The Uniqueness Of The Bible

Farrell Till answers Josh McDowell's, "The Uniqueness of the Bible", link.

A Simple Question

by Kenneth W. Hawthorne

The following is a comment that I made on a Church of Christ 
discussion group in 2011 (slightly edited):

The question I asked you: "If you wanted to have a child but you knew

before conceiving this child that if you conceived it and brought it

into the world that it would wind up suffering forever in hell, would

you go ahead and conceive that child and bring it into the world?" is

not a question like, "Are you still beating your wife?", which is an

example of a complex question fallacy. Such a fallacy is when a question

is asked that is composed of a presupposition that is false--you have

been beating your wife. It would be possible, though, that the question

could be a legitimate question if it was a known fact that the man being

asked the question had in fact been guilty of beating his wife.

The question that I asked you is not such a question. The question I

asked you is a simple, legitimate, hypothetical question. The question

that I asked you is comparable to, If you knew that you would die in a

car accident tomorrow if you drove to Little Rock, would you drive to

Little Rock tomorrow? The answer is so obviously "No", that the question

is ridiculously absurd. And I think I can safely say that you would

quickly answer that question with a "No", and laugh at the questioner

for asking such a question. But, in regard to my question about whether

you would conceive and bring a child into the world, knowing it would

wind up suffering for eternity in hell, which is even more absurd and

which calls for an even quicker response and even more obvious answer
of "No", you stammer and hesitate...and you won't answer the question.
Why? Because of your fanatical, credulous, unfounded, delusional
devotion to Yahweh. Your answer might make Yahweh look bad. Well,
he is bad. He's worse than bad. He's so fiendish and so infinitely horrible
that taking into consideration his alleged omni qualities--he is a
contradiction, an impossibility.

My question to you involves what we know the Bible teaches about
Yahweh and his eternal hell and is a legitimate question based on
what the Bible admits to. So why the hesitation to answer what should
be a very easy question for a devoted Yahwehist to answer? If Yahweh
has no problem in sending multiplied billions of his sentient, beloved(?)

humans to his eternal hell, having had this knowledge before he created

the first human, why would a Yahwehist who looks to him as our example

to follow, have a problem with allowing only one child to come into the

world, knowing that child will wind up in hell?

Arguments From Absence Of Evidence

The following is part of an excellent discussion between Farrell Till and a Christian, Paul Smith, on when absence of evidence, where there should be evidence, is a good argument against a claim. From the alt. Bible. errancy Yahoo group, May 21, 2000:

TILL (1)
Kent, you and David Sparrow need to put your heads together. The two of
you, working independently, have yet to provide a sensible explanation for
this absence of evidence that should be there if these [Exodus] wilderness
stories are historically accurate.

SMITH: (2)
Woah! ...does this mean that arguments from absence are now
considered weighty here? Cool! Someone please let me know,
'cuz I have a BUNCH of arguments from absence that I think bode
well for the God Hypothesis -

TILL (3)
Now, come on, Paul, you have to know that the absence of evidence
where evidence would have to be if certain alleged events had happened
is a compelling reason not to believe reports of the events. If someone
tells you that a flash flood swept through Podunk Valley last week, what
are you going to conclude if you go to Podunk Valley and see no evidence
that would have to be present if such a flood had occurred? This is so
simple that you can surely see it. I'm sure that if you saw absolutely no
evidence of a flash flood, you would view with suspicion any claims that
the civic pride in Podunk Valley was such that everyone had worked
diligently to clean up and repair the damage and that this is why no signs
of the flood remain. You would know that such would be too unlikely
to believe.

Credulity Or Critical Thinking?

by Kenneth W. Hawthorne

Is the phrase, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" (with all due respect to Carl Sagan), sufficient to describe miraculous claims and the evidence needed to prove them? (miracle, "a surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency:") (extraordinary, "1 a: going beyond what is usual, regular or customary...; b: exceptional to a very marked extent," and is normally used to describe naturally occurring events that are out of the ordinary.) So it seems to me this phrase is lacking--the word extraordinary just seems too generic for this purpose.

We need a phrase that immediately and unambiguously gets to the heart of the type of evidence it would take to prove miraculous claims. Let's take the miraculous claim that a man came back to life after being dead for three days. It is more than a claim that something beyond what is usual or regular occurred; it is more than a claim that something exceptional to a very marked degree occurred. This claim is more than extraordinary it is miraculous. It is a ridiculously absurd, and preposterous claim if it is not accompanied by unimpeachable, unequivocal, irrefutable evidence. A more appropriate phrase in regard to miraculous claims such as a man coming back to life after being dead for three days, would be: Miraculous claims require unimpeachable, unequivocal, irrefutable evidence.

The New Testament  presents the miraculous claim that Jesus Christ came back to life after being dead for almost three days and says that if you don't believe it you will die in your sins (John 8:24) and suffer eternally in hell (Mt. 7:13-14). With allegedly so much on the line what kind of evidence does the New Testament give us that this miraculous claim actually happened? Unimpeachable, unequivocal, irrefutable evidence that would put an end to all doubt and thus prove this miraculous claim? Hardly. What the loving, merciful Yahweh, who allegedly is not willing that any should perish, has given us is completely inadequate hearsay testimony that this miraculous event happened.

If miracles were allegedly performed to "attest" (Acts 2:22) deity to humans in the first century A.D., in order "[to] provide...clear evidence" for them to believe in and obey this "divine agency", why would this type of evidence be withheld by God today? It is impossible for testimony (especially hearsay testimony) to even come close to the level of evidence needed for a rational person to believe miraculous claims. Is this what the God of the Universe wants from his intelligent creation--credulity rather than critical thinking? I don't think so. (By the way, I know my heart and if Yahweh is God he also knows my heart and both of us know what it would take for me to be a believer--so, what is Yahweh waiting on?)

Pro-Supernatural Bias (2)

Part two (of two) of Farrell Till's rebuttal of Dr. James Price's response to Jim Lippard's article "The Fabulous Prophecies of the Messiah":

TILL

Contemporary records were also strangely silent about the earthquake at the time of Jesus's death, which allegedly shook open the graves of many saints who then went into the city and appeared unto many (Matt. 27:52-53).  Like the supernatural darkness at midday, word of such a remarkable event as this would surely have been spread through the region, if not the known world, so that references to it would have been left in contemporary records, but none exist.  The historian Seneca was born in 4 B.C., the same year that most New Testament scholars fix the time of Jesus's birth.  He and Pliny the Elder, another contemporary of Jesus, wrote detailed accounts of all of the known natural disasters and phenomena, past and present, earthquakes, floods, meteors, comets, eclipses, etc., but neither one mentioned either a three-hour darkness at midday or an earthquake that shook open tombs and resurrected "many" dead people.  In chapter 24 of *The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,* Edward Gibbon refers to the silence of Seneca and Pliny on the midday darkness and accepts this as reason to believe that no such event ever happened.

The silence of Josephus about such remarkable events as these is also hard to imagine.  His father, Matthias, was a priest in Jerusalem at the very time that Jesus was allegedly crucified and resurrected (*The Life of Flavius Josephus,* 2:7-12), so we can hardly imagine Josephus's father witnessing such phenomenal events as the midday darkness and the resurrection of "many" saints and not talking about them in the family circle as Josephus was growing up.  Likewise, we can't imagine Josephus not referring to these events if his father had indeed mentioned them. Josephus mentioned several minor Messianic claimants, whom history has now all but forgotten, but he made only two short, disputed references to a Messiah whose life was accompanied by truly amazing events. There is argument from silence; there is argument from unreasonable silence, and it is unreasonable to think that really remarkable events like these could have happened without any contemporary references to them having survived.

Pro-Supernatural Bias (1)

This is part one of a rebuttal by Farrell Till of 

part  of Dr.  James Price's response to Jim 

Lippard's  article The Fabulous Prophecies of 

the Messiah. It, along with part two which will be posted later,is an excellent short summary 

of many of the problems with the "evidences" Christian apologists give for Christianity. 

Regrettably, I have not been able to find the 

rest of Till's rebuttal. All Christians need to 

read this--a classic by Mr. Till from 1996:

From: Farrell Till

Subject: For M. Dawud: Response to Price 

Mr. Dawud: 

You have asked me to reply to Dr. James Price's response to Jim Lippard's article "The Fabulous Prophecies of the Messiah," which Lippard had posted on his home page.  You wanted me to respond to it in *The Skeptical Review,* but Price's response totals 130k, and it would require more than two complete issues of TSR just to publish the text of Price's article.  Since his response consisted of many unsupported assertions, to adequately rebut many of his points, I would need much more space than he took to make the assertions.

This requirement is due to the obvious fact that assertions are generally brief but rebuttals of assertions require  detailed analysis and support. For that reason, I will not be publishing Dr. Price's response, because I would probably have to devote more than an entire year of publishing space in discussion of this one issue.

As a compromise, I intend to respond to Dr. Price via the internet.  I will have to do this in a series of replies that I can see taking at least a year to complete, because I do have many other demands on my time.  I will probably post these replies on my "Errancy" list, and I will send CCs to Dr. Price and people who have challenged me to debate him.  Dr. Price, of course, will be entitled to respond to any of my rebuttals, and I will also post them on the errancy list. 

GENERAL IMPRESSIONS: 

My general impression of Dr. Price's rebuttal article is not at all favorable.  It is slightly better than many attempts I have seen to prove biblical prophecy fulfillment, and it is certainly better than Dr. Hugh Ross's article on the subject that I published in the January/February 1996 issue of TSR and responded to in a series of three rebuttals.  This, however, is not saying very much, because Ross's article was, in my opinion, incredibly simplistic.  Price did at least try from time to time to present evidence to support his supposition rather than simply make bald assertions, and for that he is to be commended.  This compliment should not be construed to mean that Dr. Price did not at times make bald, unsupported assertions, because he certainly did, as I will be pointing out.  I am merely recognizing that some of his rebuttal arguments were accompanied by supporting information.

Quoting The Bible

The inimitable Farrell Till, not allowing a Christian to get by with merely quoting the Bible to prove that the resurrection of Jesus is true (amazing that they would even try that).

From the Errancy discussion list, February, 1998:

Christian: 

You are coming from the viewpoint that the Bible is errant; I am coming from the viewpoint that it is from God and therefore accurate. If you do not want me to use what the Bible says in order to discuss the Bible, then I see no point in being here. You were just asking about spiritual/resurrected bodies. If you don't believe in the Bible, why even discuss it? If you want to discuss the Bible among yourselves with no opposing viewpoint, please tell me why the group is looking for Christians to be involved? To what purpose? 

TILL 

You have a strange way of thinking. Of course, I understand  that you think that the Bible is accurate, but I won't allow  you to use this assumption to settle any issue that's being  debated. I would have to be crazier than a loon to permit that. Don't you think I know that the NT clearly teaches that Jesus was resurrected from the dead and that there will be a final resurrection of all the dead? The issue is not whether the NT teaches these things, because clearly it does. The issue is whether the NT is correct in making these claims. I have no objection to you or anyone else quoting scripture as long as it is quoted simply to show what the NT says, but I have serious objections to your apparent belief that the mere citation of a scripture should be sufficient to settle an issue. If you are going to quote 1 Corinthians 15 as proof that there will be a final resurrection, then you have the obligation to present arguments that will show there are good reasons to believe that what this text says is true. You say that you have no objections to debating the errancy of the Book of Mormon, but if a Mormon were on the list to debate this issue, you surely would not stand still for allowing him simply to quote the Book of Mormon as proof of its own accuracy, would you? 

Farrell Till