I started to leave this post as a comment on ratamacue0‘s recent post, What Started My Questioning? but decided to post it instead. Fellow blogger (and friend) unkleE left this comment as part of a conversation that he and ratamacue0 were having:
…most non-believers seem not to recognise that there isn’t one consistent portrait of God in the Bible – it changes through both Testaments – and then to choose the worst picture (which is often the earliest one) to critique. But if the claimed revelation of God is progressive, it would surely be fairer to choose a later picture.
I think most non-believers do recognize the difference; it’s just hard to forget that first impression given in the OT.
And really, how progressive is the picture the Bible paints? The NT points out that God doesn’t change, so those harsh characteristics he possessed in the OT are still being claimed by NT writers. The NT also repeats some things like “vengenance is mine, I will repay.” And it tells us not to fear those who can destroy the body, but he who can destroy both body and soul. The NT also gives us the doctrine of Hell, regardless of what that might mean.
I think some of the NT writers, like Paul and the author of Hebrews, are arguing that the method of salvation and the specific requirements God has for people are changing, and in that way the message becomes more progressive. More emphasis is placed on the mind and not just physical acts, for instance. But as to who God is, I don’t think that image really progresses from OT to NT. The same God that killed Uzzah for trying to steady the ark, condemns anyone who doesn’t believe in Jesus, even though it’s hard to blame many of the Jews for saying Jesus was a blasphemer, considering the teachings in the Old Law.
Such a God is irrational. Many Christians seem to agree, which is why they don’t believe in parts of the OT. But since the NT still claims the same irrational God, I see no reason to believe in him at all. And to me, that seems much more consistent than trying to hold onto parts of the mythology, while rejecting the unsavory parts. If that god were real, and he wanted people to know about him, I think he’d keep the one source of information about him pure. Since that obviously didn’t happen with the Bible, why continue to hold to it at all? Why not put faith in a god who isn’t concerned with petty dogmas, one who simply set things in motion for us? One that may inspire people from time to time, but is largely content to let us live our lives without interference? To me, that seems to fit the evidence far better… and while I don’t have any actual belief in such a deity, I can see why some would. Why mesh it with Christianity, when it seems so superfluous?
Finding Truth 
Hi Matt, thanks for that explanation. I understand what you are saying. I have three thoughts/questions ….
1. What difference does it make if parts of the OT are legend or myth?
History is only one way to portray truth – myth, poetry or parable can portray the same truth. The Good Samaritan makes its point the same whether it is parable or a true story. Job explores the issue of suffering just as well as a poem as if it was true (in fact probably better as a poem because it would be nasty if it was true).
I don’t see how any of the NT is changed if significant parts of the OT are not literal and accurate history.
2. Shouldn’t we start with how things are, not how we think they “ought” to be?
I notice that many questioning christians and ex-christians have a view of how they think the Bible “ought” to be (inerrant) and how God “ought” to behave (give us absolute certainty). But surely the more rational approach is to find out how things are and then ask “could God have done it this way?” The Bible evidentially contains legend, poetry, “fictionalised history”, historical chronicles and “sagas”, letters, visions, mistaken ideas, etc – is there any reason to suppose God couldn’t have used all that to gradually reveal truth, beginning where those ancient people were at and gradually maturing and correcting their beliefs?
I don’t think there is any reason why he couldn’t have done that, and when we look at the growth of the universe from the big bang, the evolution of human life, the growth of each human being from conception through pregnancy to birth, and the growth of children from total helplessness to maturity, I think there is every reason to believe that is in fact the way God has chosen to work.
3. Why do people believe in Jesus?
Imagine if the OT was totally lost and no longer existed. There would still be quite enough in the NT to justify believing in Jesus. Most christian apologetics makes little reference to the OT – certainly I virtually never mention it. So if anyone believes because of the NT, why should any “problems” with the OT make any difference to their faith? I think we can only properly understand Jesus by understanding the aspirations of the Jews for a Messiah, which comes from the OT, but it isn’t dependent on the OT being inerrant history.
So for all those reasons, I think it is a misunderstanding to say “the message they preached is null and void if the OT is bunk.” – and in fact, the word “bunk” is far from a fair statement also.
What would you say to all that?
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Hi William, thanks for your response. I don’t think I’ll respond to your statements about all the different evidences I put forward. I have shared briefly why I think they are strong evidences (cumulatively) and you have outlined why you don’t see them as so strong. I can respect your view while disagreeing with it, and I see places where I think your logic is wrong, but there’s too much there to go further here I think. But thanks. Eric
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Hi Dave, William, Nate and others,
Dave proposed that “You either have events (changes) or you don’t and time is just a way of describing the order of events”, and many of you agreed with his argument. I now have the answer back from a physicist (see Time as the Forth Dimension) and he is quite clear:
Time is not defined by change, “it is defined mathematically by the existence of a time dimension in the geometry”. Thus time can exist without change and does in some circumstances – and a universe with time and space but no matter and no change is apparently possible.
I didn’t ask about whether change requires time because I have little doubt that it does in the space-time universe, although not in mathematics where discontinuities can occur.
But once the nexus between time and change is broken, I think it would be foolish to insist on any particular statement about God, time and change if God is supposed to live outside the space-time universe. We simply don’t know, and everything is a guess.
So I think this is another case where statements are made without anyone checking the evidence beforehand. You know it is supposed to be only christians who do that? 🙂
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“This God would still be subject to it’s own time-frame.”
Maybe, maybe not! How do you know? Surely that is like an anaerobic bacterium insisting that humans must obviously not require oxygen to live!? Any argument based on such an unknowable premise is surely impotent!
“Why not say that the meta-universe is also outside of our local space and time? Getting back to your original point, the meta-universe (or multiverse) explanation should not be ruled out and your claim that atheism has no parallel explanation is not true.”
Of course the multiverse (if it exists) is outside our space and time, but have you checked to see if there are any physicists who say that it is outside all time? I doubt it is, though I haven’t checked either.
But the multiverse changes very little in the arguments I presented. Physicist Paul Davies has pointed out that if the multiverse is the explanation of the fine-tuning of our universe, than you have to be able to explain how it is so finely tuned as to be able to turn out 10^500 (one estimate) universes all with different properties, as required to explain the fine-tuning of our universe. It’s the same problem with the disadvantage that we scientifically know very little about the multiverse, even if it exists at all.
So it may be true that the multiverse “explains” this universe, which would be an enormous step forward in knowledge if it could be established as true, but it does nothing to remove the atheist’s dilemma that I described (in my opinion). Thanks.
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“I now have the answer back from a physicist…and he is quite clear” – Interestingly, your physicist seems to operate a Christian website – does anyone else agree with his theory? Has it been peer reviewed? If so, where? – I would love to read the reviews.
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So, a couple of things:
When we talk about origins, Christians and atheists are left in the same place: WE DON’T KNOW. Positing “God did it” is not an actual answer, because it can’t be demonstrated anymore than the multiverse can. The theist is still left with the problem of God’s origin. And if we say that “God is defined as having no cause,” that’s simply a convenient cop-out. We could say the same about a multiverse. That’s the thing about these assertions — they’re completely unverifiable, so we can claim anything we want. Look, we simply don’t know enough about the universe or what could have caused it to talk about it intelligently.
The physicist you spoke to may be right, though he did say that he was speaking about mathematical possibilities. It’s hard to say if such a physical reality could exist.
No, I disagree with this, unkleE. We were each speaking from our own experiences of the world. As far as I understood, we were talking about the possibility of an actual God who could interfere with our physical reality, not a being who only exists in mathematics. Based on that, whether you call it “time” or not, if a thing can change, then past, present, and future are states that would apply.
And I’ll refer us all back to my previous statement: “Look, we simply don’t know enough about the universe or what could have caused it to talk about it intelligently.” If you believe in a supernatural being that can somehow exist without experiencing time, that’s fine. But don’t be surprised when a number of us find it too hard to swallow.
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Sure, such a thing is possible. But is it likely? I feel like there are a number of problems with the idea.
It’s almost a certainty that Adam was not a real person, yet Paul seems to think he was. It’s also likely that Moses was not a real person, but Jesus refers to him as if he were, and the synoptic gospels say he and Elijah appeared to Jesus in person. The Sabbath Day is one of the most important parts of the Old Law, but it’s primarily tied to an event that never happened: the literal week of creation. And later passages also say it’s tied to the Israelites’ deliverance from Egypt, which also probably didn’t happen. Why would God incorporate these kinds of things into his laws if they weren’t based on actual events? What’s the point?
The problem of evil in our world used to be explained by the “Fall of Man.” But we now know that the Adam and Eve story is mythology. So what explains evil in the world? Why didn’t God set us up with a paradise initially?
Another problem, which I’ve mentioned before, is that I don’t understand why God had to use such progressive revelation in the first place. It’s obvious that humanity has always sought answers. It’s part of our innate curiosity — we want to know where we came from and if there’s a reason for us being here. All God would have to do is simply let us know he’s there. There would be no need for competing religions — they would all pale in comparison to the real thing. There would be no need to research the history of our world and the universe — God could simply reveal that information. And there would be no need for God to “put up” with things like slavery, blood sacrifice, genocide, and chauvinism, because he would have been there from the very beginning, teaching us how to be moral individuals. But that obviously didn’t happen.
Furthermore, if God’s real, why would he rely on the slow processes of the Big Bang and evolution? Sure, time may be irrelevant for him, but it still seems like a very odd choice. In a way, the Genesis creation story makes more sense — just let God get right down to business. The problem is that we know from science that such a creation event didn’t occur. Instead, everything that exists right now seems to have gotten here through very natural, physical processes.
And that’s really the problem with Christianity as a whole. It keeps losing more and more of its magic. Did God create the world in 6 literal days? Nope. Billions of years passed before our solar system began to form, and it took about a billion more before any life finally graced our planet. A couple of billion years of evolution then had to take place before our species finally arrived. Did God flood the earth and wipe out all of humanity except 8 individuals? Nope. Turns out if the story was based on an actual flood at all, it was local. Did God inflict 10 plagues on mighty Egypt until they “let [his] people go?” Not that we can tell. Did millions of people wander the wilderness around Sinai for 40 years? Doesn’t look that way. Did Joshua lead the Israelites on a savage invasion of Canaan, wiping out most of its inhabitants? If so, they hid their tracks pretty well. And we could do that with many more stories — even some in the New Testament, like Matthew’s zombie walkabout.
Could God have just used these as stories to portray some “greater truth” in a slowly progressive revelation? I guess. But I’d have to view it as the least likely explanation.
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Nate, this comment of yours resonates quite a bit with me.
A mind that exists outside of time and space is pure speculation and also seems to go against our human experience of minds as existing in time, being contingent, having a dependency on brains, and also increasing in abilities as brain complexities increase. And the mind that traditional monotheism posits (i.e. a mind that knows every single fact there is to know) looks to be reasonably ruled out by occam’s razor. Claiming something like that as “non-contingent”, “necessary”, “no need for explanation” is beyond me (and you know very well that I’m humble enough to admit that just because it’s beyond me is nowhere near proof – it’s just an honest statement of how I view things).
Look I’ve got Unklee’s back if all he’s trying to do is gain some respect for having tried his best to come to his conclusions through evidence. In fact you’ve seen me back him up on your blog before. But I’m afraid Unklee ends up getting aggressive beyond that and turns the tables and starts to claim that all of us are not evidence based, as if that implies we are somehow faith based. If “not evidence based” means that there are likely places I’ve incorrectly interpreted evidence, or made some wrong guesses without having the time to fully investigate things (who does have the time to _fully_ investigate things anyways?) then I am always the first to raise my hand and say “yup guilty as charged”, but I don’t believe I have ever written anywhere on the internet that people should except my views based on faith. This is where I think his attempt to turn the tables doesn’t fit. It sniffs a little of the tu quoque fallacy.
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For the record, the verdict is still out on whether time actually exists or not. I’ve read a lot of different opinions on it from both philosophers and physicists. I don’t think this point matters anymore. We could have skipped the word altogether and just spoken about infinite events / actions just from a logical perspective. If it possible for one hypothetical entity to have an eternal process than it is also possible for another. I have to agree with what Nate just said – this is all extremely well beyond our grasp at this point. There is just not enough data to make a solid case about anything outside of our local universe.
This is a good point Howie.
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Thanks Howie. 🙂
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Nate, I think our discussions might parallel those elsewhere, so I’ll try to be selective.
“Why would God incorporate these kinds of things into his laws if they weren’t based on actual events? What’s the point?”
If God had decided exactly how things were going to be, and this is what he chose, then it is reasonable to ask the questions (though probably unreasonable to expect answers!). But the evidence suggests that isn’t how he did things. As I’ve said several times recently, it looks like most things that happen in this world grow or evolve from smaller or less complete beginnings – think singularity to our universe, amoeba evolving to humans, sperm and egg growing to be Einstein, etc. So that’s how things are in the Bible as well.
So why? If a parent controls and specifies everything a child does, that child doesn’t mature, but stays developmentally stunted. So the parent starts with rules and fairy tales (Santa, Easter Bunny, etc) and ends up with allowing their child to self learn via experience and free choice. It’s also how educators work – start with the little the person knows and build on that.
So I suggest God has worked with humans in the same way. He didn’t incorporate all these things into laws, only some of them, we did some of them too. He inspired and oversaw the process, but people played a real part. He started with where the Jews were at (ancient Middle eastern legends) and gradually refined and educated until we get the full revelation in Jesus.
Of course I don’t understand it all and have many questions myself, but I don’t see why God couldn’t have done it that way, ad plenty of reason to think that he did.
“And that’s really the problem with Christianity as a whole. It keeps losing more and more of its magic.”
I don’t feel that way at all. It loses some legendary feel I guess, but to me the life of Jesus is amazingly attractive and inspiring. I can’t get all that excited about Noah!
Anyway, I think I’ve done this subject to death, so I might bow out. Thanks again for your comments and the opportunity to express my ideas.
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Hey UnkleE,
I’ll try and touch briefly on your two questions to me:
The difference is the OT states that the things that happen are fact, not myth or legend. Christianity as a whole still teaches them as fact. (that really bothers my btw)
Would the movie Return of the Jedi make any sense if later on we found out Darth Vader wan’t really Luke’s father, that he had been sired by some random guy? The whole back story would fall apart and you’d be forced to try and make sense of something that just doesn’t fit.
You wrote:
Well that is certainly how the religion is taught in the vast majority of denominations I’m familiar with.
I don’t agree. Yes enough to believe Jesus existed, but not enough to believe he was who he claimed to be. Too much of the NT focuses on Jesus being the messiah the OT foretold of, and too much time is spent tying Christ’s new message into fulfillment of OT law and doctrine.
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Hi Matt, thanks for replying. I understand where you are coming from, but I think it misses some important things that scholars have reported.
The Jews of Jesus’ time were more fluid in how they quoted their scriptures. Within the writings of the time (not just the NT, but many other documents in the few hundred years leading up to that time) are references to the OT that changed the original meaning, or drew fanciful conclusions, or referred to events and characters that weren’t recorded in the OT. So saying that a reference to a person proves they believed that person and event was historical is not exactly right.
A more extreme example comes from Australia’s indigenous people. They have been here for something like 60,000 years, and they have developed what is called the Dreaming or the Dreamtime. The stories vary across the different nations, but they describe events in the distant past that explain the present. They are referred to even now with great seriousness and respect, but an anthropologist would call them folk tales, legends, aetiological myths or something. I have never asked a modern aboriginal if they really believed them – I have never really had the opportunity, but I think it would be crass to do so anyway. Whether they are historically true isn’t the point. But before we classify them as “unhistorical”, we find that these stories tell of land being covered by a rising sea and hills becoming islands – which actually happened around 6-10 thousand years ago after the last ice age.
So it is quite consistent with what historians and anthropologists tell us that God could have used ancient middle eastern stories which mixed myth and history to begin his process of revealing truth to human beings. If you judge that not to have been the case, then I don’t want to argue the matter, I just want to make sure you know there is indeed another way of looking at it all that fully respects the best understandings we have of Jewish literature and culture.
Thanks for that opportunity. I think I’ll retire from this thread now. Best wishes.
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“So saying that a reference to a person proves they believed that person and event was historical is not exactly right.” – unkleE
so it’s perfectly reasonable, then, to conclude it is also possible that those who wrote of jesus werent portraying him accurately as well.
it’s entirely possible, and likely probable when considering everything else, that him being the literal son of god, or raising from the dead, or healing the sick and flying into heaven were all embellishments to convey a story and a broader lesson.
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“so it’s perfectly reasonable, then, to conclude it is also possible that those who wrote of jesus werent portraying him accurately as well.”
Hi William, no I don’t think that is a reasonable conclusion. My comment refers to the beliefs of the person reading the text and says nothing about the text itself. The text may be historical or mythical or poetic, etc, but regardless, the reader (most likely a rabbi) may interpret or apply it literally or slightly more fancifully to suit their own purposes. But their response says nothing necessarily about the original. So what you said doesn’t follow at all.
The way we know that a text is historical or not is determined by things like the genre and whether it fits with other known history. In the case of the OT, there is a mixture of genres and low support for historicity in the early stages to higher support in the later stages. So it is possible to identify to some degree (but with lots of uncertainty) which things are historical and which are less so (one term is “fictionalised history”).
It is very different for the NT. Scholars say that the gospels are historical biography, a genre which was largely historical, but with some creativity allowed in the accompanying details and some commentary on the figure in question. They say Acts is very much good classical history. So this doesn’t make any of those books inerrant, but it does mean we can know that the authors intended us to know that what they write about really happened, with some fuzziness about some details where they are making a point rather than writing strict history.
I know I sound like a cracked record, but it is all there in the writings of the scholars.
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First of all, you said you were gone – it would be SO nice if you would keep your word.
“Scholars say that the gospels are historical biography, a genre which was largely historical” – Which scholars?
“They say Acts is very much good classical history.” – the Westar “Acts Seminar” says that “Acts” was taken from the letter of Paul, and written at or after the turn of the first century – I fail to see how that qualifies as “good classical history.”
“So this doesn’t make any of those books inerrant, but it does mean we can know that the authors intended us to know that what they write about really happened, with some fuzziness about some details where they are making a point rather than writing strict history.” – No, it certainly doesn’t, and all it really means, is that each author had an agenda, and it was not necessarily the SAME agenda – they told stories that supported their own points of view.
“I know I sound like a cracked record” – Yeah, you do – at least a cracked something –.
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Sorry – read, “letters of Paul,” not “letter of Paul” —
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@unklee
My understanding of the New Testament is that it is considered fulfillment of prophecy – that the character, Jesus of Nazareth is the embodiment of this Messianic prophecy.
Without the Old Testament the New would be rendered meaningless, something the Catholic Church realised, hence their rejection of Marcion and his gospel and their ”rush” to put together a canon.
However, the Virgin Birth prophecy quickly dispels the notion of fulfilled prophecy as this was simply lifted from Isaiah by the writer of Matthew and it bears no relation to a messiah at all, but rather to King Ahaz and the duel prophecy attempts by apologetics has generally fallen flat other that with fundamentalists/evangelicals.
With the realisation that the Old Testament is nothing but historical fiction the entire notion of Original Sin is brought sharply into focus, for without the Fall Christianity’s raison d’etre is on even shaker ground. No sin, no need for salvation. No blood sacrifice.
Furthermore, the character Jesus of Nazareth was a Jew as were the disciples. The notion/doctrine of Original Sin would have been anathema to them. They taught and upheld the Law.Mosaic Law.
Which brings into play yet another scenario.
Why would Jesus of Nazareth preach adherence to Mosaic Law, acknowledge Moses as a real person when it has been established that Moses was a mythological figure?
As Jesus of Nazareth taught the Law, the only way to circumvent this was to suggest he had fulfilled the Law thus, such things as dietary prohibitions and circumcision were now unnecessary.
Yet one of the major issues in the New Testament is the confrontation between Peter and Saul of Tarsus/Paul ; with the latter emphatic that Peter was wrong and he, Paul was equal to any of the other apostles.
This indicates that the disciples were teaching what Jesus of Nazareth taught and Paul was off on his own agenda.
Furthermore, as the disciples were supposedly filled with the Holy Spirit, why was Paul unable to recognise this and why did he refuse to acknowledge Peter’s superiority?
Gentile Christianity is based largely on the teaching of Paul, and not Jesus of Nazareth. As doubt are beginning to be raised regarding the historicity of this character, and considering we know that some of his ”letters” to be forgeries and questions hang over the others, then far from being the rantings of a few conspiracy theorists, it is becoming not too outrageous to suggest that the New Testament is largely a fabrication of the church.
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I have ‘cherry- picked’’ (sic) these two comments from unklee as I believe they highlight perfectly
where the ignorance, and subtle manipulation of theism lies.
From this, Unklee believes that atheism is the alternate to theism, the other side of the coin, and it must therefore answer all the questions it has concerning theism.
No matter how often the theist is told that atheism is simply the absence of belief in gods they continue to attempt to hang a label of belief around atheism thus enabling them a platform to argue against.
The opposite ( if you like ) of a theistic worldview is simply one that does not incorporate the supernatural.
Atheism makes no claims to explain anything. Science is probably the best place to look for answers that explain in real terms the erroneous claims of a theistic worldview.
What the experts tell beyond any reasonable doubt about the Old Testament is almost all of it is historical fiction, and certainly the Pentateuch; its central character, Moses is completely mythological; a narrative construct..
What the experts tell us about the New Testament is that much of it is fraudulent, Christian interpolation, historically inaccurate, geographically inaccurate, contains mythological elements, suffers from poor and inaccurate translation, the gospels are anonymous, there is not a single contemporary account of its central character, Jesus of Nazareth, neither for the disciples and its central doctrine, the teaching of the character Jesus of Nazareth is in conflict with those of the character Paul.
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“we know that some of his ‘letters’ to be forgeries” – Only 7 of the 14 are considered to be authentic.
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Other than that, Unk is spot on —
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@unkle
Do they really? Pop into any regular bookstore and visit the shelves labelled ”Historical Biography” and see if you you find a single copy of the bible.
I’ve got hundred bucks says the staff will look at you as if you’ve gone loopy if you ask.
Do you ever read the utter tripe you write?
Fuzziness about the details? Sheesh! We are talking about a supposed Man-God and his message of salvation for the entire world. Get it wrong and we are royally screwed and destined for hell where the women are frigid,the beer is watered down and the Muzac plays one Justin Bieber record …. for ever!
Imagine if they were describing the correct wiring for a nuclear bomb.
Would you be the one credulous half wit that said ”Oh, never mind the fuzziness of the details, I’m sure it’ll be okay. I said a prayer so go ahead. Just … plug it in or whatever you are supposed to do. I have faith.”
If the writers intended for us to know the truth why didn’t they simply write the truth?
Let’s see now … er… maybe because they were writing fiction?
You and Lee Strobal should become pen pals.
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Unklee.
Oh, I forgot. Have you read the latest on Nazareth, unklee?
Your mate, Ken Dark has found Jesus’ house. That’s right …. where he actually lived!
Although he says there is no archaeological evidence but he says it must be Jesus digs because a monk from the 7th century said so.
How cool is that
He is so clever!
Now you and Tim O’Neil can have a party!
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First of all, you said you were gone – it would be SO nice if you would keep your word. – @Arch
lol, laugh of the day, so true,
so g’damn true,
just like the time he said he was not going to snipe,
all the while sniping away.
“I know I sound like a cracked record”>/em> –
Yeah, you do – at least a cracked something –.@Arch
oh, roflmfao, I can’t take it , that’s too funny.
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