Links: Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 3
In early 2010, my questions took a different track that I hadn’t expected, and it happened quite by accident. I was writing material for the adult and high school Bible classes. We were about to begin a study of Christian Evidences, and I was writing a couple of lessons that showed some of the flaws in other religions, like Islam. Basically, it was an attempt to explain why we were Christian instead of Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, etc. In researching the problems in other religions, I also came across articles that talked about the problems in Christianity, including a series of articles on the historical contradictions in the Book of Daniel. I read the articles out of a sense of curiosity. I had been a Christian for a long time, and I had done a good bit of personal work. Though I had heard people claim the Bible had flaws in the past, I had never seen anyone present any. So I was very skeptical, even a little dismissive, of these articles. Until I read them, that is.
If you’d like to see them for yourself, I’ve reposted them on my blog. Links to all the articles can be found here. For now, I’ll simply say that the articles had much more substance than I had assumed they would. I was troubled by what they said, but I wanted to verify the information before I got too carried away. However, it didn’t take very long to find out that the main points of the articles were correct. Daniel, in my view, had a lot of problems.
At first, I didn’t really know what to make about this. I had always believed in biblical inerrancy, but now I was faced with a part of the Bible I no longer believed was inerrant. Could it be that only Daniel was the problem? Could the rest of the Bible still be okay? Thus began a period of time in which I began hunting for all the reasons to believe in and/or be skeptical of the Bible and Christianity. This was a really crazy time for my wife and I. I read everything I could get my hands on.
I came across Farrell Till fairly early in my search. He had an ascerbic tone, but he did an excellent job of digging into the details of the Bible and pointing out its flaws. He had written countless articles on contradictions and problems with prophecy fulfillment. He had been part of the church of Christ, though I think a slightly different flavor than the one I had been raised in. But he had still held to biblical inerrancy when he was a Christian, just like I had. And it was through that lens that he critiqued the Bible.
I quickly found that the problems in the Bible were not isolated to the Book of Daniel, they were littered throughout. It was incredible to me that I had been a knowledgeable Christian for so long and never realized these problems were there. But I had always studied my Bible to learn its lessons, not to critique its facts. I had just assumed it was true, since it was written by God. So in February of 2010, I began asking to borrow some apologetic books from some of the people I went to church with. I don’t remember if I told them why I was interested, but even if I had, they would have assumed it was just a passing interest that would quickly be satisfied. In reading those books, I didn’t find their explanations of the Bible’s problems to be very convincing. They sounded more like the kinds of arguments one makes when trying to convince himself to have a second piece of pie. He wants the arguments to be true, so he readily accepts them. I wanted sound arguments that would actually show the skeptic’s accusations to be completely groundless. That’s just not what I found.
Early on, I had shared my growing concerns with my wife and a couple of other close friends. I’ll always appreciate the way they stood with me — they walked a lonely path with me for quite some time. My wife was shocked by the things I had begun to find, and she was initially just as skeptical as I had been. But many of these problems in the Bible are very easy to see once you’re aware of them. And it didn’t take long for her to agree with me in thinking that the Bible was just not what we had always believed it to be.
One of my friends took a more cautious approach, and I think this was good. He willingly read everything I asked him to, and he met with me many times and listened to me talk about my growing concerns very patiently. In the end, he viewed the Bible’s issues as complicated things that we may never have answers for. But they were not of a high enough magnitude to make him question the entirety of his faith. I didn’t share that position, but I understood and respected it. In return, he also understood why this was such a big deal to me. And he never discouraged my looking into these things, nor did he ever criticize my character or attribute base motivations to me. That was a huge comfort, and I’ll always remain grateful for it.
By the time April of 2010 had rolled around, I realized that I needed to tell a few more people about my severe doubts — by this time, my faith was extremely weak. I knew that my parents and my wife’s parents would need to know. I’ll explain more about that in the next post. And if you would like to know more about the prophecies and contradictions I had problems with, the links are provided in my About section.
Finding Truth 
Ahh, biblical inerrancy. I was waiting for this one. There are very few doctrines that I strongly oppose, believing most to not be worth arguing over. This doctrine is not one of them.
Some contradictions are not truly contradictions, as they require a better understanding of other relevant facts to synergize the opposition. Others, however, are not dismissed easily, while others are in flat-out opposition, with no reconciliation possible. As I mentioned in a reply to a comment you left on my blog, I have an article that will be edited and republished at a later date. For now, I’ll say this in refute of the doctrine:
Question: “Name a perfect person that walked the face of the earth.”
Christians answer: “Jesus.”
Question: “Anybody else?”
Christians answer: “No.”
Question: “Who wrote the Bible?”
Christians answer: “Many people”
Question: “How, then, can a perfect piece of writing, without any error, come from the pen of imperfect people?”
For any Christians reading, I cite Jeremiah 8:8 (NIV): “How can you say, “We are wise, for we have the law of the Lord,” when actually the lying pen of the scribes has handled it falsely?”
“Inspired” means just that: imperfect human beings doing their best to transcribe what they have heard and perceived from a perfect being. Imperfect beings, in spite of their best intentions, will make mistakes. The source is not to blame; the translator is (I know, I know, “why doesn’t God make it plain?”, but that’s another topic). If Christians would dump this ridiculous doctrine, they could start following the path laid out before them by God, instead of self-righteously measuring and criticizing everyone else’s path. “For what is that to you?”
LikeLike
Thank you for your thoughts, Don. Inerrancy is something I’ve gone back and forth on over the last year or so. I still believe it’s very important, considering what the Bible says is at stake. But I appreciate any Christian who is willing to see the contradictions for what they are in an effort to better understand what the Bible is. It’s so much better than continuing to claim the Bible is completely inerrant.
LikeLike
I know talk on this page ended several months ago, but I’m just finding this blog, so forgive the necro-comment…
On the topic of Progressive Revelation. I can buy the idea of progressive revelation…like a child learns that 1+1=2, and then progressively harder and harder mathematical concepts. However, the new bits of revelation can’t contradict the first bits. The god portrayed in the NT is almost a polar-opposite to the god of the OT. In the OT even a consistently disobedient child who curses his parents gets stoned to death; in the NT “let he who is without sin cast the first stone”.
Coming from a similar, fundamentalist background as Nate, I can perhaps better understand the All-or-Nothing approach. 1 Cor. 14:33 says God is not the author of confusion; Heb. 13:8 says Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever; Mal. 3:6 says “I am the Lord, I change not”; II Tim. 3:16 says all scripture is given by inspiration of God. When one does begin to see inconsistencies and failed prophecies and the like, then something is wrong.
But many christians aren’t Fundamentalist, and some are even willing to toss out the OT altogether and just have the NT + Psalms & Proverbs. Fine. What about Jesus’ birth? The two genealogies do not mesh…explanations have been put forth, but the topic has never been decidedly solved. How it came to be that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, in accordance with OT prophecies, is also suspect–everyone had to go back to the town of his ancestors for the census? That doesn’t make any kind of sense. Plus, the Quirinius (of Luke’s Census of Quirinius) is not recorded to have been in power or doing censuses before 6AD). So, there are enough issues throughout that one cannot claim that we threw out the entire diamond (of the bible) b/c we found a speck of quartz in it (or whatever).
Free choice…yes…after much unhappy searching, I felt compelled by the facts to renounce my faith. I suppose I could have chosen to continue believing, using the justification that “well, the bible is true…I just don’t understand it well enough and satan is getting to me b/c I had the audacity to look at this stuff in the first place”. But if I say that about the bible, why not say that about the Koran? What’s the difference? How could one prove one right and the other false?
LikeLike
eSell, well said.
LikeLike
It is interesting that your study of other religions played a catalyzing role. At this point I have come to like Daniel Dennett’s idea of having standard religious education in the public schools. Nothing insulting, just good level-playing field discussion of the claims and beliefs of all the major religions. As believers we do not want to see this happen, because we favor a deliberated sheltering, lest the Devil gain a foothold. But I’ve come to see this as a week position, and one that nearly admits of a serious problem a priori.
After a year of intense reading of everything and everyone, it was discouraging to find in the end that Wikipedia already summarized the bottom line in a number of its entries. Authorship of the Bible, origin of various doctrines, advent of belief in hell and satan, resurrection/dying-rising beliefs in other faiths, virgin birth, etc.
It left me with a “duh” and a “sucker” feeling about it all. The information was always right there, it checks out if you check into it, and many, many people in the world already knew about it. The only thing preventing me from having a more balanced knowledge was our community tactic of voluntary insularity.
LikeLike
when i figured it all out, i felt like a fool for ever believing to begin with.
LikeLike
Thanks Brisancian!
I completely agree with you (and Daniel Dennett) about teaching religion in public schools. I have an article that he wrote about it saved somewhere, and I’ll probably turn it into a blog post at some point.
That’s exactly how I felt. What was so crazy to me was that the church I grew up in was always very good about teaching us about all the “false doctrines” that were out in the world. We knew why people taught them, and we knew why they were wrong. So we felt prepared, no matter who we were talking to.
But when I began discovering some of these severe problems with Christianity and the Bible in particular, I felt completely swindled. Why hadn’t these issues been brought up to me before? The only reason I could think of was that they had no good answers for them. And that suspicion was confirmed the more I studied.
LikeLike
@William
”when i figured it all out, i felt like a fool for ever believing to begin with.”
But at least you figured it out.
The question,now how do we stop the likes of William Lane Craig poisoning the well?
LikeLike
I wish I knew. When i saw the issues, i immediately saw what they pointed to. Despite a little fear and initial uncertainty, and with the overabundance of issues, it didn’t take long to awaken. It became obvious, and everything started to make so much more sense. I truly felt liberated from a bondage I hadn’t previously known I was under.
When people have grown up in it, and arent aware of the real issues, I can understand believing in anything. Like if someone lived indoors their entire life and were told that the sky was red. Once they actually stepped outside and saw it was blue, i’d hope they’d stop thinking it were red.I would like to believe that once everyone saw the issues, they’d wake up too – but seeing they do not, I just don’t know. Some people just seem to create any reason to justify a red sky, despite all the evidence against it.
It seems so much like that children’s story, “the emperor’s new clothes…” I just don’t get it.
LikeLike
It is something have pondered on for a while as well.
The irony is that if it were a few hundred thousand that believed it would be declared a medical condition/mental illness.
The big question for me is, if the current consensus is that Jesus was an actual historical figure, bit NOT the bloke reflected in the gospels then just who the heck was he?
LikeLike
I just assume he was a charismatic guy going around promoting the golden rule, who a few people thought or hoped was the messiah. like forest gump running the world. When he died, they struggled to make sense of everything… then mathew comes in and does his best to tie him to the OT as if everything about him was prophesied. it was enough for those who liked what jesus was about.
Who knows what happened to the body. It’s probably still in it’s tomb, but no one knows where it was buried. I think it took quite a while for the Christ momentum to build. But for poorly educated, impoverished and oppressed people, the notion of becoming rich and victorious in the afterlife, while their overlords would perish in hell probably seemed appealing, helping them trudge through their crappy lives.
Others, just ignorant but liked the moral principles of the NT. They found some “truths” within a few pages and that became enough to validate the whole.
It’s just a guess. Basically the life of bryan. “…only the true messiah would say that he wasn’t…”
LikeLike
That is funny:)
LikeLike
@ Nate
“I was writing a couple of lessons that showed some of the flaws in other religions, like Islam.”
I am an Ahmadi Muslim.
What flaws did you find in Quran/Islam/Muhammad? Please
LikeLike
Yes, Nate, that would be interesting. I would love to follow the conversation between you and paarsurrey–I don’t actually know much about Islam…this might be educational! 🙂
LikeLike
Hi paarsurrey,
I replied to your other comment.
Thanks
LikeLike
@Nate :March 9, 2014 at 11:12 am
I have replied it; it was not a valid flaw that you thought at that time.
Thanks
LikeLike