Quote Of The Day

“For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise.”
Benjamin Franklin  (1706-1790)

Blood In Heaven?

Farrell Till points out a discrepancy between the 9th chapter of Hebrews and I Cor 15:50. From the Errancy Discussion list, June 23, 1997:

TILL
In a posting that I will send simultaneously with this one, I showed how
that the Hebrew writer argued in the 9th chapter of his epistle that the
Holy Place and the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle were figures of things
to come. The priest entering the Holy of Holies once per year with blood to
offer for the sins of the people prefigured the entry of Jesus into heaven
with his own blood to offer a final atonement for the sins of all people.
This analogy is obvious from the following verses:

6 Such preparations having been made, the priests go continually into the
first tent to carry out their ritual duties;
7 but only the high priest goes into the second, and he but once a year,
and not without taking the blood that he offers for himself and for the sins
committed unintentionally by the people.

11 But when Christ came as a high priest of the good things that have
come, then through the greater and perfect tent (not made with hands,
that is, not of this creation),
12 he entered once for all into the Holy Place, not with the blood of
goats and calves, but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal
redemption.

In the Hebrew writer's analogy, the items in the tabernacle and the
ceremonies performed there were figures of things to come under the
new covenant, and the Holy Place that the high priest entered once per
year with blood to offer prefigured the entry of Christ into heaven as a
high priest to offer his own blood for the sins of mankind. This is evident
from the following verse:

23 Thus it was necessary for the sketches of the heavenly things to be
purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves need better
sacrifices than these.
24 For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made by human hands, a mere
copy of the true one, but he entered into heaven itself, now to appear
in the presence of God on our behalf.
25 Nor was it to offer himself again and again, as the high priest enters
the Holy Place year after year with blood that is not his own;
26 for then he would have had to suffer again and again since the
foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the
end of the age to remove sin by the sacrifice of himself.

There can be no doubt at all that the Hebrew writer was arguing that
just as the items in the tabernacle had to be dedicated with blood, the
"heavenly things" that they had prefigured also had to be dedicated
with blood. He claimed, however, that the "sketches" or "copies" in
heaven had to be purified with a better sacrifice than those used to
purify the original types. Hence, to accomplish this purification
of the heavenly "sketches" or "copies," Jesus entered into HEAVEN
ITSELF with that "better sacrifice" (his own blood) to purify the
heavenly copies.

Now here is the problem. The apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:50 that
"flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven," but the Hebrew
writer claimed that Christ entered into heaven with his own blood to make
a "better sacrifice" than those that were used under the law to purify the
tabernacle. Isn't there a problem here?

Farrell Till

Take Your Pick

The late Joseph Crea was a fixture on the old alt.bible.errancy discussion list. He along with Farrell Till and a few others brought rationality and common sense to their discussions with die-hard inerrantists--pointing out with clarity the many discrepancies in the Bible. The following from May 17, 2000, is one of those instances:

frixen3 wrote:

Christians then do not pray to the cross. The cross is a reminder 

to us what was done there. We must also remember that "without 

the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin." (Hebrews 9:22).

CREA
Funny, that's not what YHWH tells the Israelites back in the 
Old Testament. Take a look at Leviticus chapter 5, which 
covers the sacrifices needed to expiate sins. Starting at verse 

5 we read that the optimal sacrifice is a female sheep or goat, 

but [continuing at verse 6] if the contrite sinner can't afford 

such, then two doves will do. Proceeding to verses 11-13 we 

learn that if the repentant sinner can't even afford 2 doves, 

THEN AN OFFERING OF FLOUR would suffice to produce 

forgiveness of his sins. Blood, we can therefore see, is NOT 

A NECESSITY for the forgiveness of sins. Either the writer of 

Hebrews got it wrong, or else the author of Leviticus did. 

Take your pick.

  With Mettaa,
  Joseph Crea

Very Strange

Strange, that no disinterested, independent, contemporary corroboration exists from any of the many thousands of alleged witnesses to the signs and wonders that Yahweh supposedly used to attest the man Jesus of Nazareth--very strange. So strange in fact, someone who is honestly searching for the truth just might be led to believe that none of these "attesting" miraculous signs and wonders ever happened.

One would think that if Yahweh truly doesn't want anyone to perish (2 Peter 3:9) that he would have providentially given this type of supporting documentation. Instead, all we have is the biased testimony from the anonymous authors of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Acts.

From the Errancy Discussion list, June 14, 1998:

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?

Farrell Till

Israelites 40 Years Wandering In The Sinai?

The source of the following information is an article from the News Toronto Bureau by Barry Brown, dated February 27, 1988,  by way of Farrell Till on the Yahoo group errancyn, "The Size of the Hebrew Camps," 5-20-00:

On February 26, 1988, the Israeli archaeologist Eliezer Oren spoke at the Royal Ontario Museum about his excavations at 80 different sites in the Sinai peninsula from 1972 through 1982. He reported that he had found no evidence for a 40-year nomadic residence in this region by two to three million people. He reported finding at the ruins of an Egyptian outpost a record of two runaway slaves who had been spotted, but in all of his diggings, he found nothing about the sightings of a vast horde of people going through the desert. "They [the two slaves] were spotted and the biblical account of 2.5 million people with 600 thousand of military age weren't?" Oren questioned. "This can't be explained unless you invoke miracles here, and I am a member of the department of archaeology and not of miracles."

Oren reported that other archaeological expeditions beside his have been working in the Sinai region for just as long as he has, but they had found no traces of human activity at all from the time of the exodus except for small mining operations that were under the control of the Egyptians. He reported that archaeologists have found none of the cities that the Israelites allegedly conquered on their way out of the region except for the town of Kadesh, but he said, "To our great surprise, there is nothing there earlier than the 10th century." The exodus, however, allegedly happened in the 15th century B. C. The Bible reports that the 2.5 to 3 million Israelites camped at over 40 different sites, taking with them large herds of livestock, but Oren reported that no evidence of such encampments have been found.

The Communicator's Responsibility

by Kenneth W. Hawthorne

"It is always the writer's duty to communicate. It isn't the readers' responsibility to try to figure out what the writer meant."  Farrell Till (college English teacher for over 30 years).

I had a Church of Christ preacher tell me one time that the apostle Paul wrote the book of Romans using the language of a lawyer. The preacher seemed to look with pride upon Paul who was so educated that he was able to write like this. But why would Paul (allegedly guided by the Holy Spirit) do such a poor job of communicating to the average person who doesn't understand such difficult language? Especially considering whether one winds up in heaven or hell depends on understanding such writing.

With heaven and hell in the balance, one would think that the alleged omni-God Yahweh would have incontrovertibly proven his existence to each person individually. Then, after that was done, at the very least, communicated his will in writing with no errors and so plain and clear that there would be no need to try to figure out what he meant. An omni-God should have wanted to and been able to do this.

But, alas, such is not the case, adding more proof that Yahweh can not be God and  that the Bible is purely a work of man.

Jesus And George Washington

Excellent post by Farrell Till from the 1998 Errancy Discussion list. Christians on the list claimed that the evidence for Jesus's existence is just as good as for the existence of George Washington. Till obliterates that idea:

British records that referred to George Washington would be impartial, unbiased, and disinterested contemporary records in the sense that I have been using these terms in reference to Jesus and early Christianity. First of all, they would not be records that were written by people who were in any way trying to promote George Washington as a heroic figure. Secondly, they would be records left by people who were on the opposing side of the cause that George Washington was involved in. As such, they would provide a compelling reason to assume that this person was an actual historical figure.

You Christians (and don't say that you aren't one, because you are at least dedicated to defending the Christian cause) constantly ask, "Why didn't the enemies of Jesus produce the body when the apostles began to preach the resurrection," or, "Why didn't the enemies of Jesus oppose what Peter preached on Pentecost," etc., etc., etc. Such statements beg the question of NT accuracy and assume that what it says in these matters is completely accurate without even recognizing the possibility that these are stories that were made up years after that time in order to put Christianity into a specific time frame. If you could produce references to Jesus or the activities of the apostles that were clearly left by people who at this time were "enemies" of Jesus and Christianity, you would wet your pants with joy and excitement, because you would see it as compelling evidence that Jesus was an actual historical person and that Christianity did indeed begin at the time alleged in the NT. As it is, however, you can produce no such evidence, but that doesn't keep you from begging the question of NT accuracy in these matters.

If, for example, no one could produce any references that the British made to George Washington in the time that he allegedly led the colonial forces to a victory that brought about American independence, and if no references to Washington or the Revolutionary War could be found in French records of the time when French forces under the leadership of Lafayette allegedly assisted the colonial army against the British, and if no references to Washington or the Revolutionary War could be found in German records of the time when Hessian mercenaries allegedly fought on the British side against a colonial army led by Washington, and if no references at all could be found to Washington, period, except in the writings of those obviously determined to promote him as a great heroic figure, these facts would give people reason to suspect that he may have been just a legendary figure like King Arthur, who developed in the folklore of the past. I don't know about Terry, but I think that Conklin is intelligent enough to get the point. He just will never admit it.