Scientific Boo-Boos In The Bible

From *The Skeptical Review*, January/February 1991 issue:

By Farrell Till

Bibliolaters claim that the Bible is inerrant in every detail, in matters of history, science, geography, chronology, etc., as well as faith and practice. It is a claim that has won wide acceptance among fundamentalist Christians, but, as is true of most zealotic tributes that have been paid to the Bible, it has no basis in fact. As past articles in TSR have clearly shown to anyone who really wants to know the truth, the Bible is riddled with mistakes. Many of those mistakes were scientific ones.

The creation account in Genesis divided time into days and the days into evening and morning for three days before the sun was even created (1:1-19). "There was evening and there was morning," we are told, "one day... a second day... a third day," but as any astronomer knows, evening (night) and morning (daylight) result from the earth's rotation with respect to the sun. With no sun, there would have certainly been evening or night, but there could have been no morning.

On the fourth day when God created the "two great lights" (the sun and the moon), he created the stars too. This creation of the rest of the universe was treated by the Genesis writer(s) as if it were little more than an afterthought: "he made the stars also" (v:16). To the prescientific mind that wrote this, it probably made sense. To him (her), the earth was undoubtedly the center of the universe, but today we know better. The solar system of which earth is only a tiny part is itself an infinitesimal speck in the universe. Surely, then, the creation of the stars would not have occurred so quickly and suddenly if six days were needed to create the world. Scientists now know that the creation of stars is an evolutionary process that is still ongoing. Matter coalesces; stars ignite, shine, and eventually burn out or explode. From the existence of heavy elements in our solar system, astronomers generally agree that it formed from debris left over from a supernova that occurred billions of years ago. The prescientific Genesis writer knew none of this, however, and that is why he viewed the creation of the universe as an Elohistic afterthought. No modern, scientifically-educated writer would have made that mistake.

Two Goliaths?

More nonsense from desperate biblical inerrantists. From the Errancy Discussion List, Nov. 14, 1995:

RH 

All right, I think inerrancy is a good test to use because the Bible is alleged to be the word of God and to be so, it must not contain any errors. If the Bible contains errors, or is errant, it cannot be the word of God. Inerrancy is one test that I think we should use to determine if the Bible is the word of God. What else is needed?

TILL

I don't think we are communicating on this point, Roger. I'm trying to find out how one can go about "testing for inerrancy." I can't really see that fundamentalists "test" inerrancy. When confronted with a text whose face-value meaning contradicts the face-value meaning of another text, they just arbitrarily assign a figurative or possible-but-unlikely meaning to one of the texts. I can't see that this is a valid way to test inerrancy. As I have offered to do in past postings, if you or anyone will send me an example of contradiction or inconsistency in a nonbiblical historical document, I will use inerrantist methods to show that the contradiction or inconsistency doesn't exist when my "explanation" is accepted. However, I can't see that such an explanation would constitute a valid test for inerrancy in the document, because it lacks corroborative proof and fails to recognize the possibility that errancy might actually exist in the text.

Let me give an example of what I think would constitute a valid inerrancy test. The Bible says that David killed a Philistine warrior named Goliath who had a spear whose !"staff was like a weaver's beam" (1 Samuel 17:7), but 2 Samuel 21:19 says that the Philistine Goliath "whose spear was like a weaver's beam" was killed by Elhanan. Errantists consider this a "doublet" that found its way into the Bible by writers who incorporated two separate versions of a legend into 1 Samuel. In one legend, David killed Goliath; in the other Elhanan killed Goliath. Inerrantists, however, argue that this is not a doublet, but separate incidents. In other words, there were two Goliaths "whose spear was like a weaver's beam." David killed one of the Goliaths; Elhanan killed the other. Period, end of the discussion! The discrepancy is resolved, and the Bible has passed the "test" of inerrancy.

Inerrantists, however, fail to realize that just because the postulation of two Goliaths conveniently resolves the problem, it in no way proves that there really were two Goliaths. However, the problem could be satisfactorily resolved if archaeologists should discover extrabiblical records left by the Philistines that clearly and unequivocally refer to the existence of two giants named Goliath. We would also need some kind of archaeological evidence that David existed, because many scholars consider him to be sort of the "King Arthur" of Hebrew folklore. To date, archaeologists have discovered only two very questionable references to David in nonbiblical references. Archaeologists have discovered nonbiblical references to Ahab, Omri, and several other Israelite kings less prominent than David but no indisputable references to David, the most famous king of them all, and this seems strange indeed in view of the prominence that he was given in biblical documents. So if confirmation of David's existence and the existence of two Goliaths could be obtained through extrabiblical records, this would be a reasonable confirmation of the Bible's accuracy in its references to two Goliaths. In the absence of such evidence, however, the two-Goliaths explanation of the inerrantists is pure speculation that proves nothing at all about the Bible's accuracy in this matter.

F. Till

More Inerrantist Desperation

From the Errancy Discussion List, July 31, 1995:

Nanson
...(the)...prophecy from Isaiah, which says that he'd [Jesus] be dead for 3 days and 3 nights.

TILL

Isaiah made no such prophecy; in fact, there is no prophecy ANYWHERE in the OT that the Messiah would rise from the dead on the third day. Yet Jesus allegedly said in Luke 24:46 that it had been "written" that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead the third day, and the apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:4 that Christ had risen again the third day "according to the scriptures," so here are two NT passages that allege that the OT had spoken of a resurrection of the Messiah on the third day. I have made the challenge enough in both public and written debates to know that no one can produce any such OT reference. It is my contention, in fact, that there is NO prophecy anywhere of the Messiah's resurrection, period, although both Peter and Paul (according to Luke) claimed that Psalm 16:8 had prophesied of the resurrection (Acts 2:25-30; 13:35). Anyone can read that scripture in context and clearly see that it is straining imagination to the limits to make it a reference to the resurrection of Jesus.

Here is Paul Nanson's chance to make me eat dirt, because I am sending him a cc of this posting. To really show me up, all that he needs to do is produce an OT prophecy of the resurrection of the Messiah on the 3rd day. He can't do it. No one can do it.

Vain attempts have been made to cite Hosea 6:2 as a prophecy of the Messiah's resurrection on the third day, but just look at what it says: "Come, and let us return to Yahweh; for He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up. After two days He will revive us; On he third day He will raise us up, that we may live in His sight."

Notice the plural objects of the raising up: "He will revive US; on the third day He will raise US up." Taken in context, the reader will see that this was a prophecy that referred to the nation of Israel. To try to make it a reference to the resurrection of Jesus is... well, typical inerrantist desperation.

We will now wait patiently for Nanson or some like-minded inerrantist to cite the OT scripture that said the Christ would rise again on the 3rd day.

Farrell Till

Bible God Wants Everyone Saved?

The "inerrant" Bible is contradictory on the very important matter of whether its god wants everyone saved or not. Farrell Till responds to a Christian in the May-June, 2002,  mailbag section of *The Skeptical Review* concerning this confusing biblical issue:

Editor’s note: Oh, boy, just what I need-another Christian praying for the salvation of my soul. In the Spring 1995 issue of TSR, Judith Hayes exposed the absurdity of the belief in the efficacy of prayer, so I have sent a reprinted copy of this issue to Mr. England for his consideration. Somewhere else in the back issues of TSR is a logical argument that I presented to show the folly of the notion that praying for the salvation of another person will bring the desired results. The argument is simple enough that I'm going to present it here rather than search through the archives to find the article.

Showing that prayer for the salvation of others is illogical, all one needs to do is look at what the New Testament teaches about prayer and then apply common sense to it. First John 5:14-15 says, "And this is the boldness we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have obtained the requests made of him." If Mr. England is praying for the salvation of my soul--as hundreds before him have told me they are doing--the only reason I won’t be saved would have to be that my salvation either is not the will of God or else Mr. England doesn’t believe in what he is praying for, because Jesus promised elsewhere in the New Testament that whatever one prays for believing it will happen he will receive it: "Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only will you do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ it will be done. Whatever you ask for in prayer with faith, you will receive" (Matt. 21: 21-22). I’m not trying to be facetious about Mr. England’s incarceration, but I have to wonder why, if he really believes what Jesus said here, he doesn’t pray for the prison doors to swing open (as they sometimes did in biblical times) so that he can walk out a free man. Perhaps he doesn’t believe that it would happen if he did pray for this, so in that case the fault would lie in his lack of faith. If he isn’t willing to accept that conclusion, then about the only alternative left to him is to accept that what the Bible teaches about prayer isn’t necessarily true.

What Men With David?

From the Topica II Errancy discussion list, February 22,  2002:

DAVE G. What ultimately led Matt Bell to concede the Bible wasn't  inerrant? TILL He made the announcement after I posted an article that showed error in Mark 2:25, where Jesus allegedly said that David had men with him when he went into the house of God and ate the showbread. DAVE G. What is the OT cross-reference?

TILL
First Samuel 21:1-10, but my affirmative arguments involved analyzing
chapters 20, 21, and 22 to show that no men were with David until he
reached the cave of Adullam, where he was joined by men loyal to him.

Farrell Till

Logistical Improbabilities in the Wilderness-Wandering Tales-When Nature Called

By Farrell Till 
We have seen some of the logistical problems that would have been involved in setting up encampments for 2.5 to 3 million people and carrying out the sacrificial ceremonies that the Levitical law required. Probably few inerrantists have ever considered a wilderness problem that all densely populated areas must solve, and that is the problem of human-waste disposal. The following passage made some stipulations in this regard that would have posed some special hardships on the Israelites during their wilderness wanderings.

Deuteronomy 23:12 You shall have a designated area outside the camp to which you shall go. 13 With your utensils you shall have a trowel; when you relieve yourself outside, you shall dig a hole with it and then cover up your excrement. 14 Because Yahweh your God travels along with your camp, to save you and to hand over your enemies to you, therefore your camp must be holy, so that he may not see anything indecent among you and turn away from you.

This passage clearly indicates that latrines were not allowed inside the encampment, and so when nature called, one was required to go outside of the 9-square-mile camp to attend to it. He/she was to take along a "trowel" (paddle in some translations) to dig a hole in which to bury the excrement. It is hard to imagine how large this "designated" area would have had to have been to accommodate 2.5 million people digging their individual holes to attend to their business. If each hole were only 6 inches by 6 inches, a "designated area" of 625,000 square feet or 69,444 square yards would be needed to provide a hole for each person. Since there are 4,840 square yards in an acre, this "designated area" would have had to have been 14.35 acres in size to accommodate each person's going "outside the camp" with his/her trowel just once per day.

In Yahweh's inscrutable wisdom that led him to choose this method of waste disposal rather than ordering the construction of pit latrines, special problems would have necessarily ensued. In a time, for example, when there was no Imodium A-D, diarrhea would have seriously complicated the problems. It's hard to imagine how 2.5 million people trekking throughout the day to this "designated area" could have attended to their needs without at times uncovering the holes that others had used. This must have caused many unpleasant moments. Yahweh may, of course, have anticipated this problem and instructed Moses to make the designated area much larger than 14.35 acres. Indeed, this would surely have been necessary, since the 14.35 acres would have provided for only one 6-inch by 6-inch hole per person per day. Since the Israelites wandered in the wilderness for 40 years and since Numbers 33 listed only 41 encampments for them, they would have averaged spending almost a year at each camp site. Unless a big chunk of land outside these camps was set aside as the "designated area," there would have been a lot of unpleasant digging experiences.

Other than that is the problem that would have confronted those who felt nature calling during the night. Those in the middle of the encampments would have had to trek at least 1.5 miles just to reach the "designated area." Men with prostrate problems surely suffered from sleep deprivation but would have otherwise been in good physical condition from the exercise they got from walking back and forth to the "designated area." Inerrantists will no doubt pooh-pooh (pun intended) this posting, but I didn't put Deuteronomy 23:12-14 in the Bible; I have merely critically analyzed what it says and found that it presents another problem of logistics that biblicists need to explain if they expect rational people to believe that their Bible is the inspired, inerrant word of an omniscient, omnipotent deity.

Some inerrantists will claim that this requirement concerning waste disposal applied only to the Israelite army when it was engaged in campaigns against the enemy, because verses 9-11 say, "When you are encamped against your enemies you shall guard against any impropriety. If one of you becomes unclean because of a nocturnal emission, then he shall go outside the camp; he must not come within the camp. When evening comes, he shall wash himself with water, and when the sun has set, he may come back into the camp."

This is more of a quibble than an argument, because when the entire 23rd chapter is read, it should be apparent that the commandments it contains were intended to apply to all Israelites and not just to the soldiers. I'm sure that even inerrantists would not argue, for example, that a man with crushed testicles or an amputated penis (v:1) should be allowed into the assembly as long as he wasn't a soldier. Did the commandment against sodomites (v:17) apply only to soldiers? Could an Israelite lend money for interest as long as he wasn't a soldier (v:19)?

Leviticus 26:11-12 states that Yahweh had set his tabernacle among the Israelites and walked among them. The tabernacle was set up in the center of the general encampment of the Israelites (Num. 3), so if Yahweh walked among the Israelites where the tabernacle was, that would have to mean that he walked in the general encampment of the Israelites. If he didn't want to be repelled by the sight of excrement in an encampment of soldiers, why would he feel any differently about encountering it in the general encampment? The statement in Leviticus 26:11-12, by the way, is in a larger context that speaks of Yahweh's being with the Israelites to drive their enemies out of the land. In other words the language here is very similar to Deuteronomy 23:14, which speaks of Yahweh walking "in the midst of the camp."

At any rate, very little is solved by quibbling that the policy on waste disposal applied only to soldiers and not to the Israelites in general, because the Israelite army numbered 600,000, so if the calculations above are divided by four in order to limit this commandment just to the army, the logistical problems would still exist. Can you imagine an army of 600,000 that did not provide latrine facilities within its camp, but every soldier was required to trek without the camp?  Go to the last article in the series.

Who's Really Looking At The "Narrow View"?

Farrell Till takes a biblical apologist to school. From TSR, 1998: March/April:

By Farrell Till 

After what amounted to a sermon more than an attempt to address the inconsistency of the Bible on the issue of whether God punished the innocent for the "sins" of their fathers, Dr. Righter accused me of looking only at the "narrow view and not the 'larger picture,'" but no view of the Bible could be any narrower than the one he reflected in his article. That view is that regardless of how inconsistent, contradictory, absurd, or incomprehensible the Bible may appear in places, it is nevertheless the inspired word of God, and so any textual problems in it have to be just apparent. Dr. Righter has proposed to explain the sins-of-the-fathers problem by what he calls the "larger picture," but as we will see, the only thing larger than the "picture" he speaks about is his naivety in accepting a thoroughly discredited view of the Bible. That the Bible is not the "inerrant word of God" has been demonstrated so convincingly that only diehard fundamentalists like Roger Hutchinson, Dr. James Price, and now Dr. Righter continue to cling to the view. Biblical inerrancy is an outdated view of the Bible that survives in fundamentalist Bible colleges and churches pastored by the products of these colleges, but it is no longer taught in responsible seminaries or believed by scholars who put academic integrity above religious bias.