The Tree Of Knowledge

Farrell Till  discovers a little problem for biblical inerrantists. From the Errancy Discussion list, Nov. 12, 1995.

RH 

It is not correct to say that in order to sin, you have to know the difference between good and evil. To sin requires that one disobey God which itself only requires that one know what God has commanded. Knowledge of good and evil doesn't enter the equation. You cannot say that Adam and Eve did not know what they were doing. They knew. Eve stated what God had commanded to the Serpent. Adam and Eve knew the consequences.

TILL 

When the spies that Moses sent ahead to Canaan returned with a report of giants being in the land, the people were afraid (Num. 14). Yahweh punished the people by decreeing that they would wander in the wilderness until they were dead, but he made an exception for Joshua and Caleb, who had not believed the report of the spies. He also made an exception for the children (v: 31). Deuteronomy 1:39 explains why Yahweh made an exception for the children: "Moreover, your little ones that ye said should be a prey, and your children , *that this day have no knowledge of good or evil,* they will I give it, and they shall possess it." Hence, we can only conclude that the Bible teaches that children are not guilty of sin if they have no knowledge of good or evil. The Genesis story of the "first sin" clearly states that eating of the tree of knowledge would make one know the difference in good or evil (3:5). After Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit, Yahweh said, "Behold the man is become as one of us, *to know good and evil*; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever, therefore Yahweh God sent him forth from the garden of Eden" (3:22).

Sorry, Roger, but you have a lot of explaining to do. The Bible teaches that eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was what made Adam and Eve to know the difference in good and evil. Yet Yahweh punished them for something they did before they ate of the fruit that gave them this knowledge.

F. Till

God's Name

Adapted from a post by Farrell Till on the Errancy Discussion list 5-8-97:

...Ex.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 "knelt bowing to Yahweh"(v:26). He said, "Praise Yahweh, 
the Elohim[God] of my master Abraham. Yahweh has led me on this 
trip to the home of my master's relatives."(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, "Now Yahweh has made room for us, and we will 
prosper in this 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 "That night 
"Yahweh appeared to Isaac, and said 'I am the Elohim of your father 
Abraham.' Isaac then built an altar and "worshiped Yahweh." I guess 
we are supposed to believe that Isaac worshiped a God that he didn't 
even know.

Genesis 28:10-13 says that Jacob saw Yahweh on the way to Haran, 

and Yahweh said to him, "I am Yahweh, the Elohim of your grandfather
Abraham and the Elohim of Isaac." I guess Jacob was hard of hearing 
and didn't catch the name Yahweh.

Genesis 28:20-21 Says that Jacob made a vow that if Yahweh would take
care of him on his way back to his father that he would make Yahweh his
Elohim [God]. How could Jacob have made Yahweh his God if he didn't 
even know the name Yahweh? 

A Good Question...

                 A Good Question But Not A Good Answer Part One
                                              by Farrell Till

A reply to:Good Question ...

by Glenn Miller

The archived source of this historic written encounter between Farrell Till and inerrantist Glenn Miller did not have all of the links live, sorry. Till had a total of seven replies to Miller. Each can be downloaded in a link at the end of each reply.(kwh)

The barbaric nature of the Hebrew god Yahweh has led many former believers to reject their faith in the Bible. In "God Is Pro-Life?" I examined several biblical examples of Yahwistic barbarism that should convince reasonable people that the God-Is-Prolife slogan of anti-abortionists is biblically unsustainable, because the Old Testament is full of claims that Yahweh many times either sent destruction upon children, infants, and unborn babies himself or else ordered others to annihilate them. The barbarism of the god Yahweh, however, extended beyond the massacre of children and unborn babies to include efforts to exterminate entire tribes and nations. The Old Testament depiction of this deity should be enough to turn any morally sensitive person away from the notion that he is a loving, merciful god, but, unfortunately, it isn't. Diehard Bible believers seem determined to make all sorts of excuses to "explain" why Yahweh's commands to kill Canaanites, Midianites, Amalekites, and other non-Hebraic people were morally right.

Sins Of The Fathers (4)

Till gives a good summation of the facts in this debate in his second response in this post, which Ariel has repeatedly side stepped:

ARIEL

sub 1: As an aside, my reference to an already existing three  year famine is not NEEDED to advance my point. It is based  as follows. II Samuel starts with an introduction that God was  already angry. Therefore God was quoted as offering 7 years  of famine. That means a full 7 years. 3 already and 3 to come  (the 7th is because after 6 years of famine, the ground may  be ready to produce in the 7th but the field must be planted and the crop grown and harvested. Since the people are still  waiting for food in year 7 it is the 7th year of famine).  I Chronicles does not prelude by saying "And God was angry".

TILL
No, the Chronicler didn't say this. In fact, he said that Satan 
had moved David to take the census. This is consistent with 
the Chronicler's whitewashing efforts in which he cut out all 
of the dirt about David and tried to make him look like Mr. 
Goody Two Shoes.

Wanting To Believe In Miracles

by Kenneth W. Hawthorne
A letter I sent to a Church of Christ preacher about 7 years ago:

Christians make the claim that God came to earth in the flesh of a man, Jesus Christ. That he was born of a virgin, performed various miracles while on earth, died and about three days later came back to life never to die again, then forty days later ascended into heaven, and that all or much of this was miraculously foretold by God-inspired prophets in the Old Testament. These are all ontologically positive and distant claims that go against all conventional, community experiences. These Christian claims, therefore, bear an extremely high asymmetrical burden of proof. That means that before someone should believe these claims are actually true, the evidence presented would have to be so profound and so unequivocal that one would be forced to believe these claims instead of believing what he knows happens all the time--and go with something that, as far as his experiences, has never happened.

Unfortunately, what I've seen as evidence for these Christian claims is not even close to being sufficient for the type of claims made. The four Gospels are nothing but hearsay, written by biased, anonymous writers. Certain church "fathers" made a fanciful connection to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John being the authors--but no one really knows who wrote these book. These church fathers amount to no more than what you would consider denominational preachers today--yet you believe them on this essential matter--and would, today, be very skeptical of anything they had to say on the subject of religion. But even if Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were the actual authors they were biased and what they wrote amounts to no more than religious propaganda. None of the  disinterested, contemporary scientists or writers of the time Jesus is said to have lived record anything about Jesus, much less his miracles. Josephus does not qualify because it is obvious that his work has been tampered with concerning his mention of Jesus and is therefore flawed and unreliable. Alexander Campbell had this to say:

Evidence Problems

I don't believe that miracle claims can be proven by testimony, however, I would be a lot closer to belief in the miracle claims of the Bible if the testimony for these extraordinary claims had reliable, disinterested, independent, contemporary corroboration. But, alas, there is none to be had. From the Errancy Discussion list, May, 1998:

TILL
You're still missing the point entirely. Commonplace, ordinary events of the past were often corroborated by records left by various sources, but in the case of extraordinary or miraculous events, with which claims the Bible is filled, not a single disinterested, independent, contemporary source ever corroborated any of them. Biblicists rave about the fact that Luke knew geography, topography, social customs, historical persons, etc., etc., etc., all of which can be considered only commonplace information. Miracles, however, would have been so extraordinary that they would have received wide attention. In Acts 2:22, Luke had Peter saying to an audience that numbered into the thousands that "Jesus of Nazareth [was] a man attested to you by God with deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did through him among you, as you yourselves know," so the claim was that such deeds as these were done in the open and were witnessed by many people. If that is so, then why is there no disinterested, independent corroboration of them? 

Authorship Of "Matthew"

From the Errancy Discussion list, 10-4-97:

MATT

The consensus of biblical scholars normally means 'higher criticism', something I am none too impressed with. The Gospel is attributed to the disiciple Levi ooopppsss sorry Nancy :) Matthew, if there is evidence to say otherwise then Let's hear it.

TILL

Well, how about this "evidence", Matt? Those critics whom you aren't at all impressed with have recognized that the author of "Matthew" used the gospel of Mark as his source, because over 90% of the gospel of Mark is embedded in the gospel of Matthew. If Mark really wrote Mark, then he was not an eyewitness to the events he wrote about, but if Matthew wrote Matthew, he was an eyewitness to most of the events. Why would an eyewitness have to rely on an account written by someone who was not an eyewitness in order to write a biography of Jesus?