This might look like your typical city street, but don’t be fooled. This city street doesn’t really exist. Confused? Let me explain.
This city street has the misfortune of being built in a spot that the Bible says would remain desolate forever. Ezekiel 26 and the next two chapters prophesy that the city of Tyre would be destroyed and never be rebuilt. This is why we can’t be misled by pictures like these. Despite their seeming undeniable hold upon reality, Tyre can’t really be there. After all, many Bible apologetics books have stated that Tyre is just a bare rock where fishermen spread their nets. That’s all fine and good, but we probably shouldn’t tell that to the people living there. Imagine how disorienting it would be to find out your city isn’t there!
How do we explain this anomaly? I can only think of two possibilities. Perhaps we are witnessing a tear in the fabric of reality. This might simply be a glimpse of a reality in which Ezekiel did not prophesy that Tyre would never be rebuilt. Somehow we’re able to see it, but it’s obviously not our reality, because Ezekiel said Tyre shouldn’t be here.
However, there is another possibility. There’s a remote chance that Ezekiel was wrong about Tyre. A ludicrous proposition, I know, but technically, it is a possibility.
We may never come to a true resolution of this ambiguous issue. Is it really there, or isn’t it? It seems that each individual will have to come to his or her own conclusion. One thing is certain, however. The apologists have definitively staked out the position that Tyre doesn’t exist, while the residents of Tyre disagree.
If you’d like to learn more about this issue, you can read this article.
Finding Truth 
Hi Don,
Thanks for the comment! I agree with you. I think this prophecy is no different than any of the other ones you mentioned. But a few years ago, I was a fundamentalist Christian who believed in biblical inerrancy. So when I became aware of the issues with this prophecy, it was a major blow to me, and it would be to many of the people I still come into contact with. That’s the only real reason I posted about it.
Thanks!
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Nate, I haven’t read all the comments, but I think your post was a little harsh on Ezekiel, just as some christians are a little blinkered.
After I investigated this (see The fulfilment of Old Testament Prophecy, I concluded that Ezekiel was about 75% correct, not too bad (if we base our judgment on a literal interpretation of such a prophecy, which I think is a slight mistake). His main points were correct but some details were not.
Best wishes.
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Thanks Unklee (I wrote Don here the first time — sorry!). I’ll check out the link.
I do agree that I was a bit harsh toward Ezekiel in this post. It’s hard to do levity when religion is concerned. 🙂 A while back, I wrote a more complete treatment of it here: Prophecy Part 6: Tyre
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On March 28, Jim wrote: “You don’t want to accept the findings of “apologist” writers and scholars, because they (in your view) are prejudiced toward a belief in God and the Bible. How then can you accept the arguments of “skeptics”? Most of those writers and scholars approach an examination of the Bible with the predetermined mindset that there is no God, and therefore no inspiration of scripture nor any such thing as miracles. Obviously, if you begin with this thought, then the ONLY possible view of the Bible is that it is a myth written by humans out of their own imaginations.”
I’m sorry, but in my experience this is exactly the opposite. I was raised in a Christian family, and my mother remains a devout believer in spite of our talks, which are very friendly. Only after many years of study, questioning (which TRUE BELIEVERS are NOT allowed to do!), and thinging, did I come to doubt and then discard that mythology, as the monotheists of the world discarded previous mythologies. Most children born into a religious household are inculcated from their first few days into the rituals, and then the ideologies of that religion. It takes a lot of study and then confidence in your own intelligence and thoughts to break with your parents, your social group, and your religion. You actually have to break preconceptions.
My children were raised in an athiest household. Not only did we not force our beliefs on them, we encouraged them to attend church if they wanted, and paid for trips and other events with religious groups. They eventually decided religion was false all on their own. Oddly, neither one writes or talks about it. As with other children who were raised in non-relilgious households, they just don’t care. It’s the “born again” athiests, such as myself, who spend the time and energy to keep investigating (yes, I still have a fairly open mind, and am willing to be convinced), and then write or speak on the subject. And I don’t study “atheisism” — I study relilgion! it is the absurdities of religion itself that have driven me away, not Darwin or Einstein or any other great thinker (although I certainly studied their writings). It is the religious people who have the preconceptions and the closed minds.
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@unklee
I just wanted to let you know that I read the article you wrote on Tyre, and I think you did an excellent job. You were very fair in your presentation, and you provide some excellent links to further reading (Christian and skeptic alike). I definitely recommend it to anyone who is interested in reading further about this prophecy. For simplicity’s sake, I’ll repost the link here:
The Fulfillment of Old Testament Prophecy
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@Don Maker
I really appreciate your comment. Thanks
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Don said: “questioning (which TRUE BELIEVERS are NOT allowed to do!)”
I’m afraid this is a myth Don. It may be true of the christians you grew up with, but it certainly isn’t true of all. I have spent 50 years as a christian, questioning all the time, and we brought our children up to think for themselves – and they are all now adult christians. And our family is not alone, though I don’t doubt that many are as you describe as well. I suggest it would be safer not to make such generalisations. Best wishes.
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@unklee
very true. Too often both sides seem to assert what the other is, or what the other thinks, or how the other is or isn’t being objective.
But in the context of this particular prophecy, is it a win or a loss for the bible, if taken solely on its own word? I think Nate has done a good job of pointing out which it is. Ezekiel said that Tyre was going to be destroyed, never rebuilt, and never found again.
It may have been destroyed, so i guess that could be a win. Yet is was rebuilt which would be a loss, and has been found again which would also be a loss. True, one can only come to this conclusion if taking the bible at its word, or by taking it literally. If this prophecy is not to be taken literally, just because of the outcome that has actually happened, then it seems like nothing in the bible is to be taken literally for certain. That is unless you believe this prophecy has yet to be fulfilled literally, but will.
It’s what we do with the evidence we have, i guess. How the evidence is handled does shed light on one’s character and true willingness to question. Even Jesus said that a tree is known by its fruits. If reasonable evidence is tossed out merely because of faith, then isn’t that faith then blind? So then how could one blind faith be better than someone else’s blind faith?
Reasonable evidence is the evidence based upon reason, based upon what is testable, or upon what can be or has been witnessed, or experienced. The same type of reason that helps one excel and advance in every other aspect of life. Work, or whatever. In my own experience, i realized that I was suspending the reason that I applied to do well in school and work when it came to religion. I realized that the bible didn’t hold up to that reason when i tried to apply it. And discussing these issue with other christians, hearing their explanations and excuses only validated my doubts.
And Unklee, I can agree with you, but pointing out that you’ve remained a christian and all of you children have remained christians could be taken as evidence for either your point or Don’s, right?
I would be interested to see how you or any other christian answer whether Ezekiel’s Tyre prophecy, when taken how the bible presents it, is fulfilled or unfulfilled.
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G’day William, nice to ‘meet’ you.
“If this prophecy is not to be taken literally, just because of the outcome that has actually happened, then it seems like nothing in the bible is to be taken literally for certain.”
I have two problems here. The first concerns the word ‘literally’. There is clearly much in the Bible that isn’t ‘literal’ – e.g. no-one pretends that metaphors are ‘literal’ or that the parable of the Good Samaritan actually happened, and the Song of Songs is clearly poetry, and contains many poetic metaphors. Furthermore, when the NT writers and Jesus quote the OT, they often don’t quote it in a ‘literal’ manner, but what we may term figuratively.
So one needs to ask whether prophecy was ever intended to be fully ‘literal’, or whether it was something a little different. I did a study of prophecy a long time ago, and I don’t think you can pin the literal label on it.
Secondly, I think it is an amazing jump to say because some parts in a compilation of 66 writings is not literal, then we can’t take any of it as literal. Just take the gospels. Surely it is easy to take the Good samaritan as parable and the statement “Jesus died” as literal history?
” I realized that the bible didn’t hold up to that reason when i tried to apply it.”
Secular historians nevertheless conclude the the gospels are valuable historical documents from which we can know a lot about Jesus.
“I would be interested to see how you or any other christian answer whether Ezekiel’s Tyre prophecy, when taken how the bible presents it, is fulfilled or unfulfilled.”
I go along with the Robert Bratcher view, that the Jews who included the prophecy in their sacred writings mustn’t have looked at it as you do. If the point of the prophecy was to predict historical events, than he got it about 75% right. If the point of the prophecy, in context, was to pronounce judgment on Israel and surrounding nations, then he got it right.
This prophecy is a poor argument either for sceptics or believers, in my view.
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@unklee
Unklee,
You are right that some things are obviously figurative and some are obviously literal. the presence of figurative language doesnt preclude literal language being used as well, and vise versa – we use context clues to know the difference.
what I am saying, is that in the case of this prophecy, the context clue seems to be in the outcome of the prophecy, if I’m undertsanding the believers correctly. Had Tyre never been rebuilt, and never been found again everyone would have taken the prophecy as being literal, and not one thing would had to have changed in the wording. But as it is, believers will say it was figurative only because it literally failed to come true.
I would like to echo the thoughts of Nate, If the prophecy was meant to be taken figuratively, then why give it? virtually all of the old cities and nations had been taken by another at one time over the past thousand years or two. It seems pointless to give a specific prophecy, that is really intended to be figuratively vague, about events that would likely happen everywhere to everyone. It does seem to lose it’s splendor.
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@William
…and I guess this why I said what I did about making everything suspect. If there is something like this, that appears to be literal as it is written, but turns out to be in fact figurative, then where would that end?
Hell, is it figurative or literal? How about heaven, or anything else? See what I mean?
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“If the prophecy was meant to be taken figuratively, then why give it?”
I think it is easy to sit here in the twentieth century and apply inappropriate modern western concepts to a prophecy two and a half millennia old. We need to understand the context and the nature of prophecies or oracles generally. I suggest we can say:
* judging by the content of their writings, the prophets were much more concerned about obedience and social justice than prediction;
* many oracles were couched in cryptic and metaphorical words, some even in actions; the ‘vagueness’ was presumably deliberate;
* many either had double fulfilments (then and in Jesus) and/or they were re-interpreted by Jesus and the NT writers in often non-literal ways;
* the purpose of the oracles was to communicate God’s purposes and provoke change, not to prove God knew the future;
* many of the oracles were conditional on certain actions and not absolute.
So even if I believed the Bible to be inerrant, I would still not expect the prophecies to be absolutely literal. You, in talking about ‘splendour’, and believers who use them as proofs, are both misunderstanding them and using them for a purpose that they weren’t intended for.
<i?"If there is something like this, that appears to be literal as it is written, but turns out to be in fact figurative, then where would that end?"
Do you really think that it appears to be literal? Have you ever read Ezekiel?
Read just the first chapter and you’ll see how wrong this view is! Or read about his symbolic enacted prophecies given while he couldn’t speak (ch 3-4), including acting that he was not grieving when his wife died (ch 24). Or his descriptions of the temple (ch 40-48). Or the valley of dry bones (chapter 37). Then read the whole of his oracle against Tyre, not just the prophecy (ch 26) but the lament (ch 27-28). I would say of all the prophets, Ezekiel is the strangest and the one we most clearly can see was a far from a literal person. I fear those who criticise this prophecy have never really entered into his life and character. I think he was a fascinating and probably quite abnormal person.
<i?"Hell, is it figurative or literal? How about heaven, or anything else? See what I mean?"
No, I’m sorry William, but I don’t see what you mean. These questions would be asked whether Ezekiel was literal or not, the two are not related. I suggest you and many christians make a common mistake about the Bible and expect it to be like a modern textbook rather than what it is – a bunch of ancient documents through which God reveals himself to those who want to know and conceals himself from those who don’t. (That is an idea taken from the prophet Isaiah and taken up by Jesus, not just my own idea, though I have extrapolated.)
While it is designed to give us information, it isn’t so much designed to give us answers as to provoke us to ask questions and consider. So I suggest you now have a choice – how you will respond. If you want to understand, I hope you will try to read the Bible with different eyes and see if what I say makes sense.
Best wishes, and thanks for the opportunity to discuss.
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Hi unklee,
I think you make some really good points here. They’re definitely things that should be considered. In fact, you’ve encouraged me to go back and study Ezekiel in more detail now.
I will say that I think this prophecy would have been a great opportunity to add some major credibility to the Bible, but it just seems to fall flat to me. The only unusual thing — the only thing that it might have taken inspiration to predict — was the claim that Tyre would never be rebuilt. But it obviously was.
Also, I agree with you that the main thrust of the prophets was to call people to repentance. They were much more concerned with that than prophetic accuracy. But I just see this as another clue that the Bible is merely the work of men.
Anyway, I’m not saying any of that to change your mind or argue with you. I just wanted to give my current perspective on your points. As always, thanks for weighing in. I appreciate your comments even though we don’t always agree.
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Nate, thanks for your comment. I want you to know I really do appreciate the tone of your replies – I think you may be the friendliest atheist I have discussed with on the web. : )
“I will say that I think this prophecy would have been a great opportunity to add some major credibility to the Bible, but it just seems to fall flat to me.”
I guess all I can say is that adding credibility was probably not Ezekiel’s, or God’s, purpose! I think you are seeing things with 20th century eyes and mindset, and while it is hard to change the eyes, I think it is necessary to be more sceptical about the mindset.
“But I just see this as another clue that the Bible is merely the work of men.”
I think this is really a strange statement. I cannot see how that conclusion follows from the “premises” you started with.
” I appreciate your comments even though we don’t always agree.”
Ditto. At least I can understand how you approach these things, which is interesting and worthwhile, even if I find it strange sometimes. Best wishes.
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@unklee
Deut 18:22… What Ezekiel said didn’t come true. You even admit as much by saying he was 75% correct, which means he was 25% incorrect.
I believe I have looked at the bible objectively and I did believe it fervently for many years, but I never thought that a little error was alright. If I’m mistaken about what you’re saying then I apologize.
“* judging by the content of their writings, the prophets were much more concerned about obedience and social justice than prediction;”
then why give predictions? Especially ones that don’t come to pass – whether in part or in whole.
” I suggest you and many christians make a common mistake about the Bible and expect it to be like a modern textbook rather than what it is – a bunch of ancient documents through which God reveals himself to those who want to know and conceals himself from those who don’t. ”
were you saying that it should be taken as God’s revelation to those want to see it, but is hidden to those who dont want to see it? That sounds like the story of the emperor’s new clothes. And what about those like me, who just want to know the truth and not be duped by a lie? Plus, John 20:30-31, jesus at least was trying to convince people…
John 20: 30 Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31 But these are written that you may believe[b] that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
When it’s hard to explain, the solution becomes “you’re not looking at it right” or “God will reveal himself if you want to see.” I have scripture for my issues, and it’s always easy to say that “you’re just not looking at it right, or you dont have the best understanding…” well I can say that too. You’re obviuosly confused by spending your time reading prophets that dont make a lot of sense, when you should have been reading the whole bible to see the issues within it. You’ve decided that god is in it, and so you see him in every page only because you’re trying too, much like looking for a shape in the clouds. Now, what I just said may or may not be true, and the fact that I said it has no bearing on whether it’s true or not. We might ought stick to the bible itself and let it speak for itself, and avoid prescribing each other’s intentions.
If the prophecy wasnt meant to mean that Tyre would be destroyed, never rebuilt and never found again, then why say it that way? And of course I’m looking at things from the era I am in, because I’m not from another era and the bible is supposed to be for all people for all time. If Ezekiel convinced the jews thousands of years ago, then that’s great. Why should I consider their thought process when Ezekiel didnt consider ours?
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@unklee
““But I just see this as another clue that the Bible is merely the work of men.”
I think this is really a strange statement. I cannot see how that conclusion follows from the “premises” you started with.”
I think it’s because you cant take Ezekiel at his word. he said something would happen, but didn’t. This would mean the prophecy failed, if it were a prophecy, and it does look like one to me. Deut 18:22.
I think it also comes from the idea that a perfect and all knowing god wouldnt mess up a prophecy, so if it were a prophecy, then it wasnt from God because it failed… or at least appears to.
does that make sense?
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@unklee
Hi Unklee — thanks for the kind comments!
You may be right about that, but that’s one of the things that bugs me. As William pointed out, John 20 says that his purpose was to persuade people. And the New Testament is filled with people quoting the Old in order to build a case for Jesus’s divinity. When Jesus was tempted, he responded by quoting scripture. When Moses and Gideon needed convincing, God patiently provided multiple miracles to convince them. When the Israelites were in Egypt, God provided plagues to show the Israelites who he was and to convince the Egyptians to “let [his] people go.”‘
Today, most Christians believe that people of other religions (or no religion at all) must come to Christ in order to receive salvation. If so, what evidence will convince them to do that? An unquestionably fulfilled prophecy would go a very long way, in my opinion. So if it wasn’t God’s or Ezekiel’s purpose, what does that say about the amount of concern they have for people today? Many people in the Bible received multiple miracles to help convince them — we don’t even get an internally consistent or accurately prophetic book?
I’m sorry — I wasn’t very clear there. You said that the prophets were more concerned with calling people to repentance than with prophetic language. I agree with you. But to me, this indicates that they weren’t much different than other people of their time. They were trying to convince people to listen to them; just like any other religious leader tries to do. The fact that they spoke in hyperbole and made sweeping pronouncements that may or may not come true makes them indistinguishable from “false prophets,” in my opinion. Also, the fact that these books weren’t written in a modern mindset, but in an ancient one further shows that they’re not divinely inspired, in my opinion. They look just like what we’d expect from someone of that time period. So why should we think they were anything more?
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William said: “What Ezekiel said didn’t come true. You even admit as much by saying he was 75% correct, which means he was 25% incorrect.”
I think I was being generous to your viewpoint when I said this. I am glad you have pursued this because it has caused me to re-read and reconsider.
Ezekiel prophesied many details against Tyre, and most of them clearly came true – that is why I said 75%. The main (only?) detail that seemed to be untrue was the one that Nate used to title his post – it will never be rebuilt.
Now this all comes down to questions about whether the city is the people or the location, and whether a name is the same as the thing it names. Ezekiel was clearly addressing the people who lived in Tyre, and they certainly didn’t rebuild their city, and the city today has the same name but isn’t the same city in any way.
Now we could argue about all that, and I am not about to use this example as an argument for Biblical accuracy, but I think my re-reading shows me that Ezekiel plausibly got it 100% right according to his purposes, and better than 75% right by our standards.
I think this was a remarkable achievement, and lends more support to the accuracy of the Bible than it does to the charge that it was inaccurate. I think I will amend my assessment on my blog accordingly.
” I never thought that a little error was alright”
Most christians, in my experience, don’t hold to the doctrine of inerrancy.
“then why give predictions? Especially ones that don’t come to pass – whether in part or in whole.”
Strictly speaking, these oracles are not predictions but judgments which have some predictive elements. The judgment is what is important.
“were you saying that it should be taken as God’s revelation to those want to see it, but is hidden to those who dont want to see it? “
Jesus said (Luke 8:10, quoting Isaiah): The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables, so that, ‘though seeing, they may not see; though hearing, they may not understand.’ I extrapolated that idea. God gives us genuine freedom to choose, so Jesus presents his message in a way that allows people to hear and choose whether they believe or not. Entering his kingdom is not so much dependent on intelligence, education or what we know, as on our “heart” attitude.
“And what about those like me, who just want to know the truth and not be duped by a lie?”
Jesus promises that those who seek and keep on seeking will find. But we have to be willing to let go of our assumptions if necessary, and not demand to know on our terms. I encourage you to keep on seeking, and asking questions.
“When it’s hard to explain, the solution becomes “you’re not looking at it right” or “God will reveal himself if you want to see.””
I’m sorry William, I don’t mean to be evasive or difficult or offensive, I am just saying what I believe to be true. I don’t just make up my answers to try to answer your questions – they mostly come from 50 years of asking myself similar questions and pondering on the realities of life.
“a perfect and all knowing god wouldnt mess up a prophecy, so if it were a prophecy, then it wasnt from God because it failed… or at least appears to. does that make sense?”
It makes perfect sense. It just doesn’t appear to be the way that it is. God appears to have allowed human beings to have their freedom, and hasn’t tried to over-ride them about minor “errors”. And surely that makes sense also, and it seems to fit the facts better.
Best wishes.
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Nate, I think it may be time to take a broader view, for I think we will gain little from further discussing the details. See what you think of this ….
1. If we took this oracle out of its context and considered it as just a piece of history, I think we would say that Ezekiel foresaw the coming events pretty well. But no-one is being urged to believe in Ezekiel, the only reason people raise it in a negative way is because it purports to come from God. And on the basis of this oracle alone, I don’t think we would be entitled to conclude either that God existed or that he didn’t. That being so, we need to look at the wider context of God and the Bible.
2. I am a christian. I believe the NT has been shown to be sufficiently reliable to trust, and I believe the Jesus affirmed by the majority of secular scholars can reasonably be believed to have told the truth and to be inaugurating God’s kingdom. And when I look at the philosophical arguments, the lives of christians, and my own life, I find all these reinforce that conclusion. So that is my firm conclusion, and my starting point for discussing Ezekiel and the OT generally.
So I take the OT as I find it. It doesn’t look like it is inerrant and it doesn’t claim to be, Jesus and the apostles often quoted from it in a non-literal way, and there is clear evidence of progression in the revelation. And so that is the conclusion I come to. It makes sense, it is consistent, and it builds on what I “know”.
3. You and William, on the other hand, presumably don’t believe in Jesus, so you bring a completely different set of assumptions, and that is where our main difference lies, not with Ezekiel. So you bring expectations that God should do things in a different way, he should be more obvious, and the Bible should even be inerrant.
I think those are unnecessary and unjustified assumptions. I can see that you could reasonably have those expectations, but I cannot see how you can maintain those expectations in the face of the evidence to the contrary. If you believe the God of Jesus exists, then the logic I outlined above applies. If you believe he doesn’t, then your real objections lie elsewhere. Either way, Ezekiel is not a crucial matter, in my opinion, and those expectations shouldn’t influence your conclusions.
So that, I think, is the bigger picture. Best wishes.
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Hi unklee,
I see what you’re saying. I do have a minor quibble with this line:
For me, the evidence to the contrary is just further indication that the Bible isn’t inspired. But I’m not trying to argue that point with you — I understand you look at it differently. Even though we come to different conclusions about it, I appreciate that you don’t make excuses for the places in the Bible that aren’t exactly right.
I think the main presupposition we disagree over is inerrancy. I was raised to believe that the Bible was word for word from God and completely error-free. When I discovered that it wasn’t, my faith didn’t have much more to hang on to. Some might say that’s just a sign of a weak faith, but I don’t think it is. I think it’s just a sign of a different approach to scripture.
I currently still believe that if God were going to send us a message that our souls depended on, he would provide a great deal of evidence — miraculous evidence — to help us believe it. The Old and New Testaments are filled with examples where people were given astounding evidence to help them believe. Even the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8 was given the sign of Phillip’s disappearance, and the eunuch had already professed belief at that point. When people asked for signs, they typically received them. Paul said that he became all things to all people so that he might win some. In the story of the prodigal son, the father ran out to meet the son as soon as the son showed signs that he wanted reconciliation.
Considering all of that, I think it’s reasonable to believe that God would have amazing evidence for us today as well. In my opinion, this amazing evidence doesn’t exist. I’m not aware of any verified miracles in modern times; I don’t believe God has any inspired prophets today that could show us the way. I used to think that the Bible was our piece of extraordinary evidence. How could such a document be completely perfect in all its claims and accounts? How could it have made wild predictions that were later fulfilled exactly? God’s inspiration was the only explanation that made sense. That’s why I believed. But now that I see the Bible doesn’t fit that description, I have no more reason to believe its claims.
I understand that you take a different approach — I have no problem with that. We just look at this differently.
Thanks for your thoughts.
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Yes, I think we have identified our differences reasonably well. It is clear you have a binary approach to the possibility of God existing. If the Bible was inerrant then you could believe, if not then you can’t. You seem unable to accept a middle position of if the Bible is historically accurate you could consider believing that bit.
And this quote sums up your expectation, which I think is too uncertain to be definitive:
“I currently still believe that if God were going to send us a message that our souls depended on, he would provide a great deal of evidence — miraculous evidence — to help us believe it.”
So I guess we can leave it there for now. Thanks again.
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@unklee
I get you, I think. But I still disagree. Even if Ezekiel’s point was merely to place judgement (and Agree that is what he was doing), his full judgement didn’t come to pass, at least as I see it… And the parts that did happen, happened to most places during that time.
And are we looking at all of Ezekiel’s judgement on Tyre the same? Was all of it figurative or just the part about never being rebuilt and never being found again? When Ezekiel said it was going to be attacked again and again, was that literal, or figurative for something else, like trade embargoes?
My only other thought is that if the bible obviously is not inerrant, then why think that is is anything more than a product a man, since man can write things down and do it all the time without god’s influence?
I think I am being objective and am constantly seeking the truth. I try to give myself to self examination to keep myself on that path. At the moment I feel like I left my presuppositions when I quit being a christian. I think my presuppositions that the bible was God’s word and the biblical authors were telling the absolute truth is what held me within that religion. Only when I finally opened the door to the consideration that the bible may not be from god, and that its authors may have been mistaken, did I realize my faith had been built upon what other men had told me, and that all the “hard to understand” parts of the bible were really just mistakes, errors and contradictions. In other words, it looked just like people put it together.
But I admit, I could be wrong. I have been before.
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The only thing I’d like to clarify is that I only hang the existence of the Christian god on the accuracy of the Bible. I still admit that some other god may exist. But I find the god of the Bible to be improbable for a number of reasons; the Bible is just what helps seal the deal, in my opinion.
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William, I think we are understanding each other better, which is good, though of course not agreeing.
“And are we looking at all of Ezekiel’s judgement on Tyre the same? Was all of it figurative or just the part about never being rebuilt and never being found again?”
I don’t know, and I honestly don’t care all that much. I wonder have you ever read Ezekiel right through? I have, though a while ago. There are almost 50 chapters of very strange stuff, with oracles against about a dozen nations or cities, and even oracles against “the south” and the mountains. I don’t profess to understand what it’s all about, what was in Ezekiel’s mind, and certainly not how literal it was meant to be. And I can’t see how it matters, if we don’t assume inerrancy. I’m not even sure if it mattered to Tyre et al back then – did they ever hear or read the oracle against them? I doubt it.
“My only other thought is that if the bible obviously is not inerrant, then why think that is is anything more than a product a man, since man can write things down and do it all the time without god’s influence?”
I can’t see how we should simply assume from the start that the Bible is inerrant. Thinking it is just a human collection of writings is surely the correct place to start. But not the correct place to end, IMO. Human writings still tell us stuff that is worth knowing, and the historians can help us decide what we can believe. As human writings, the gospels still tell us enough about Jesus to believe in him (again, IMO). Once I believe in Jesus, I can decide whether I think it is all inerrant, or what – surely that is the logical order? And once I believe in Jesus, what does it really matter if Ezekiel got it all right or not?
“I think my presuppositions that the bible was God’s word and the biblical authors were telling the absolute truth is what held me within that religion.”
But those same presuppositions led to your losing your belief. All I am suggesting to you and Nate is that the presupposition isn’t necessary. Start with the Bible as a human collection and see where it leads.
Best wishes.
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Hi unklee,
I’m really glad you posted that. With my background, it’s been hard for me to completely identify with the type of Christianity you espouse. So hearing your recommended approach to the Bible is very interesting to me — I really feel like I learned something right there!
As luck would have it, I do currently look at the Bible as a human collection. I’ve gone through the evidence for the resurrection before, but this was just as I was on my way out of Christianity. I’ll look at it again soon and keep your suggestions in mind.
Thanks!
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