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

The Amazing Livestock of Egypt

Number 7 of 17 in the *Twilight Zone* series:

by Farrell Till

The tit-for-tat premise in the biblical story of the Egyptian plagues continued until Aaron struck the dust of the ground with his staff (Ex. 8:16-17) and brought forth an  infestation of lice or gnats or mosquitoes or maggots (pick your translation). At this point, Pharaoh's magicians, after trying with no success to produce lice (gnats, mosquitoes, maggots), threw in the towel and said, "This is the finger of God!" (Ex. 8:19). Yeah, sure! Only in the Twilight Zone would sorcerers, who had matched Aaron and Moses tit for tat in changing all the water of Egypt into blood and frog for frog in the second plague, have been deterred by a comparatively simple little thing like bringing forth lice (gnats, mosquitoes, maggots). If I had been Pharaoh, I would have given those magicians their walking papers on the spot. After all, what is calling forth a swarm or two of lice or gnats (mosquitoes, maggots) compared to changing all the water in Egypt into blood after all the water in Egypt had already been turned to blood? If nothing else, they could have faked it, waved their hands, said an enchantment or two, tossed some dust into the air, and then pointed at some of Yahweh's lice or gnats and claimed that they had conjured them up. Talk about lack of imagination!

With Pharaoh's sorcerers out of the contest, Moses and Aaron now had free rein, which wasn't quite so free as the Twilight-Zone imagination of the Exodus writer, who piled more absurdities onto prior absurdities as the plagues continued. When Pharaoh appeared to weaken under the plague of flies, Moses prayed for Yahweh to take away the flies tomorrow (!), but after the flies were gone, Pharaoh hardened his heart again. So Moses brought down a pestilence upon the livestock of Egypt, "the horses, the donkeys, the camels, the herds, and the flocks" (9:3). As pestilences go, this one was a biggie, because "all the livestock of the Egyptians died" (9:6). Under normal conditions, this would have spelled doom for the Egyptian livestock industry, but we must remember that normal conditions never existed in the Twilight Zone. So when Moses inflicted the plague of boils on the land, no one in the Twilight Zone of biblical fundamentalism seems at all surprised to read that the boils afflicted "animals throughout the land of Egypt" as well as humans (9:9-10).