Jesus's Promise To Come Back Soon, 2000 Years Ago

The following is from the Alt. Bible. Errancy discussion group
April 22, 2003:

Gray:
Oh, in the 10 or 15 places where Jesus promises to come back real soon now, like in the life times of his believers. Surely you aren't ignorant of this, too, are you? Why don't you show a sliver of honesty and quote those "difficult" passages for us and explain them away?

DGM:
Jesus never made such promises. He never said in THEIR time.

TILL

Matthew 24:29 "Immediately after the suffering of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven will be shaken.

30 Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see 'the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven' with power and great glory.

31 And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

32 "From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near.
33 So also, when you see all these things, you know that he is near, at the very gates.

34 Truly I tell you, THIS GENERATION WILL NOT PASS AWAY UNTIL ALL THESE THINGS HAVE TAKEN PLACE.

A God Who "Really Care(s) About Others"?

"People who really care about others use their strength to help and protect them." ~ a comment about the Aurora, CO movie theater murders, July 20, 2012.

If it should be expected that people use their strength to help and protect others, what should be expected from an almighty God? Certainly not allowing the vast majority of people to suffer for eternity, MT 7:13-14, when he could have prevented it.

Kenneth W. Hawthorne

Archaeology And Biblical Accuracy

From *The Skeptical Review*, 1998 / March-April:

by Farrell Till
Has archaeology proven the historical accuracy of the Bible? If you listened only to biblical inerrantists, you would certainly think so. Amateur apologists have spread this claim all over the internet, and in a letter published in this issue, Everett Hatcher even asserted that archaeology supports that "the Bible is the inerrant word of God." Such a claim as this is almost too absurd to deserve space for publication, because archaeology could prove the inerrancy of the Bible only if it unearthed undeniable evidence of the accuracy of every single statement in the Bible. If archaeological confirmation of, say, 95% of the information in the Bible should exist, then this would not constitute archaeological proof that the Bible is inerrant, because it would always be possible that error exists in the unconfirmed five percent.

Has archaeology confirmed the historical accuracy of some information in the Bible? Indeed it has, but I know of no person who has ever tried to deny that some biblical history is accurate. The inscription on the Moabite Stone, for example, provides disinterested, nonbiblical confirmation that king Mesha of the Moabites, mentioned in 2 Kings 3:4-27, was probably an actual historical character. The Black Obelisk provides a record of the payment of tribute to the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III by Jehu, king of the Israelites (2 Kings 9-10; 2 Chron. 22:7-9). Likewise, the Babylonian Chronicle attests to the historicity of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and his conquest of Jerusalem as recorded in 2 Kings 25. Other examples could be cited, but these are sufficient to show that archaeology has corroborated some information in the Bible.

The Logical Aburdity That Is Christianity

The New Testament teaching that most of humanity will be among the lost, Mt 7:13-14, should be a teaching that gives Christians a lot of concern. But not for the reasons you might think. Currently the world population is about 68.5% non-Christian and few of these billions will ever become Christians. Obviously, Christian efforts to evangelize these billions of people are not getting the job done. Logically, this puts Christians in an an absurdly ridiculous position. From the Errancy Discussion list, 4-29-97:

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

Jesus: History Or Myth?

The following is from *Losing Faith In Faith*, by Dan Barker:

Jesus supposedly lived sometime between 4 BC and 30 AD, but there is not a single contemporary historical mention of Jesus, not by Romans or by Jews, not by believers or by unbelievers, not during his entire lifetime. This does not disprove his existence, but it certainly casts great doubt on the historicity of a man who was supposedly widely known to have made a great impact on the world. Someone should have noticed.

One of the writers who was alive during the time of Jesus was Philo-Judaeus. John E. Remsburg, in The Christ, writes:

"Philo was born before the beginning of the Christian era, and lived until long after the reputed death of Christ [ca. 15 BC-50 AD, kwh]. He wrote an account of the Jews covering the entire time that Christ is said to have existed on earth. He was living in or near Jerusalem when Christ's miraculous birth and the Herodian massacre occurred. He was there when Christ made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. He was there when the crucifixion with its attendant earthquake, supernatural darkness, and resurrection of the dead took place—when Christ himself rose from the dead, and in the presence of many witnesses ascended into heaven. These marvelous events which must have filled the world with amazement, had they really occurred, were unknown to him. It was Philo who developed the doctrine of the Logos, or Word, and although this Word incarnate dwelt in that very land and in the presence of multitudes revealed himself and demonstrated his divine powers, Philo saw it not."

There was a historian named Justus of Tiberius who was a native of Galilee, the homeland of Jesus. He wrote a history covering the time when Christ supposedly lived. This history is now lost, but a ninth-century Christian scholar named Photius had read it and wrote: "He [Justus] makes not the least mention of the appearance of Christ, of what things happened to him, or of the wonderful works that he did." (Photius' Bibliotheca, code 33)

The Invisible Man And Wet Paint

Tell people there's an invisible man in the sky who created the universe, and the vast majority will believe you. Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure.
~ George Carlin 

How Did The Apostles Die? (3)

From Alt.Bible.Errancy discussion group, 6-5-99:

The Apostle Andrew

TILL

Goodguy's list indicates that the apostle Andrew was crucified, so let's look at the reliability of this tradition, which, I will emphasize, is only a tradition. Earlier today, John Phipps posted on the Errancy list a copy of a message that he sent to Goodguy in which he asked why Goodguy seems so eager to accept traditions about the apostles but not the many other traditions that originated with the Catholic Church. The assumption was that Goodguy is not a Catholic, and so his position on the apostles seems inconsistent with his rejection of other traditions (unless he is a Catholic and buys the whole ball of wax). At any rate, the traditions about the fate of the apostle Andrew, as we will see, are steeped in Roman Catholic lore. The traditions are inconsistent and even contradictory, but for the most part they do agree that Andrew was crucified. In *The Search for the Twelve Apostles,* McBirnie sees this one thread in the traditions as evidence that Andrew did die by crucifixion. In this respect, McBirnie is arguing the same way that biblicists do in the matter of inconsistencies in the resurrection narratives in the gospels. They all agree that Jesus rose from the dead, and so somehow that is supposed to constitute reliable evidence, even though the narratives are otherwise riddled with inconsistencies. 

Eusebius claimed that the apostle Andrew was "chosen" of the Saviour to preach in Scythia (*History of the Church,* edition previously cited, p. 107), which was located in the Crimean region. Eusebius, however, made no mention of the manner of Andrew's death, although in the same paragraph he refers to the martyrdom of both Peter and Paul. The paragraph mentions Thomas and John and the places where both preached but says only that John died at Ephesus. One must wonder why, if he was aware of excruciating deaths that they had experienced, Eusebius didn't cite the details of the deaths of Andrew and Thomas. This paragraph begins Book 3 after which Eusebius had just ended Book 2 with a discussion of Neronian persecution in which both Peter and Paul had died. It would seem that if Eusebius had known of the horrible fates of other apostles, he would have mentioned them too. However, the paragraph that begins Book 3 specifies only that Peter and Paul had died as martyrs but says nothing about the ways that Thomas and Andrew had died. Curious indeed! Could this possibly mean that Eusebius, who was born about A. D. 260, was unaware of any traditions about how Thomas and Andrew had died? Eusebius referred to Thomas two other times in this work (pp. 66-67, 72-73) but only to mention that Thomas was sent to preach in Edessa. No reference is made to the manner of his death. Eusebius mentioned Andrew nowhere else in his "history of the church." 

This doesn't mean that no traditions existed about Andrew and his manner of death. McBirnie claims that "(a)nother strong tradition places his [Andrew's] ministry in Greece" and that there, "according to the tradition, he was imprisoned, then crucified by order of the proconsul Aegeates, whose wife Maximilla had been estranged from her husband by the preaching of St. Andrew" (edition previously cited, p. 80). Yet the Russian Church claims Andrew as its patron saint largely on the strength of Eusebius's claim (just mentioned) and an apocryphal work "The Acts of St. Andrew and St. Bartholomew," which claims that Andrew was a missionary to the Parthians, who occupied a region now included in Northern Iran and the southern part of the former Soviet Union. 

Edgar Goodspeed cited another tradition that put the ministry of Andrew in Ephesus in Asia Minor (where the apostle John allegedly wrote his gospel). Goodspeed said that tradition put Andrew in the mission field of Scythia but that the "Acts of Andrew, written probably about A. D. 260, describes his labors as taking place chiefly in Greece or in Macedonia, where his martyrdom occurs at Patras as described in his Acts" (*The Twelve,* John C. Winston Company, 1967, p. 99). 

McBirnie said of these conflicting traditions, "Now it would seem, at first glance, that these three traditions are contradictory. But perhaps they are mutually complementary. After all, Andrew had to minister *somewhere* in the world, and if he did not die in Jerusalem it is very possible that he went to Asia Minor to be with his old friend John. Or if for a while he went beyond Asia Minor to Scythia, that too is reasonable..." (p. 81). McBirnie rambled on, stringing together more possibilities and "could-have-beens," but the end result was an attempt to argue that we can't let ourselves be distracted by inconsistencies in the traditions about Andrew. Most of the traditions say that he was crucified, and so why not accept that? 

Other traditions about Andrew show the folly of accepting as historical facts claims that have nothing to support them but religious traditions. One tradition alleged that the Apostle Matthias (who was chosen in Acts 1 to replace Judas) was captured by cannibals, and Matthias was sent to rescue him. After a long voyage, he arrived at Matthias's place of detention and secured his release by converting the entire population of cannibals. As far as I know, this tradition gives no explanation for why Matthias had not been killed and eaten by the cannibals before Andrew could arrive on the scene to bring about his release, but religious traditions almost always have annoying holes in them like this. I suppose that Christians like Goodguy have conditioned themselves not to be bothered by such trivia. 

Various traditions about relics from Andrew's life and ministry have circulated in the Catholic church, and as recently as 1964 Pope Paul VI returned to the Episcopal See of Patros, a skull reputed to be Andrew's, which had been sent to the Church of Saint Peter for safekeeping after the Turks had invaded Byzantium in A. D. 1460. Other relics of Andrew include pieces of his cross, pieces of rope with which he had been secured to the cross, and other bones. 

It is on the basis of such nonsense as this that people like Goodguy rhapsodize that men like Andrew were willing to die for their faith in the resurrection of Jesus, and I have just barely touched the many conflicting traditions about Andrew. I have been unable to find any disinterested accounts of Andrew's ministry and death. If Goodguy knows of any, perhaps he will send them to us. 

Farrell Till