In the comment thread of my last post, some of us mentioned that it’s hard for us to understand the point of view of Christians who believe the Bible can be inspired by God, without holding to the doctrine of inerrancy. unkleE left the following comment:
How is it that in everything else in life – whether it be ethics, or politics, relationships, science, history, law, even disbelief – we are willing to make decisions based on non-inerrant evidence and reasoning, but when it is belief in God we require inerrant evidence? I reckon your first thought might be that the stakes are so much higher. But that logic applies to disbelief as well. If we applied that logic, no-one would be an atheist because they didn’t have inerrant knowledge for that conclusion. You would not have any belief either way until you gained inerrant knowledge.
He then suggested that I might want to do a post on this topic (you’re reading it!), but there were also a couple of other comments that I think are worth including here. nonsupernaturalist said this:
My answer would be that ethics, politics, relationships, science, history, and law do not involve supernatural claims. When someone makes a supernatural claim, the standard of evidence required by most educated people in the western world to believe that claim is much, much higher than a claim involving natural evidence.
Let’s look at “history”. If someone tells me that most historians believe that Caesar crossed the Rubicon or that Alexander the Great sacked the city of Tyre, I accept those claims without demanding a great deal of evidence. However, if someone claims that the Buddha caused a water buffalo to speak in a human language for over one half hour or that Mohammad rode on a winged horse to heaven, I am going to demand MASSIVE quantities of evidence to believe these claims.
I think that most Christians would agree with my thinking, here, until I make the same assertion regarding the bodily Resurrection of Jesus. Then Christians will shake their heads in disgust and accuse me of being biased and unreasonable.
No. I am not being biased and unreasonable. I am being consistent. It is the Christian who is being inconsistent: demanding more evidence to believe the supernatural claims of other religions than he or she demands of his own.
And it isn’t just supernatural claims. Most educated people in the western world would demand much more evidence for very rare natural claims than we would for non-rare natural claims.
Imagine if someone at work tells you that his sister just gave birth to twins. How much evidence would you demand to believe this claim? Probably not much. You would probably take the guy’s word for it. Now imagine if the same coworker tells you that, yesterday, in the local hospital, his sister gave birth to twelve babies! Would you take the guy’s word for it? I doubt it.
So it isn’t that we skeptics are biased against Christianity or even that we are biased against the supernatural. We are simply applying the same reason, logic, and skepticism to YOUR very extra-ordinary religious claim that we apply to ALL very rare, extra-ordinary claims, including very rare, extraordinary natural claims.
And Arkenaten said this:
I cannot fathom how you can disregard something like Noah’s Ark as nonsense and yet accept that a narrative construct called Jesus of Nazareth could come back from the dead.
Personally, I feel very much the same way that nonsupernaturalist does. The first part of unkleE’s question that I’d like to address is his statement about nonbelief:
If we applied that logic, no-one would be an atheist because they didn’t have inerrant knowledge for that conclusion.
I think this depends on what one means by “atheism.” I’m not really interested in trying to determine what the official definition of the term is; rather, I’d like to make sure we’re all talking about the same thing within the confines of this discussion. When I refer to myself as an atheist, I simply mean that I don’t believe any of the proposed god claims that I’ve encountered. I’m not necessarily saying that I think no gods exist, period. And if I were to say that, I’d give the caveat that I could easily be wrong about such a belief. This notion of atheism, the position that one hasn’t been convinced of any god claims, is often referred to as “weak atheism” or “soft atheism.” Personally, I think that should be everyone’s default position. No one should be a Muslim, a Hindu, or a Christian until he or she has been convinced that the god(s) of that particular religion exist(s). If we didn’t operate in this way, then we’d all immediately accept the proposition of every religion we encountered, until its claims could be disproven. This would make most of us Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, pagans, and atheists all at the same time. Obviously, that’s ridiculous. So on those grounds, I don’t agree with unkleE’s assertion that we would need inerrant information to not believe something.
Furthermore, when it comes to the claims of Christianity, I can accept or reject them completely independently of what I think about the existence of god(s). Many times, discussions about the evidence for and against Christianity slide into discussions about whether or not a god exists. People bring up the cosmological and teleological arguments. While those discussions can be important, I think they are really just distractions when we’re talking about a specific religion. I’m okay conceding that a god might exist, so I’d rather focus on the pros and cons of Christianity to see if it could possibly be true. After all, it could be the case that God is real, but Christianity is false.
unkleE’s comment started like this:
How is it that in everything else in life – whether it be ethics, or politics, relationships, science, history, law, even disbelief – we are willing to make decisions based on non-inerrant evidence and reasoning, but when it is belief in God we require inerrant evidence?
To piggy-back off the comments I just made, I don’t necessarily require inerrant evidence to believe in God. I think the necessity for inerrancy comes from the kind of god being argued for. The Abrahamic religions teach that there is one God who is supreme. He is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving, completely just, etc. I know there are sometimes caveats placed on those labels. For instance, can God create a rock so large that he can’t lift it? Arguments like that illustrate that being all-powerful doesn’t mean he’s outside the laws of logic. And the same goes for all-knowing. It’s sometimes argued that he knows all that can be known… perhaps there are some things that can’t be known? The waters can get muddy pretty quickly, so I think it’s best to refer back to the religion’s source material (the Bible, in this case) to learn more about the characteristics of this god.
In the Bible, God seems to be big on proofs. When God wanted Noah to build an ark, he spoke to him directly. Noah didn’t have to decide between a handful of prophets each telling him different things — God made sure that Noah knew exactly what was required of him. The same was done for Abraham when God wanted him to move into the land of Canaan, and when God commanded him to sacrifice Isaac. When God called Moses to deliver the Israelites from Egyptian bondage, he also spoke directly to Moses. And on top of that, he even offered additional proofs by performing signs for Moses. And when Moses appeared before Pharaoh, God again used signs to show Pharaoh that Moses did indeed speak on God’s behalf. Miraculous signs were used throughout the period of time that the Israelites wandered in the wilderness. And we can fast forward to the time of Gideon and see that God used signs as evidence then as well. Throughout the Old Testament, signs were given to people to show God’s involvement and desires. There are even examples where God punished those who listened to false prophets who hadn’t shown such signs, such as the man of God who listened to the instruction of an old prophet who was actually lying to him. God sent a lion to kill the man (I Kings 13:11-32).
The New Testament is no different. Jesus and his apostles perform all kinds of miracles as evidence of Jesus’s power. When the Pharisees accused Jesus of casting out demons by the power of Satan, he pointed out how nonsensical that would be, showing that such miracles were intended as a display of God’s approval (Matt 12:24-28). And the Gospel of John also argues that these miracles were intended as evidence:
Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
— John 20:30-31
Not only did Jesus and his disciples use miracles to make their case, they also appealed to Scripture. Throughout the New Testament, you find references to the Old: “as it is written,” “as spoken by the prophet,” etc. That in itself doesn’t necessarily make the case for inerrancy, but it at least shows that they expected the scriptures to be accurate.
If God cared so much during the time periods talked about in the Bible, why wouldn’t he care just as much today? How can Jesus say that “not one jot or tittle of the law will pass away” if God’s not really all that concerned about how accurate the “jots” and “tittles” are? And yes, like unkleE said in his comment, I do think the fact that the stakes are tremendously high on this question makes it that much more necessary to have good evidence. While the Bible gives us countless examples of those who received direct communication from God or one of his representatives, we find ourselves living in a time when we’re surrounded by competing claims about which god is true, and which doctrines are the right ones. I used to believe that the one tool we had to cut through all that noise was the Bible. It was the one source we could go to to find what God wanted from us. And we could trust that it was his word because of the amazing prophecy fulfillments that it contained and that despite its length and antiquity, it was completely without error. In other words, I thought it was a final miracle to last throughout the ages. And because of its existence and availability, we no longer needed individuals who went around performing miracles and spreading the gospel.
That’s how I saw the world. Of course, since then, I’ve discovered that the Bible doesn’t live up to that high standard. I have many other posts that deal with its various problems, so I won’t try to detail them now. But I simply don’t see how the God portrayed in the Bible, a god who is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving, etc, would inspire individuals to write down his incredibly important message to all of mankind, yet not make sure they relay it completely accurately. It doesn’t always agree with itself, it contains historical and scientific mistakes, and sometimes it advocates things that are outright immoral. It’s understandable why a number of people would fail to be convinced by such a book; therefore, it would be impossible for an all-loving and completely just God to punish people when they’re merely trying to avoid the same fate as the man of God who trusted the old (false) prophet.
Finding Truth 
I think if we were talking about any other religion or story, UnkleE and other believers would have no issue at all seeing the problems.
“First Century Muslims wouldn’t have believed he was a prophet, unless he was,” and “No one in the first century would have invented a story about Muhammad flying on a winged horse, so it must be true,” or “the fact that islam has lasted and grown, despite all the resistance against it, is proof of it’s divine origins…” won’t hold up. In fact, we don’t even feel the need to study Arabic or educate ourselves as to what the Islamic Scholars believe before we toss this stuff aside as rubbish.
Gary’s already pointed out similar concepts in regard to mormonism early in this very thread. Mormonism, as I understand, has eight signed affidavits from people who claimed to have seen the golden plates or even the angel who delivered them. And right, if the book in dispute, the book of Mormon which makes many outrageous claims, counts as a historical source for its own validity, then a Mormon can always fallback on, “History supports Mormonism, and nothing discredits it…” But we have no issue seeing the problem there. It immediately seems absurd, and we don’t have to spend a lifetime researching Mormon scholars to see if we ought to believe any of it or not.
Suddenly the arguments change when it comes to Christianity, the “religion I believe in.” Suddenly it’s a different set of standards, and to me, it at least appears inconsistent with how everything else is handles and viewed.
To maintain a belief in the bible, among many other things, you must:
1) think that a perfect and all powerful god delivered his message with errors in it, either by accident or by design.
2) have faith in the human authors before you can have faith in the god they make claims about
3) not let those errors bother you and then think that you must devote a lifetime to scholarly research in support of the bible, and make sense of its errors any way you can, and maybe even, “just have faith,” when it comes down to it.
4) expect everyone of everyone other religion to notice the errors and problems within their religion, and to not spend any more time researching or studying the scholars in support of their religions, but to switch over to Christianity so that they can, among other things, comply with 1 – 3 above.
I really think it’s a constancy problem.
LikeLiked by 2 people
consistency….
and other typos…
I’ll show myself out
LikeLiked by 1 person
Unklee
Fair enough. I think that the mythical nature of much of the OT presents some real practical and theological problems for Christianity, and I don’t find the reconciliations persuasive, but I appreciate that others do. I may enjoy debating the issues, but I recognize that we have to accept that different people reach different conclusions.
I think this is right, though I also think some Christians misunderstand what it means. Virtually no scholars accept the view that the Biblical stories of creation, Noah’s Flood or the Exodus are accurate. The “between” position accepts as fact that much of the story up until the exile is outright myth (much of it borrowed) rather than history, and that much of the story after the exile is a very tendentious version of history.
I think your point that “the OT began in myth and ended in history” is pretty close to correct, with the caveat that even the more “real” history is often propaganda. Daniel is a good example of this. Many Christians believe it was real prophecy written in the 5th (or 6th, I forget which) century. In reality, we can tell much of it was written around 167-165 because it grows more accurate (or less inaccurate) as it gets closer to that time period and then is wildly inaccurate in predictions it makes for the period after about 165 BCE. Much of the OT was written to advance political, factional or theological agendas rather than to accurately describe history.
I think this rather undersells the case. “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” applies when we might not reasonably expect to have evidence, but the Biblical story describes an event for which there absolutely should be evidence. We’re talking 2+ million people suddenly leaving Egypt (a massive event for which there should be a lot of evidence), spending 40 years in one of the most desolate places on earth (physically and logistically impossible), and almost all of them ultimately dying there (for which there should be massive evidence). The absence of evidence is pretty conclusive here.
It is possible that the Exodus story was a dramatically embellished version of the escape of a very small group of people who eventually settled in the Canaan region, but that is a radically different story and cannot be reconciled to the narrative presented in the Bible.
Man, that’s a big question. I don’t think there are enough hours in the day to answer it properly! The short version is that I was a Christian once. At some point, I recognized errors and falsehoods in what I had been taught and so I began reevaluating it from the ground up. While I tried to make it work for awhile, I eventually came to the conclusion that some of it was factually untrue (creation, fall, flood, exodus, etc), some of it was logically incoherent (properties of god, divine ideas of justice, damnation and salvation, the Trinity), the reconciliations were not persuasive, and Christianity was the result of a lot of syncretism. I also came to the conclusion that “God” is a poorly defined and probably unnecessary hypothesis that is the result of biological and social factors rather than of philosophical necessity or evidential implication.
I remain open to persuasion on the subject, but it is difficult to imagine going back. The world makes much more sense from this perspective. The only really interesting question I think religious people ask is “Why is there something rather than nothing.” Naturalism doesn’t have a good answer for that. Unfortunately, religion does not, either. And I am comfortable with saying “I don’t know!” After all, every worldview requires there to be some brute facts that “just are” without recourse to a cause. Supernaturalism does not avoid that problem. It just inserts another step and declares it immune to the question.
Anyway, that’s where I am.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Fear not , William. What’s a few typos between believers in the Sea of Galilee Pedestrian and those who know it was really called Lake Tiberius.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Yeah, Ark, that’s what I was thinking, First Century Jews wouldn’t have had a problem with it.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Nan
I wonder if this is really the case, though. It certainly seems to be the case in the US, but is it accurate for Christians worldwide? The Catholic Church accepts evolution and the age of the universe/earth, and (apart from saying Adam and Eve were real people and the first “true” humans) they accept non-literal interpretations of much of the OT mythology.
I doubt most Christians regard it as a core religious belief. I suspect many Christians just don’t think about it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Nan, thanks for answering my question. I’m sure you are right about most christians, even allowing for what Jon said. But views of the OT are a small part of christianity – if you checked up a book of basic christian doctrine, there probably wouldn’t be much there about the OT. And yes, probably few read “scholars” I suppose. Thanks, and best wishes.
LikeLike
Hi Jon, thanks for your response. I just have a few clarifications.
”I think that the mythical nature of much of the OT presents some real practical and theological problems for Christianity, and I don’t find the reconciliations persuasive”
I guess you mean things like Paul referencing Adam, etc? These weren’t a major issue for me because I had already come to an understanding of how Jews weren’t always literal when the referenced the OT.
”The “between” position accepts as fact that much of the story up until the exile is outright myth (much of it borrowed) rather than history, and that much of the story after the exile is a very tendentious version of history.”
I don’t disagree all that much, though I’d say up until David, and I’d be less definite about it all.
”I think this rather undersells the case. “
I think you have assumed a few things about me here. I never said I believed there were 2 million following Moses, simple maths can show it wasn’t the case. But if the numbers were way different (which I think even the most ardent maximalist accepts) then your “absence of evidence” argument is not important, and we are left with virtually no evidence beyond the text – which some think has value, most don’t.
My limited reading tells me that while most scholars don’t accept the story as it is written, many accept that there may well have been a historical event behind the story. Wikipedia says: ”Presumably an original Exodus story lies hidden somewhere inside all the later revisions and alterations, but centuries of transmission have long obscured its presence, and its substance, accuracy and date are now difficult to determine.”
If we want to assess the consensus of scholarship, we need to avoid taking the views of the main combatants on one side only. I would have thought the ASOR book, specifically on the Exodus, was as good a source as any for this. It is published by a well respected academic publisher, it reports on the most recent conference on the topic, and its papers include a wide range, as it says: ”Biblical minimalists, centrists, and maximalists”.
I suggest that the very undogmatic answer I gave to you was well within the range of that conference, and I’d be interested in why you wouldn’t accept that. And your comment ”It is possible that the Exodus story was a dramatically embellished version of the escape of a very small group of people who eventually settled in the Canaan region” is in the same ballpark as what I said, although a little more definite that I would be.
Finally, I am a little influenced by an observation by CS Lewis about NT scholarship at the height of the most liberal thinking on the topic. He said that secular scholarship on Homer and other texts used to be much more confidently sceptical, but now (which was about 1960) scholarship had become more humble about such claims, and he predicted the same about the NT. And he was right. The scepticism of Bultmann and the German critics has given way in the past half century to a less sceptical approach. So while I don’t have strong opinion about the early OT, and I am happy to sit somewhere in the middle, I think a lot of what we now “know” will change, though of course I don’t know in which direction it will change.
”Man, that’s a big question. I don’t think there are enough hours in the day to answer it properly! The short version is that I was a Christian once. ….”
Thanks for that. I am always interested in people’s journeys. Obviously I disagree with some of what you said, but I’ll save that for another day. Thanks.
LikeLike
@UnkleE
Jon wrote: ”I think that the mythical nature of much of the OT presents some real practical and theological problems for Christianity, and I don’t find the reconciliations persuasive”
I think we can put this errant notion to bed….
Let’s read what an expert has to say about Paul shall we?
Pastor Tim Keller, a participant in a BioLogos workshop on evolution and Adam and Eve, said this:
“[Paul] most definitely wanted to teach us that Adam and Eve were real historical figures. When you refuse to take a biblical author literally when he clearly wants you to do so, you have moved away from the traditional understanding of the biblical authority. . If Adam doesn’t exist, Paul’s whole argument—that both sin and grace work “covenantally’—falls apart. You can’t say that Paul was a ‘man of his time’ but we can accept his basic teaching about Adam. If you don’t believe what he believes about Adam, you are denying the core of Paul’s teaching.”
Loved the Exodus explanation!
Perhaps you would like to offer some insight as to just how many ”escapees” there were?
How they avoided detection?
And maybe elaborate just a little more on your current view of Exodus with regard your previous statement concerning the conquest of Canaan?
The most problematic part of the OT is the conquest of Canaan, where there seems to be some reasonable archaeological evidence to suggest the conquest wasn’t nearly as complete as the OT says …
Really? Could you provide a link or citation identifying exactly what archaeological evidence there is to suggest any (Israelite) conquest at all, and the peer reviewed evidence that the shows the scholarly consensus?
LikeLike
Also …
I am curious of your view with regard how these returnees hid out at Kadesh Barnea for nearly four decades managing to avoid all detection?
It was obviously a small number as Pharaoh didn’t miss them, which suggests there wasn’t much of an issue when they left.
So even if they did park off at Kadesh Barnea to replenish their numbers for forty years before invading Canaan would not a reasonable person let alone a professional archaeologist and historian expect some evidence of settlement during this period?
Odd then that nothing has ever been found?
If these returnees were raising an army to invade, would one not expect to find evidence of weapons manufacture?
We also have the Armana letters.
As the Egyptians controlled this area at the time would not a reasonable person expert that some sort of alarm would have been raised that there was a transient group of people living practically on Canaan’s doorstep who were busy raising an army intent on invasion?
And how did these people eat?
Did they trade or grow crops?
From where did they obtain water?
These are the very basic questions that the average (fundamentalist?) apologist like Unklee simply refuses to address, preferring to cherry-pick his way through a proverbial minefield of difficult if not impossible to reconcile questions,
While the scientific and archaeological position changes on small details on a fairly regularly basis on these issues – which is as it should be – nothing of the overall picture in the past 100 years has suggested that the biblical tale is anything more than geopolitical myth.
The almost pathetic attempts to harmonize scripture with scientific inquiry fails at every step.
If someone like unklee is truly the honest individual he tries to convey then he should admit his beliefs are based on faith and faith alone.
That, I believe, most of us would accept and respect as his right.
But while he ( and every Christian) continually tries to inject some sort of scientific legitimacy into his supernatural based Christian worldview then he must be called out every time.
LikeLiked by 1 person
When you read the words ”Groundbreaking” and ”Exodus” in the same sentence one automatically expects this to refer to evidence. Well… I do.
However, this is not quite the case as it turns out.
The conference was three years ago so it is not that recent.
The link, UnkleE provided re: ASOR would not open for me.
However, the link below is what he is referring to in his comment.
He does not mention if he has read the book but his quotes are derived from this source.
Read Levy’s article and judge for yourself if there is any serious allusion to a change in the scientific/archaeological consensus and whether or not it is truly ”groundbreaking”.
( other than cyber imaging)
Maybe there was a tsunami that caused the Red?Reed Sea to open because fo a volcanic eruption?
A cyber model of this scenario was designed, and presented apparently.
(Naturally, several thousand escaping Israelites just happened to be standing on the bank of ther Red Sea while Moses scrat ched his arse wondering what to do next?
”Ooh look, a convenient tsunami. Isn’t Yahweh so cool?”
You can see where that’s leading I suspect?
There is no mention of Levy’s personal or religious beliefs but the tone of the article and its phraseology suggests ( at least to my mind) he considers there is some merit to the biblical tale.
FWIW, the article mentions that James Hoffmeir and similar innerantists attended this seminar/gathering.
Draw from that what conclusions you will…
http://asorblog.org/2015/08/04/israels-exodus-from-egypt-featured-in-groundbreaking-new-book/
LikeLike
If Paul referred to Adam in a non-literal sense, and Jesus referred to Noah, Abraham, and Moses in a non-literal sense, why shouldn’t we assume that the four authors of the Gospels referred to a Resurrection in a non-literal sense?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ark, you wrote: ,,, he should admit his beliefs are based on faith and faith alone.
I think the reason most believers who participate in theistic discussions refuse to admit the faith angle is because it devalues their arguments. They would much prefer to dig through the archives of supporting documents and try to convince the non-believer how “wrong” s/he is. Problem is, many non-believers — and most deconverts — have already been there, done that and found this same “evidence” sorely lacking.
BTW, to Jon and unkleE — please note I did not say “most” Christians. I said the “average” Christian, which does not indicate any numerical value.
LikeLike
If we can’t trust what Jesus and Paul said to be literal, how can we trust what four anonymous guys said to be literal? This type of thinking completely destroys the credibility of the Bible. Christians might as well toss the Bible in the trash.
LikeLike
@Nan
BTW, to Jon and unkleE — please note I did not say “most” Christians. I said the “average” Christian, which does not indicate any numerical value.
‘S’okay, my mum’s an average Christian. and she mostly believes it all.
😉
LikeLike
It is funny how over the course of history the Bible has been interpreted literally on many subjects until the scientific, archeological, anthropological, geological, etc., evidence becomes so overwhelming that Christians suddenly “discover” that God never meant THAT passage literally: the previous millennia of Christians who had interpreted it literally had simply been mistaken. God is never wrong, of course.
-The earth was created in six, literal days—non-literal
-There is a firmament above the earth holding up the stars—non-literal
-The earth sits on four pillars—non-literal
-A Flood that covers the tallest mountains on earth—non-literal
-Two (sometimes) six of every species were saved from extinction by riding out the Flood in one big boat—non-literal.
-The origin of the world’s many languages comes from an act of God at the Tower of Babel—non-literal
-Many thousands if not millions of Hebrews fled Egypt in one great Exodus and crossed the dry bed of a parted sea—non-literal
-Many thousands if not millions of Hebrews wandered in the Sinai for forty years and conquered Canaan—non-literal
But…
-a virgin is impregnated by an invisible ghost—literal
-a god/man walks on water in first century Palestine—literal
-a god/man, brain-dead for three days, walks out of his grave, chats up his former fishing buddies for forty days, and then flies off into outer space—literal
Come on, moderate Christians! Use your brains! ALL these claims are non-literal! Stop the selective nonsense!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Unklee
I think the practical and theological problems are more about the absence of events that are central to Christianity. Without the fall, original sin is a myth. If a great deal of the OT is just myth, then Christianity begins to look like any other religion and God’s behavior begins to look like human stories invented to explain the world around them. The foundations of a lot of Christian theology crumbles.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think a reference to an OT story necessarily implies it is literal. If I said, “As Darth Vader said…”, that doesn’t mean I think Darth Vader was a literal, historical figure. I’m just referencing a quote by a known character. However, I think it’s likely the NT authors believed the OT stories were historical fact.
Sure, that is entirely possible. Heck, I would say it’s pretty likely. But “a few people escaped, settled in Canaan where they merged with existing groups” is radically different than the origin story of Exodus.
I read the link earlier, but I didn’t see anything substantive in it about the overall view of scholarship. It just said a lot of different people contributed different arguments and views to the conference and book.
Your answer was just that it is “impossible to say one way or another because of lack of evidence one way or the other.” My response was that we can definitely say that the Biblical story did not happen, but that it’s plausible that there is some historical basis for the story involving a much, much smaller group of people. However, the plausible historical “basis” events are not consistent with the Biblical narrative in important ways. They don’t offer the origin story, the conquest or the basis for the Jewish religion.
I think this is an inaccurate interpretation of the development of scholarship. Scholarship has grown more skeptical of the historicity of many things that were widely accepted at one time. In the mid-20th century, William F. Albright was a leading archaeologist, devoted to “bible and spade” scholarship. Today, a lot of his work and that of his school of archaeology is discredited. The minimalist school arose well after CS Lewis and had a significant influence on scholarly views of the OT.
Yep. I agree with that. I would be glad to have more evidence, regardless of which way it points. It may be that David was a historical leader (very likely, given the stele with that name discovered some decades ago), though it’s unlikely he ruled over a unified kingdom of anything like the scope described in the Bible. But if we found more evidence showing that to be true, I would be glad to accept it. If we found evidence showing he was just a local tribal leader, I would be glad to accept that, too. I am indifferent to the direction of change. I just enjoy the discovery of more knowledge.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I find it disappointing ( and a tad disingenuous) that christians present the Resurrection as the (seemingly) be all and end all of whether we (skeptics) should be persuaded to accept as the most likely scenario given the ”evidence”.
Of course, there are numerous explanations that have been and continue to be offered as to how this character may have been resuscitated and how he effected his escape from the tomb in which he was so securely sealed against grave robbers, fan boys, plague infested rodents and double glazing salespeople.
These perfectly reasonable alternatives have all been scoffed at by believers – naturally, otherwise what is the point of being a believer – and whole tomes (tombs?) of material have been constructed by believers to demonstrate just how unreasonable and thoroughly un-christian of us all for not accepting their position on the divine nature of one Jesus of Nazareth. (where?)
However, if this is the only measure of divinity a christian such as, oh, I don’t know, let’s say, unkleE for argument’s sake – is prepared to offer for His Nibbs’ godness then it doesn’t really bode too well for the case. Especially when one considers what John ( or whoever he was) wrote about there being enough material to fill all the books in the world to demonstrate just how damn wonderful and miraculous Jesus of Nowhere really. And yet, all they want to do is convince us of how he came back from the dead.
One truly has to wonder why?
For a kick off, there are a couple of other notable resurrections in this wonderful tale in the NT, are there not? Not least Jesus’s pal, Lazarus.
Odd that there is only a single account of this tale. Odder still that a total expert like Habermas does not have a 12 point, iron-clad case for Lazarus’s resurrection and unkleE has never rushed to Jeffery Jay Lowder and demanded he write a similar article whereby it would be perfectly reasonable to accept or reject Lazarus’s temporary Brush with Death.
In fact one would expect there would have been radio carbon dating on Lazarus’s shroud by now, wouldn’t you?
And his tomb must be more famous than Jesus’s, surely?
Maybe it’s about time we turned our attention to Paul and wonder why he is utterly convinced that the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is the only causes celebres
worth mentioning from the entire litany of wondrous deeds our smelly little first century Rabbi performed for his adoring multitudes, not least the five thousand who fell at his feet begging for his recipe for fishcakes.
In fact, in all truth I am sick to bloody death of the Resurrection story and I believe ( on this site at least ) that any visiting christian should be obliged to defend the veracity of Jesus walking on water, which seems a much tougher proposition to defend.
In truth, aside from several well-placed, rather large boulders I cannot come up with a single plausible explanation how Jesus walked on water in the middle of a storm too. Personally, if this is true ( must be because it’s in the bible, right?) this is a shit-hot feat that would get my voter for divinity in a jiffy.
So enough of the Resurrection and prattle about Habermas, Lowder, Craig et al. already.
I truly believe Nate should write a Walking on Water post and politely ask UnkleE to offer a similar style defense as he so vehemently offers for the Resurrection.
Maybe unkleE could convince me?
Miracles happen, right?
LikeLike
Ark. You silly skeptic.
The Walking on Water Story is not literal. It is metaphorical. It is amazing you can’t see that. It is non-literal, just as is the Creation Story, the Flood Story, and the Exodus Story. Only silly fundamentalists believe that God meant these stories literally.
Only the Virgin Birth Story and the Resurrection Story are literal, factual, historical events.
Jeez.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Jon, I still think there are a few misunderstandings, but discussion is a good way to resolve them, so let’s go ….
”Without the fall, original sin is a myth.”
Yeah, I agree. But I haven’t believed in original sin as often defined (inheriting sin) for decades, because it’s based on a misunderstanding of Paul’s writings and clearly silly. But to believe that human nature has a strong selfish tendency doesn’t depend on a fall and fits fine with natural selection.
”If a great deal of the OT is just myth, then Christianity begins to look like any other religion”
How do you see this? If Jesus was divine and he began the kingdom of God on earth, was resurrected, etc, as the NT says and as I believe, how does it matter whether the religion he was brought up in began with some myths? I can’t see how it makes any difference at all. The key evidence is Jesus, not Genesis. It’s sort of like saying Mohammed Ali couldn’t be the greatest because he lost at marbles as a kid! 🙂
”Sure, that is entirely possible. Heck, I would say it’s pretty likely. But “a few people escaped, settled in Canaan where they merged with existing groups” is radically different than the origin story of Exodus.”
If that’s true, then you are in the same ballpark as me – a combination of history and legend. You are just saying the history was very much less than the text, and I am saying I don’t know how much less than the text it was. And it wouldn’t be much more to say that a charismatic leader took advantage of fortuitous circumstances to do it – that would be (I guess) a right of centre view.
The real issue is all the miraculous stuff, isn’t it? And we have already agreed (re the resurrection) that even if miracles happened, history struggles to confirm it. You would rule it out, as would most historians, but for them it is methodological naturalism and doesn’t affect the truth of the matter, only what we can claim to be historically established. So I don’t rule out the miraculous, I just don’t know if anything like that really happened here or not. I haven’t read any maximalists to see what they say.
But at core, you are not saying anything that much different to what I have said.
”I read the link earlier, but I didn’t see anything substantive in it about the overall view of scholarship. It just said a lot of different people contributed different arguments and views to the conference and book.”
You asked me what I thought, I told you I was fairly agnostic about it all, not having read much on the topic and being aware there was very little evidence either way, that I accepted somewhere in the middle of all the scholarly views without being committed to a particular view. You said I was underselling the case, so I presented the book to show that there really are maximalists and centrists among the recognised scholars (so I wasn’t underselling at all). That was all I was showing. Do you not think the book shows what I said?
”However, the plausible historical “basis” events are not consistent with the Biblical narrative in important ways. They don’t offer the origin story, the conquest or the basis for the Jewish religion.”
I think this is a very strange view, and I’d like to contest it regarding the origins of the Jewish religion.
1. That’s only true if you take something on the minimalist side of centre. Since I am uncommitted to any view, I have no reason to accept that summary. I think it is safer to keep saying, the scholars don’t agree and I don’t know.
2. Why does a religion have to be begin with history? Why can’t it begin with myth, and still be a true religion? If there’s a God, why can’t he reveal himself through myth, or history, or poetry, or …..? It could still be possible that God wanted the Jews to worship through sacrifices and to obey the 10 Commandments even if those commands were given via myth, don’t you think? I think it would be interesting to see an argument why origins have to be based in history.
”I think this is an inaccurate interpretation of the development of scholarship. Scholarship has grown more skeptical of the historicity of many things that were widely accepted at one time.”
It may be inaccurate for the OT, but it is true of the NT, which is what Lewis was commenting on. I am just offering the view that the same may happen to OT scholarship in the future.
”It may be that David was a historical leader (very likely, given the stele with that name discovered some decades ago), though it’s unlikely he ruled over a unified kingdom of anything like the scope described in the Bible.”
Yes I agree that Jerusalem, the temple, palace, population and kingdom were probably all smaller than we often imagine. I don’t actually see how that changes anything.
Thanks again.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Jon said: ”However, the plausible historical “basis” events are not consistent with the Biblical narrative in important ways. They don’t offer the origin story, the conquest or the basis for the Jewish religion.”
Unklee replied: ”I think this is a very strange view, and I’d like to contest it regarding the origins of the Jewish religion.
also….
1. That’s only true if you take something on the minimalist side of centre. Since I am uncommitted to any view, I have no reason to accept that summary. I think it is safer to keep saying, the scholars don’t agree and I don’t know.”
The majority of the scholars, scientists and archaeologists do agree. There was no Egyptian Captivity, no Exodus, (Including the decades spent at Kadesh Barnea) and no conquest. This fact has been repeatedly pointed out to you
The only scholars who steadfastly disagree with this view are those who adhere to an inerrant interpretation of the bible.
also …
… not having read much on the topic and being aware there was very little evidence either way, that I accepted somewhere in the middle of all the scholarly views without being committed to a particular view.
Absolute rubbish.
In fact you are now being blatantly disingenuous and based on the evidence for the internal settlement pattern, the complete lack of evidence of any form of captivity in Egypt, and the complete lack of evidence at Kadesh Barnea for the time period we are discussing and also Kenyon’s dating of Jericho and many other aspects that have been repeatedly pointed out to you, not least on the mega-comment post on this site from last year,which included a posting of a Finkelstein video explaining how the settlement is believed to have occurred.
To claim ignorance after all this time and continue to assert: ”I think it is safer to keep saying, the scholars don’t agree” suggests you are struggling with some sort of mental problem or learning disability or, you are simply telling lies.
LikeLike
An excellent overview:
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Evidence_for_the_Exodus
LikeLike
Miracles are interesting because in the context of an eternal, all powerful, all wise, and all knowing perfect God, they seem reasonable.
For a being that has no boundaries, limitations or weaknesses, for whom nothing is impossible, anything becomes possible, even the absurd, even the things that defy natural laws – and indeed, such events would seem to indicate a validation of the claims that God is eternal, all powerful, all wise, all knowing and perfect.
But without seeing God or a miracle, it all seems circular. A miracle proves that something is from God, and we can trust that miracles actually happen(ed) because nothing is impossible for God.
I can see where one would struggle with these things and then default to “God” when they think:
1) God or no God… eternal purpose or no eternal purpose… eternal reward or simply death, darkness and nothingness …
2) If I question God, I may no longer be worthy of Him – if I question Atheism, then no consequence…
3) Miracles are hard to believe, the bible is questionable in places, but God is a rewarder of the Faithful, and I must live by faith not only when it’s easy, but when it’s hard.
But I think these thoughts stop short. I think they fail to dive under the surface and err by not completely considering the entire issue.
1) It’s not, “God or no God,” it’s “God, gods, perfect and imperfect, eternal and temporal, good, bad and in between, and no god – plus all the possibilities that we haven’t even imagined yet. It’s not 50/50 toward the biblical god or atheism, but closer to one choice or position out of a million.
2) Men wrote the bible and made claims about God, questioning those claims is not questioning God, but verifying whether the messenger really speaks for God as claimed. If “God” is the truth, then questions should bring you to Him and shouldn’t be discouraged.
3) Miracles are hard to believe because they’re rare at best, non-existent at worst. We KNOW that some claimed miracles were hoaxes and fakes. We KNOW that devout religious people in the past have been crazy, misled or mistaken. We KNOW that things like lightning, typhoons, comets, earthquakes, which were once believed to be the instruments of God, are very natural and physical phenomena. So the supernatural has been shown to be natural; while, to my knowledge, nothing has ever been proven to actually be supernatural.
4) We don’t accept a bigfoot story on foot molds, hair samples, photos or video, much less at someone’s word… and bigfoot isn’t even supernatural – It’s a myth that would be very natural, yet most of us a skeptical of its existence, requiring a LOT of evidence before we could find it believable…
5) The most faithful and religious people reject the majority of the world’s religions without in-depth investigation into those religions, or what the scholars of those religions think… Is that consistent with how we handle the Bible?
6) If a person routinely presents ideas and recounts events as fact, but is demonstrably incorrect in much of what they say, doesn’t it typically cause one to at least be skeptical, if not outright distrusting, of anything else they say? Do we hold the Bible to that same standard, or do we give it a pass more than we do anything else?
In other words, I get why there are still so many religious people, but I do not understand how people can remain religious after seeing all the problems and hearing all the arguments. When you’re not aware that there’s a curtain to look behind, and when you have always been taught to accept that OZ is great and powerful, as well as terrible to the unbelieving and ungrateful, I can see why many still believe. But once you’ve seen the curtain, I wonder why you wouldn’t question. Once you’ve looked behind the curtain, I can’t imagine how you could keep believing.
I do not dislike UnkleE and it’s actually quite the opposite, but his reasons for maintaining faith do not resonate with me at all, and although I try, I cannot seem to understand his point of view.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think we all agree that if someone lived by select principles found within the bible, then that person could indeed lead a very good and moral life.
But like Gary and others have pointed out before, if we can excuse many of the stories in the bible as myth, even ones that seem to be presented as fact, then why couldn’t the Resurrection and ascension also be myth?
If God could present the 10 commandments and the passover through myth and still expect the jews to observe them, then why couldn’t the same be true for the Resurrection and ascension? and again, that’s even IF these myths were actually from God in the first place, and IF the human authors of the Bible were completely accurate.
And with that, before anyone says, “well, the scholars believe….”
The scholars can only confirm so much and logical conclusions can only reach so far based off of what’s present. The Resurrection is not a proven fact. It may be a fact some people believed it happened, but it’s also a fact that many Icelanders still believe trolls and gnomes are real, and it’s also a fact people routinely believe things to be fact that actually aren’t fact.
LikeLiked by 2 people
UnkleE did not experience Noah’s Flood, therefore it could be a myth. UnkleE did not experience the Exodus, therefore it could be a myth. But UnkleE has experienced the resurrected Jesus every day, multiple times a day, for decades, therefore it is impossible…in UnkleE’s mind…that the Resurrection is a myth.
LikeLike