies? Don't you
people have any morals? Its  bad enough you believe 
in God; what's worse, you are blind to his evil nature. 
You people worship an imaginary baby-killer.

Paul writes:
If this life were all of existance, you might have a point; however
Christians believe that we are primarily "spiritual" creatures made 
in the image of God (Gen. 1:26). This life is not all that matters. 
How cruel it would have been to preserve all of those babies of 
hard-hearted idolaters to mature and become like their parents 
only to lose their souls in eternity; but a loving and merciful God 
now has in his care the souls of those innocent children.

TILL
According to this logic, God should see that the children and babies 
of all sinful people are killed before "the age of accountability" so 
that this loving and merciful God could have in his care the souls 
of "these innocent children"? What made the Amalekite children so 
special that God wanted to "preserve" them any more than the 
children of other idolatrous people? We know from archaeological 
discoveries that Aztecs and Incas were idolatrous nations, who 
even  sacrificed children to their gods. Why didn't Yahweh 
"preserve"  their  children so that they wouldn't have grown up 
to be like their  "hard-hearted" idolatrous parents?

This "explanation" of the many Yahwistic massacres recorded in 
the OT is simply a last-ditch effort to explain a problem that is 
completely incompatible with both the biblical inerrancy doctrine 
and  the claim that God is loving and merciful. If for some reason 
the Amalekites, Midianites, Canaanites, etc. had to be ethnically 
exterminated, there was no reason at all to massacre the children 
and infants too. Why couldn't they have been brought back as 
captives, adopted into Hebrew families, and reared in the way 
that  Hebrew children were? That way, they would not have grown 
up to  be "hard-hearted" idolaters, any more than the Israelites 
themselves  were at times hard-hearted idolaters (but that's 
another story). I'd like to hear Paul's "explanation" of this.

Farrell Till

What Have These Sheep Done?

This article from *The Skeptical Review* , 1999 / July-August, is simply devastating to the biblical inerrancy claim. Comments are welcome:

by Farrell Till

One of the most puzzling tales of the Bible is told in 2 Samuel 24 and 1 Chronicles 21. Yahweh or Satan (depending on which account you want to believe) "moved David to number Israel" (v:1). Since biblical inerrantists argue that the Bible is completely free of errors, we will assume that in some sense Yahweh moved David to number Israel. One would think that if Yahweh moved David to number Israel, Yahweh would have been pleased if David did as he had been "moved" and took the census, but if you think this way, you are reasoning like a rational person, and Bible stories aren't necessarily rational. In fact, they many times tax the imagination of those who try to find rationality in them.

That's the case with this story about David. He conducted the census just as Yahweh had "moved" him to do, but for some reason known only to Yahweh and the Gleason Archer type of "apologists" who entertain us with verbal gymnastics that supposedly explain biblical discrepancies, Yahweh was ticked off after David had done exactly what he had been "moved" to do, and so he sent Nathan the prophet to call David on the carpet for taking the census (2 Sam. 24:12). That wasn't really necessary, because David had already realized that in doing what Yahweh had "moved" him to do, he had somehow sinned. That's what the inspired word of God says: "But afterward, David was stricken to the heart because he had numbered the people" (v:10). Why taking a census would be a sin, especially after God had moved David to do it, is anyone's guess. Well, not anyone's guess, of course, because the professional "apologists" like Gleason Archer, Norman Geisler, John Haley, etc. were apparently blessed with special insights that enabled them to know that the Bible didn't really mean what it plainly said. Just read their books, and you'll find all of the answers if you can stop laughing long enough to read them all the way through.

Prophecy Fulfillment and Probability

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

by Farrell Till

Bible apologists love to use probability arguments, and most readers have undoubtedly encountered them in apologetic literature. Some situation perceived to prove either the existence of God (life developing from nonlife) or the inspiration of the Bible (prophecy fulfillment) is analyzed in terms of likeliness or probability. Most of these arguments, of course, are based on purely arbitrary factors selected to make the theistic or biblical position look good. I have yet to see one that can survive careful scrutiny.

At the debate in Portland, Texas, that Earle Beach referred to in the foregoing article, my opponent applied probability to the prophecy-fulfillment argument. He mentioned several times how truly amazing it was that so many Old Testament prophecies had been fulfilled precisely and exactly in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. His premise was that over 300 such prophecies were made and later fulfilled. At one point when he was under cross-examination, he stated that the probability of any 50 of these prophecies being precisely fulfilled was 11 sextillion 250 quintillion to one. The figure written out would look like this: 11,250,000,000,000,000,000,000. Since the statement was made under cross-examination, I could not respond directly to it without calling for a resumption of time, and at the moment I was pursuing a line of questioning that I wanted to continue. In reviewing the tapes, I was reminded that I forgot to return to this issue to show the absurdity of the statement, so I will do that now. If Mr. Dobbs wishes to respond to my comments, we will gladly publish his statement in the next issue. My prediction is that he won't respond. If he doesn't, I wonder what he would say the odds are that I could make a prophecy like this and have it fulfilled.

When The Fig Tree Puts Forth Its Leaves

From *The Skeptical Review*, 1999/May-June:

by Farrell Till

In the past two issues of TSR, I have discussed various claims of prophecy fulfillment that Bruce Weston expressed concern about in his article "Doubts But Questions about Prophecy" in the January/February issue (pp. 6-7). In one case, he thought it possible that what skeptics consider an example of prophecy failure wasn't necessarily a failure. This was the occasion of an apparent promise that Jesus made that he would come again before "this generation" had passed away. In Matthew 24, the disciples of Jesus asked him to tell them what would be the sign of his coming and of the end of the world (v:3). Over the space of several verses (4-31), Jesus answered their question and told of several "events" that would happen prior to his return and the signs that would accompany his coming, after which he made the statement that Weston inquired about.

Now learn this parable from the fig tree: When its branch has already become tender and puts forth leaves, you know that summer is near. So you also, when you see all these things, know that it is near--at the doors! Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place (vs:32-34, emphasis added).

Weston wanted me to address "the Christian defense that by saying this generation, Jesus was talking about the same generation that sees the fig tree put forth its leaves (and not to the current generation of His time)" [TSR, January/February 1999, p. 6]. Weston then went on to suggest that the fig tree was "symbolic of Israel, which was reborn as a nation in 1948," and so this interpretation would mean that Jesus was saying that he would return before the generation that witnessed the "rebirth" of Israel had passed away and not before the passing away of the generation of his own time.

A Lesson in Basic Hermeneutics

From *The Skeptical Review*, 2002/May-June:

by Farrell Till

Hermeneutics is the science of interpreting written texts, especially those that claim to be sacred, and it seems that our old friend Roger Hutchinson is in need of a lesson in the fundamentals of hermeneutic theory. That Hutchinson would try again to postulate some far-fetched "solution" to a biblical problem is not at all surprising, but I must say that I was surprised that even he would resort to the absurd explanation that he proposed above to one of the many New Testament passages that taught the second coming of Jesus was imminent.

Readers will probably remember that Hutchinson attempted unsuccessfully last year to explain away the prophecy failure in Matthew 24:34, where Jesus said that "this generation will not pass away till all these things be accomplished." One of "these things" that Jesus had just mentioned was a clear description of his second coming, which he said would be accompanied by various astronomical signs and that all the tribes of the earth would see. Clearly that didn't happen in the lifetime of those to whom Jesus was speaking, so Hutchinson tried some of his verbal legerdemain to make this mean that Jesus was really saying that the generation alive whenever Jesus did return would not pass away till it had seen all "these thing," which would include the return of Jesus. Yeah, right. Whenever I read Hutchinson's "explanations" of what disputed biblical texts really meant, I can't help wondering why God didn't providentially arrange for Hutchinson to have been born in biblical times so that God could have chosen him to write at least some books of the Bible. Why, if the omni-one had done that, he wouldn't even have needed to "inspire" Hutchinson, who undoubtedly would have known how to explain everything clearly without divine inspiration.

The Throne of David Prophecy

From the Errancy Discussion list, 1-19-98:

At 09:55 PM 1/18/98 EST, ITS786 wrote:

>Dear Farrell Till, 

>Assalam Alaikum,

>A Christian wrote to me saying that his Faith is true because many prophecies

>have come true; I know that there is an answer to these; can you send them to

>me.  Thank you; Jazakullah.

>THE HEIR TO THE THRONE OF DAVID
>
>Prophecy: "Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end.

>He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and

>upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever."

>(Isaiah 9:7) 

>Fulfillment: "A record of the geneology of Jesus Christ the son of David, the

>son of Abraham." (Mathew 1:1, 6)
>
TILL
As we continue to look at the prophecy fulfillment claims of Stevan's
Christian friend, we should keep in mind that his/her method of
argumentation is merely to cite an OT passage and then a NT passage as
"proof" that the OT prophecy was fulfilled.  In neither case, does the
Christian offer any kind of textual or corroborating evidence to support his
position.  For example, the prophecy fulfillment claim above doesn't even
attempt to show that Isaiah meant that the kingdom of David would be
established forever only in a spiritual or figurative sense, and neither
does he present any kind of evidence to show that Matthew's genealogy of
Jesus was accurate in the listings that showed Jesus to be a descendant of
David.  I will discuss these two points separately to show that they both
pose serious problems to Christian claims that the kingdom of David would be
established forever.  

Did Isaiah have Jesus (a person who wouldn't even be born for seven more
centuries) in mind in the passage cited above?  Well, let's notice first of
all that this text doesn't even stipulate that this person would be a
descendant of David.  It merely says that whoever this was would establish
the throne of David forever, so it would be possible for someone who was not
a descendant of David to establish his throne.  However, since other OT
prophecies did predict that a descendant of David would establish his throne
forever, we will grant to Stevan's Christian friend that descent from David
would have been a requirement to fulfill this prophecy.  The prophecy claim
is still in serious trouble because of the following problems.

1.  The context of the statement clearly shows that it was intended to have
an immediate application or fulfillment rather than one that wouldn't happen
until centuries later.  The verse just before the one cited as a prophecy
shows that it had reference to the time in which Isaiah lived: "For unto US
a child IS born, unto US a son IS given; and the government shall be upon
his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty
God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.  Of the increase of his government
and of peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his
kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it with justice and righteousness
FROM HENCEFORTH EVEN FOREVER" (9:6-7). Notice the tense of the verbs in
verse six.  Isaiah said, "(U)nto us, a child IS born, unto us a son IS
given," so this was not something that was going to happen seven centuries
later but something that had already happened to "US."  The promise or
prophecy in this verse is like the one two chapters earlier (7:14) that
Christians have twisted and distorted into a prophecy of the virgin birth of
Jesus, but just as Isaiah had said in chapter 7 that the birth of a child to
a maiden (not virgin) who was at that time with child would be a "sign" that
the military alliance of Syria and Israel would not succeed against Judah,
so in chapter 9, he was making another prophetic statement to "US," the
people living at that time.

That Isaiah so intended the prophecy in 9:7 to have immediate application is
clearly indicated by the phase that ends verse 7 (which I have typed in
uppercase letters above).  In other words, this child who was born to "us"
at that time would establish the throne and kingdom of David FROM HENCEFORTH
EVEN FOREVER.  Anyone who knows both Jewish history and the meaning of the
word "henceforth" should be able to see that rather than this being an
amazing example of prophecy fulfillment, it is a clear case of prophecy
failure.  "Henceforth" means "from this time forth" or "from now on."  So
Isaiah was saying that a child IS born unto US and that he would establish
the kingdom and throne of David "from this time forth" or "from now on."
Obviously, this didn't happen, because after king Zedekiah was taken to
Babylon (2 Kings 25), no other king has sat upon David's throne, and
certainly David's throne and kingdom were not established "from HENCEFORTH
even forever."  Even if one is going to claim that Jesus sits on the throne
of David (something impossible to prove), he/she would have to explain the
six-century gap from Zedekiah to Jesus when no one sat on David's throne,
when Isaiah had clearly said that the kingdom of David would be established
HENCEFORTH even forever.

Biblicists will, of course, contend that the promise to establish David's
throne forever was intended only in a figurative sense, but it is easy to
show that OT writers clearly intended their readers to understand that the
establishment of the literal throne of David was supposed to happen.  That
can be shown by looking at Psalm 132:11-12: "Yahweh has sworn in truth to
David: He will not turn from it: 'I will set upon your throne the fruit of
your body.  If your SONS (plural) will keep My covenant and My testimony
which I shall teach them, THEIR SONS also shall sit upon your throne
forevermore."  So the promise wasn't that A SON (only one) would sit on
David's throne but that his sons and their sons (plural) would sit on the
throne forever.  Clearly, OT writers ethnocentrically believed that Yahweh
would establish the literal kingdom of David forever in that descendants of
David would always literally reign in Jerusalem.

I could examine many OT passages to show that this was the clear intent of
the Davidic prophecies, but to keep the posting reasonably short, I will
look at just one other.

>Jeremiah 33:14  The days are surely coming, says Yahweh, when I will

fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah.

>15  In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to

spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.

>16  In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety.

And this is the name by which it will be called: "Yahweh is our righteousness."

>17  For thus says Yahweh: David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne

of the house of Israel,

>18  and the levitical priests shall never lack a man in my presence to

offer burnt offerings, to make grain offerings, and to make sacrifices for
all time.
>
Notice that Jeremiah said that when the time came that he was speaking about
"Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety," so he was clearly
speaking about something that would happen to secure the safety of Judah and
Jerusalem.  Whenever this happened, Jeremiah claimed (v:17) that "David
shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel."  So
once again, we have a prophet promising that David's throne would be
established forever.  If biblicists contend (as they will) that all of this
is to be understood figuratively and that it is only in a figurative sense
that Judah and Jerusalem have lived in safety since Jesus was resurrected to
sit on David throne, then they will have to explain the very last verse in
my quotation from Jeremiah (above).  Jeremiah said not only that David would
never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel but that "the
levitical priests shall never lack a man in my presence to offer burnt
offerings, to make grain offerings, and to make sacrifices FOR ALL TIME."
Jeremiah was clearly predicting the establishment of BOTH the kingdom of
David and the OT levitical system forever, so biblicists can find no support
for their "figurative" interpretation of the Davidic prophecies in this
passage from Jeremiah.  To the contrary, it shows that their figurative
interpretation is merely a dodge to try to get around a clear prophecy failure.

2.  The second point that Christians must prove is that Jesus was a
descendant of David.  Stevan's Christian friend obviously thinks that he has
accomplished that just by quoting from Matthew's genealogy, where it was
claimed that Jesus was the "son of David."  What Christians must prove is
that Matthew was accurate in making that statement.  I understand that by
the first century A. D., the lines of descent were so obscured that it
wasn't possible to determine what tribe individual Jews had descended from,
so what evidence do Christians have to show that Jesus really was a
descendant of David? We demand more than Matthew's mere word.  What evidence
did Matthew have that enabled him to know this?   I won't even raise the
issue of the Christian claim that Matthew's genealogy is only a genealogy of
Joseph and not a genealogy of Jesus, who wasn't fathered by Joseph.  I'll
wait to see what Christians on the list may have to say about this point
before I say any more about it.  I suspect that inerrantists who were on the
list when the conflict between Matthew's and Luke's genealogies was
discussed will choose to remain mum on this subject.

There is much more that I could write about the failure of the Davidic
prophecies, but I will wait to see if Stevan's Christian friend even
attempts to reply to what I have already said.

Farrell Till

The Problems in Bradford's Complaint

An excellent article by Farrell Till comparing the logical, empirical-based presuppositions of naturalists versus the illogical, unsupported suppositions of supernaturalists. From *The Skeptical Review*, Sept-Oct. 2001:

by Farrell Till

Mr. Bradford seems sincerely convinced that I have a prejudice that will not allow me to see that supernatural presuppositions are just as logical as naturalistic ones. Because of his apparent belief that I won't listen to any arguments in the articles he submits to me, I am asking another person to reply to his attempt to prove the existence of God. It will be published in a later issue, although the subject is not really suitable for The Skeptical Review.In the very first  issue of TSR, published in January 1990, I specifically stated that the paper would not debate the issue of God's existence, but if I had declined to publish Mr. Bradford's article, he would have accused me of being too prejudiced to give consideration to attempts to prove the existence of his deity by scientific argumentation. What Mr. Bradford doesn't seem to realize is that he doesn't really argue his positions. He just asserts them and then vents his frustration when we refuse to fall in line and accept his assertions without questions.

Although I am leaving the "God part" of Bradford's article for someone else to answer, he made some personal remarks about himself and me that I will reply to in this issue, because no one else would really be qualified to speak on some of the accusations he made about me.

Do I resort to "subjective ridicule rather than logic and evidence"? I have to answer this charge with both yes and no. Yes, I do ridicule the inability of biblicists to think rationally. Perhaps I should not do this, but it is somewhat difficult not to do it when a biblicist persists in clinging to an irrational belief when he has seen mountains of evidence that the biblical inerrancy doctrine just cannot be true. When biblicists argue that "soon"or "at hand" didn't really mean soon or at hand when they are shown New Testament promises that the return of Jesus was to happen imminently, it is difficult to be patient with their intellectual dishonesty or irrational determination to make faith more important than common sense. On internet forums, I have often said that a time comes in debates with biblicists to call a spade a spade, and when an inerrantist keeps trying to defend a position that has been shown to be untenable, I think it is time to say without apology that the inerrantist is allowing allegiance to an irrational belief to overrule his/her common sense. In a letter on page 15 of this issue, Tom Broom expressed wonderment that I have the patience to discuss biblical minutia with the likes of some inerrantists whose articles appear in this paper. Believe me, it isn't easy, so when I do at times show a lack of patience and resort to ridicule, it should be understandable. Anyway, if I am guilty as Bradford charges, his complaint would be a case of the pot calling the kettle black, because look at his own subjective remarks about me. Saying that I resort to subjective ridicule rather than logic and evidence isn't exactly a compliment.

Crimes By Speculation

Crimes by Speculation
Part One by Farrell Till

A reply to:

Crimes by Omission
Is a Bible Writer's Silence Evidence of Ahistoricity?
by Robert Turkel aka James Patrick Holding

In responding to Robert Turkel's article, which was entitled "Can't We All Get Along?" on its webpage but listed on the index page as "Dan Barker's Easter Challenge Eviscerated," I had to forego replying to Turkel's link to his "Crimes by Omission" because the length of my reply had already imposed on the patience of readers. As I promised in that reply, I will now answer point by point the "principles" that Turkel claims will satisfactorily explain why one or more gospel writers sometimes omitted momentously important details that were mentioned in the other gospel accounts. We will see that except for those who are gullible enough to swallow anything that would-be apologists offer as "explanations" of biblical discrepancies, Turkel's speculative "principles" give no sensible explanations for those omissions. I will follow my customary practice of using Turkel and Till as headers to indentify who has said what.

A Familiar Game

From the Errancyn Discussion group, 8-1-99:

TILL
No, we will not know if you Christians are right or not when we die,

because if there is no consciousness after death, and there is no 
evidence to prove that there is, then we will be dead. Even your 
inspired word of God says the same: "The living know that they 
will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no more reward, 
and even the memory of them is lost" (Ecc. 9:5).

Eric:
Yes, the passage you cite (Ecc. 9:5) states "The living know
that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no
more reward, and even the memory of them is lost". The word
"know" as used in regard to the living and the dead is
"yada" which means 'to know'. 

TILL
That's really profound, Eric. You're saying that know meant know.

ERIC

Since it is applied to both the living and the dead, it must mean

the same thing. So, your point is well made with -this- verse.

However, there are other verses speaking of the life beyond
the grave. Let's take a look at them:

1). "But God will redeem my life from the grave, he will
surely take me to himself."-Ps. 49:15.
One cannot escape the conclusion that the writer expects to
be given life again by God and will live in the presence of
God after he dies.
2). "Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will
awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and
everlasting contempt."-Dan. 12:2.

TILL
We see that Eric is playing a familiar game. "Yes, yes," he says, 
"the Bible does say that the dead know nothing, but over here in 
another passage, it indicates that the dead have awareness." All 
he has done is prove that the Bible is inconsistent. 

ERIC

So, what do we see. On the one hand we see that the grave
is the end of existence, but on the other hand we see that
life goes on after the grave.

It is possible that the Daniel 12:2 passage is a further
amplification of the Ecclesiastes 9:5 passage you cited. If
taken by itself, Ecc. 9:5 would indicate that you are
correct and that after we die, we cease to exist. But,
other passages indicate more information about the state of
the soul after death.

And this indicates something which -must- be understood by
believers and critics alike: The bible reveals spiritual
information gradually over time. The bible took some 1,500
years to compile. During that time more and more knowledge
was revealed. One cannot expect to cite one verse in
'proof' of some doctrine. One needs to (as the bible puts
it) "take the whole council of God" on a given issue, and
see what -all- the scriptures are saying on a given subject.

TILL
So what Eric seems to be saying is that God "inspired" writers 
to  record incorrect information, but "gradually over time," God amplified his prior revelations through inspiration and corrected 
the false impressions that his earlier inspirations had revealed.

Who can believe such gibberish as this? What was to prevent 
God at the time he "inspired" the writing of Ecclesiastes to reveal 
to the writer that when a person dies, his/her awareness or consciousness continues on into another life? Furthermore, Eric 
is playing the let-scripture-interpret-scripture game. We will see inerrantists quoting what the apostle Paul said in orderto interpret what Moses really meant in a passage in the Pentateuch. This
line of argumentation attempts to prove inerrancy by assuming inerrancy. It is arguing that Moses couldn't have meant what he obviously said, because if he meant this, then what he said contradicts what Paul said. This irrational argument fails to take into consideration that "Moses" was an entirely different person from the apostle Paul. They were separated in time by several centuries, so it is entirely possible that they had conflicting views. The writer of Ecclesiastes could easily have thought that death 
was the end of human awareness, whereas the person writing 
Daniel thought that human consciousness continued into another life. No one can prove by quoting what "Daniel" said that the 
writer of Ecclesiastes didn't mean that human awareness ended at death. To so argue is to assume the question that is being debated.

Farrell Till

"Explaining" Problems In Holy Books

Questions all Christian apologists need to answer:

Maybe you can explain to us something we have repeatedly asked Bible believers but never get an answer to. Your argument above is simply, "God did it," and so that is enough to explain any problems that can be found in the flood story. What we want to know is whether you are willing to grant to Muslims, Mormons, Zoroastrians, etc., the same right to "explain" problems in their holy books? If not, why not?

In answering this question, would you please try to refrain from special pleading and question begging?

Farrell Till
Skepticism, Inc.

A Few Questions

These are some questions that I asked a Church-of-Christ preacher after reading an article that he wrote. I don't recall ever getting an answer from him:

Mr -----,

Here are a few questions that I have concerning information in one of your blog posts:

1. Why did God create us in the New Testament scenario, if he knew all would sin, and knew that the many vs the few would eternally perish (Mt. 7:13-14)?  2 Peter 3:9 says that it is not God's will that ANY perish. Did God not have the ability to achieve his will that none perish?

2. If God is omniscient and could see what would happen if he created Satan, why would he go ahead and create Satan knowing that in his attempt to be victorious over Satan, billions of humans would have to eternally perish?

3. Why would God, who doesn't need man (Acts 17:25), nevertheless, go ahead and create man to get some things that he only wanted (victory over Satan, whom he didn't have to create; fear and obedience from man; companionship from man, etc.), but didn't need, knowing that to get these things that he didn't need, billions of sentient humans would have to eternally perish?

4. You said that Jesus [dying] on the cross, ...sealed the greatest victory possible. But how could this be considered "the greatest  victory possible" when Satan deceives the whole world (Rev 12:9), disguises himself as an angel of light (2 Cor 11:14), and blinds the minds of the unbelieving ( 2 Cor 4:4), resulting in Jesus losing the majority of souls to Satan (Mt 7:13-14)?

5. You said that man is a "tool" by which God gets glory. But God doesn't need anything from man, thus he doesn't need glory. Why would God put his beloved(?), flawed humans under the influence of such a powerful being for evil as Satan (whom he didn't have to create) to get something that wasn't necessary--knowing that to get this glory that he doesn't need, billions of sentient humans would have to eternally perish?

Well, I've got a lot more questions I could ask. But I'll stop for now. You've got a lot on your plate with these five.

Ken Hawthorne

The Jannes-Jambres Syndrome

The following article is from *The Skeptical Review*, January-February 1991:

By Farrell Till

Is there no limit to what bibliolaters will resort to in order to defend the inerrancy doctrine? We thought we had heard just about every desperate grasping for straws possible on this subject until we received the October 1990 issue of the Christian Courier. On a front-page article entitled "The God of Infinite Knowledge," editor Wayne Jackson, who is also a staff writer for Apologetics Press of Montgomery, Alabama, made this incredible attempt to prove the inspiration of the Bible:

How did Paul know the names of the magicians who opposed Moses (2 Tim. 3:8)? This information is nowhere found in the Old Testament. Obviously the God of history inspired the writing of this epistle to Timothy.

The passage Mr. Jackson alluded to in this "argument" says in its entirety, "And even as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these (ungodly men) also withstand the truth; men corrupted in mind, reprobate concerning the truth.

As invariably happens when a bibliolater formulates an inerrancy argument, Mr. Jackson assumes far more than his "evidence" warrants. For example, Paul (or whoever wrote 2 Timothy) identified Jannes and Jambres only as opposers of Moses; he did not specify that they were the magicians who had opposed Moses. Since Moses (if we are to believe the Bible) was often opposed during the wilderness trek by unnamed adversaries, one might as well, in the total absence of any historical record of who Jannes and Jambres were, identify them as the leaders of one of those many rebellions as to say that they were pharaoh's magicians who opposed Moses during the inflicting of the plagues. If not, why not? We will gladly give Mr. Jackson space in our next issue to explain how he knows that Paul meant for us to understand that these men were pharaoh's magicians rather than some other adversaries of Moses.

If he accepts the invitation, he should be able make a good case for his claim that Paul was referring to pharaoh's magicians, but in building that case, he would reduce his "argument" for inspiration to nothing. As Mr. Jackson correctly said, the names Jannes and Jambres were "nowhere found in the Old Testament," but there was a widely circulated tradition in both secular and apocryphal writings that they were pharaoh's magicians. They were mentioned in The Gospel of Nicodemus, The Acts of Peter, and The Acts of Paul and were frequently referred to by early writers like Pliny, Apuleius, and Numenius. In these writings, various claims were made about them. One source (Yalkut Reubeni) said that they were proselytized and left Egypt in the Hebrew exodus; another (Tikkunim) claimed that they persuaded Aaron to make the golden calves while Moses was on Mt. Sinai. In Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, James H. Charlesworth, a leading authority on apocryphal literature, said this of Jannes and Jambres:

The names of Jannes and Jambres appear with considerable frequency in ancient and medieval sources, and traditions about their activity and fate are extant in Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, Arabic, Greek, and Latin. Christian, Jewish, and pagan writers found occasion to refer to these two magicians at the Pharaonic court who plied the art of magic in opposition to Moses....

It is now beyond doubt that in antiquity there existed, on the one hand, traditions about Jannes and Jambres, and on the other, a book that detailed some of their exploits. Not yet entirely clear, however, is the precise relationship between the loose traditions and the written composition (Vol. 2, p. 427).

Obviously, then, a widely known oral and written tradition that Jannes and Jambres were pharaoh's magicians existed before and during the time that 2 Timothy was written. To say that a simple reference to this tradition constitutes wonderful proof that the Bible was inspired of God is typical of the superficial thinking that characterizes most arguments used to defend the inerrancy doctrine. Upon careful scrutiny, they are invariably found to be empty of substance.

Even in the absence of the body of tradition that identified Jannes and Jambres as pharaoh's magicians, there would still be no proof of divine inspiration in 2 Timothy 3:8. As noted earlier, without tradition to aid in interpreting this passage, one could never know if the writer was referring to pharaoh's magicians or to two of the many other adversaries Moses had to confront as leader of the exodus. Furthermore, without the tradition, the writer could have whimsically used just any names, and there would have been no criterion to use in evaluating the accuracy of the information. If, for example, a writer should say that Jeeter and Joomer were the leaders of the rebellion against Moses at Meribah (Num. 20:2-13), would this prove (since the names of these leaders are "nowhere found in the Old Testament") that the writer was inspired of God in so saying or would it prove nothing more than maybe he had just made up the names? We'll just let Mr. Jackson and those who may have been impressed with his argument try to escape the cutting edge of Occam's razor on this point.

The real tragedy in this matter, however, is not that bibliolaters like Mr. Jackson would have no more intellectual pride than to offer such superficial arguments as this one in support of the inerrancy doctrine but that so many of their readers will gullibly accept them without critical analysis. It is a syndrome that enables Bible fundamentalism to survive in an era that should have laid the inerrancy doctrine to rest long ago.

Two Goliaths?

More nonsense from desperate biblical inerrantists. From the Errancy Discussion List, Nov. 14, 1995:

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.

F. Till

Who's Really Looking At The "Narrow View"?

Farrell Till takes a biblical apologist to school. From TSR, 1998: March/April:

By Farrell Till 

After what amounted to a sermon more than an attempt to address the inconsistency of the Bible on the issue of whether God punished the innocent for the "sins" of their fathers, Dr. Righter accused me of looking only at the "narrow view and not the 'larger picture,'" but no view of the Bible could be any narrower than the one he reflected in his article. That view is that regardless of how inconsistent, contradictory, absurd, or incomprehensible the Bible may appear in places, it is nevertheless the inspired word of God, and so any textual problems in it have to be just apparent. Dr. Righter has proposed to explain the sins-of-the-fathers problem by what he calls the "larger picture," but as we will see, the only thing larger than the "picture" he speaks about is his naivety in accepting a thoroughly discredited view of the Bible. That the Bible is not the "inerrant word of God" has been demonstrated so convincingly that only diehard fundamentalists like Roger Hutchinson, Dr. James Price, and now Dr. Righter continue to cling to the view. Biblical inerrancy is an outdated view of the Bible that survives in fundamentalist Bible colleges and churches pastored by the products of these colleges, but it is no longer taught in responsible seminaries or believed by scholars who put academic integrity above religious bias.

Introducing A Christian To Rational Thought

Farrell Till introduces a Christian to rational thought. From the Errancy Discussion List, 8-9-99:

TILL
Well, okay, Eric, let me revise the answer that I gave to your question, because I can now see that your answer is much better than mine.  In order for me to believe that the Bible is the word of God, God himself would have to tell me that it is. So all he has to do is appear in a POOF here in my office, and then he'll have me on your side. When can I expect this to happen?

(DAVE 8/7)
Does this mean that for you to accept that anything exists it must appear in your office? (POOF). With that kind of criteria you: (a) don't accept that very much exists or (b) you have faith in an awful lot.

TILL
What a stupidly false analogy. I have never seen Tokyo, Japan, but I have seen countless cities and towns, and I have known people who have been to Tokyo and tell me that it is there. Hence, there is nothing irrational about thinking that Tokyo is a real city.

(DAVE 8/8)
You rely on eyewitness accounts for your beliefs and except them as fact (as well as accepting the reliability of the witnesses). Does this mean that you accept everything you are told just because you have seen a similar occurrence or phenomenon?

TILL
Certainly not. There are some people I wouldn't believe if they told me the sun rises in the east. You're simply setting up a straw man with another false analogy in which you are trying to compare the acceptance of testimony to the commonplace and ordinary with the acceptance of testimony to the extraordinary. Try to get this through your thick skull, Dave. There is a difference in accepting the report that John Doe died and in accepting the claim that he later returned from the dead. When a claim is entirely contrary to reality as one knows it to be from his lifetime of experiences, then he is being entirely reasonable to reject the claim. That is entirely different from believing Jane Doe when she tells me that she saw a car wreck on her way to Peoria this morning. I have also seen car wrecks on the way to Peoria, so it is reasonable to accept her claim as truth. If she is lying about it, so what? That wouldn't be the first time that I believed a lie that could easily have been the truth. If, however, I believe my former student, whom I think I have mentioned on this list, who claims that she is routinely visited by alien beings and has an alien living inside her body to guide and direct her in her crusade to enlighten the public about alien visitations to earth, then I will deserve every bit of ridicule that is heaped onto me for being so gullible.