Failure of the Tyre Prophecy...
I have been thinking carefully about the comments you made in response to my article, which dealt with the Tyre "prophecy" (TSR, September/October 1996). Farrell, I agree with you that the Tyre "prophecy" failed miserably. Please do not print the rebuttal article I sent you.
I also want to set the record straight: I am not an inerrantist. I am just not good at refuting the religious flimflam masquerading as truth. For seven years, or thereabouts, I subscribed to The Plain Truth magazine, which is published by the Worldwide Church of God. This cult almost totally brainwashed me. Herbert W. Armstrong, who ruled the church until his death in 1986, was a master at propaganda. I still have a couple of the church's booklets, and this is where I got the idea for my article about Tyre in The Skeptical Review.
I hope that you take on the Worldwide Church of God in a future issue of The Skeptical Review.
(Matthew Hogan, 177 Salisbury Street, Rochester, NY 14609-4137)
EDITOR'S NOTE: Unfortunately, the January/February issue of TSR had already been sent to press by the time Mr. Hogan's letter arrived, so I could not remove his article. Having heard from people who were once members of the Worldwide Church of God, I can understand the difficulty Mr. Hogan has experienced in trying to break away from its influence. The position that Hogan presented in the Tyre matter is basically the same as other inerrantists have used in trying to defend this prophecy, so perhaps our exchanges on the subject will still be beneficial to readers who encounter Christians who see a wonderful example of prophecy fulfillment in Ezekiel's tirade against Tyre.
Matthew Perman commits a fascinating defense of the resurrection of the physical body. So explain again how it works. I've been dead, say, for 6,000 years (the limit, to biblical literalists). My body has been eaten by worms and spread throughout the soil, or perhaps I've been cremated, blown on the winds, and captured by the falling rains. My bodily molecules have become nutrients absorbed in the leafy greens you ate for dinner. You are what you eat. So come the bodily resurrection, whose body will it be?
(David Nixon, P. O. Box 562, Marmora, NJ 08223)
EDITOR'S NOTE: Biblical fundamentalists will no doubt retreat to their old stand-by to answer Mr. Nixon's question: God can do anything, and so he will be able to reassemble every body of every human who ever lived. This is the way they explain away all of the problems in the story of Noah's ark or any other objection that may be raised against the integrity of the Bible. In other words, they will argue that the unprovable existence of their deity will explain all problems that can be identified in the biblical text. They are apparently unruffled by the obvious fact that the same assumption would prove the truth of the Qur'an, the Book of Mormon, the Avesta, or any other holy book.
At any rate, Mr. Nixon has raised a question to which Christians should give serious thought, but probably very few will. Perman's article has brought numerous reactions from readers, none of which were in support of his position. We are printing some of them below.
I just finished reading the Matt Perman article in the latest issue of The Skeptical Review. I have not read your "answer" to it yet, but I wanted to reply to a rhetorical question he asks near the end of the article before I read your reply. His question is (and I'm paraphrasing), "Since women's testimony had no standing in that culture, wouldn't it make more sense to have two of the disciples find the empty tomb, rather than Mary Magdalene and another woman?"
The fact that the word of women had no standing in that culture is exactly the point. If you were going to tell an outlandish story and wanted to give the story a certain appearance of authenticity, wouldn't you include a couple of people in the story who were alleged witnesses, but who couldn't call you liar if the story got back to them before they died? I certainly would! Who better to include in your story than the entire U.S. Congress as witnesses, followed by the caveat, "Of course, we all know what liars politicians are, so darn it all, there's no dependable witness who can verify my story one way or the other!"
The inclusion of two women in the story was a masterpiece of a snow job. There's no way they would have named any witness who could call the gospel writers liars and be believed! This way, they got the best of both worlds: two witnesses, and witnesses who wouldn't be believed if they denied the truthfulness of the story. Furthermore, the two witnesses they named would have known that merely opening their mouths and calling the storytellers liars would have made them persona non grata for the rest of their lives!
(Marilyn Burge, 6925 SE Knight Street, Portland, OR 97206-5956; e-mail Marilyn_Burge@msn.com)
EDITOR'S NOTE: Besides the possibility that the gospel writers may have purposefully selected women for the express purpose of creating the very situation that Perman sees as credibility, they would have had the added advantage of knowing that these women (if indeed they ever even existed) were probably dead by the time the gospels were written, and so they would not have been able to deny the role that the gospels attributed to them. The axiom that says dead men tell no tales would be equally true of women.
If Matthew Perman believes or has concrete evidence pertaining to the birth of Jesus as a supernatural phenomenon, that the same was conceived either by the visit of the angel Gabriel, the Holy Ghost, or the biblical God, then his belief in the resurrection according to his reasoning is accurate. Only a supernatural entity could die a physical death and by some esoteric alchemy reconstitute an inanimate body back to its original state of being. But the only concrete evidence to prove that Jesus was a supernatural being rests on the assumptions of the unknown authors of the New Testament who composed the biblical text many years after the pregnancy of Mary was conceived.
Did the authors of the New Testament interview Mary and get firsthand information on her insemination by the God of the Bible? Did they have a conversation with Joseph, his earthly father, and try to ascertain whether or not this event actually took place? The only source of verification for Jesus's existence as a supernatural being is the unknown authors of the New Testament.
Mr. Perman believes the resurrection was plausible, possible, and probable, because some unknown authors attributed this event to a being who could no longer verify the accuracy of this event and was no longer available for comment, since his physical presence as a witness was unavailable. Of course, we can still pretend that the authors were in divine communication with God when they wrote the New Testament. In a court of law, one cannot convict a person on the frivolous, flimsy evidence of people who did not participate as spectators to a crime, but merely made assumptions on the fictional accounts of others who may have wanted to believe that such an event took place. The authors of the New Testament were enthusiastic converts and defenders of what eventually evolved into the Christian religion. Deception in the proliferation of a myth based on evidence that is not verifiable, that is not mentioned by other learned men of that time, is the mystical propaganda of Christian demagogues.
How, if it is true that Jesus was supernatural in origin, capable of miracles, a god-man, and a divinity, was it even possible to cause his death? Would the devout with a fundamentalist perception subscribe to the fact that a man-god can be murdered (crucified) when it exists both physically and supernaturally? If he was a miraculous being, then he was incapable of death by any physical means. He therefore could not die, because his body was structured as a supernatural entity rather than as an entirely physical and material being. If Perman believes that Jesus was supernatural in origin, then he must ask himself the question: "How can a man-god die a physical death, when it is composed of supernatural elements that are able to exist independently of and outside the natural laws of nature?"
If, as the New Testament has established, Jesus was the deified son of God, he could not have died on the cross or by being run over by a chariot or by being pushed over a cliff. He therefore would not have needed to rise from the dead, because his body would have been incapable of physical death. For a resurrection to occur, he would have had to exist as a mortal man, capable of reconstructing a physical, material self. This, according to the New Testament, was not possible, since he was born as the supernatural son of God and not as a mortal man.
Finally, since it is written that he ascended into the upper atmosphere, just how far up did he ascend in order to reach his heavenly destination? Was it beyond Mars, and if so, how did the physical part of his body (flesh and blood) withstand the extreme variations of heat and cold? A man composed of myth or an imaginary creature could defy the elements, but if this was the condition of his essence and being, then there was no way he could have died on the cross. For a resurrection to occur, he would have had to fake his death by acting for several days as a deceased mortal, and then reappear to baffle a few enthusiastic spectators by exhibiting a reconstructed body. Hopefully, Mr. Perman can respond to this in a future article by offering more evidence and conclusive proof to support his undeniable and certain belief that a resurrection actually occurred.
(Leland W. Ruble, 833 Orchard Street, Toledo, OH 43609)
The first rule of good reasoning is not to accept a claim without compelling evidence. We want to keep our central stock of knowledge reasonably free from error. Therefore, like a jealous guardian, we set up stiff standards that a claim must pass before it earns the title of "true knowledge." Until it passes such a test, a claim is at best a working hypothesis.
The role of the benefit of the doubt cannot be to undermine the first rule of good reasoning. Thus, it cannot require us to lower those standards.
The second rule of good reasoning is that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. If you tell the boss that you had a flat tire, at least that is believable. It is a reasonable working hypothesis even if it is not actually confirmed by a careful check of he facts. However, if you tell your boss that you were kidnapped by Martians, that's not going to go over very well. If you want to be believed, you had better bring in some stunning evidence, some extraordinary proof as it were.
We may give the benefit of the doubt to a work provided that it allows for a good working hypothesis. The Martian story, however, just doesn't make a good working hypothesis, because there is no established track record for such events. (Compelling evidence is still required if we wish to consider a work part of established knowledge.)
Neither does Jesus's resurrection story lend itself to a good working hypothesis. Not only are there no established track records to go by, but scientific understanding strongly argues against such a thing. Thus, the benefit of the doubt does not apply to the Gospels.
The New Testament, as Till and others have shown, does not supply the extraordinary evidence needed to support Jesus' supposed resurrection. The general consensus among mainstream scholars, after much study and analysis over the years, is that the Gospels cannot even be treated as historical documents. They were apparently written to shore up diverse theological viewpoints within the early church.
At first, there was no need for any written material. All good Christians expected the world to come to an end in the first century, including Jesus according to the Gospels, so why go to the trouble and expense of writing things down? Later, as doubts arose and as competing views evolved or were encountered, a need to define and fix one's theology developed.
From Mark to the latest noncanonical gospels, we have a continuous spectrum of evolution that reflects part of this development. The story gets more detailed, more complete, and names become attached to people who were formerly not named.
The oldest copies of Mark (the oldest Gospel) begin with Jesus's baptism and end with the confusion of the empty tomb. Internal evidence suggests that Mark was built around various bits of tradition. That is, a fictional history of Jesus's ministry was probably developed by Mark to tie together the various Jesus stories. Later, different postresurrection scenes were added to Mark. Still later, Matthew and Luke copied extensively from Mark, improving Mark's grammar in some places. However, each added a different infancy story. The postresurrection scenes were expanded. And, in the noncanonical gospels, the final empty spaces, Jesus's childhood and Jesus's manhood, were filled in.
In the Gospels no one actually witnesses Jesus' resurrection. Even the guards supplied by Matthew have fainted away and are useless for that purpose. That must have bothered at least a few of the church fathers, because the Gospel of Peter makes it a point to come up with some witnesses. That small addition, though noncanonical, is a good example of how Gospel "history" was actually created.
Perhaps, you can begin to see why mainstream scholars have long ago rejected the Gospels as eyewitness accounts. The Gospels are an evolved phenomena of the early church, and their purpose was to support church doctrine--not to record history. There were several gospels because of the divisions within the church, both in time and place.
Though some mainstream scholars hold out the hope that bits and pieces of a genuine Jesus might still be retrieved from the Gospels, they rightly reject the Gospels as historical accounts. (The purpose of The Jesus Seminar, for example, was to sift out the genuine Jesus from the evolved growth of the Gospels.) Other scholars argue that even that modest goal is a vain effort, that the real Jesus (if any) has been lost forever.
Into this complex picture strolls the fundamentalist who is blissfully unaware of these problems, who naively sallies forth with arguments based on the empty tomb, Matthew's guards, the arrangement of Jesus' grave clothes and other "facts" associated with the Gospels. They seem incapable of understanding that their tightly constructed arguments are worthless because the whole cloth is rotten. Such a monumental fact is beyond their comprehension, all the more so as many of them deliberately wear blinders.
It is beyond the poor powers of a mere letter to bring the full light to those who willingly live in intellectual darkness. All I can do is shed some light on why educated skeptics reject the Gospels, and I leave it to the energetic mind to pursue the matter to its proper end. A few will catch the ray and outgrow the need for darkness.
(Dave Matson, P.O. 61274, Pasadena, CA 91116; e-mail 103514.3640@CompuServe.com)
EDITOR'S NOTE: "It is the nature of the claim, stupid!" This was the central idea that I tried to present in my second response to Perman. The very nature of the resurrection claim is such that its verification requires much more than a few biased documents (which have obviously been tampered with over the centuries) and early Christian traditions about apostles who died for their beliefs. This is a point that seems to elude Matthew Perman and his resurrectionist cohorts, who see amazing evidence where, in reality, no evidence at all exists. I have discussed this point further in "The Nature of the Claim" on pages 10-11 of this issue. Let's hope that Perman or the next resurrection apologist who submits an article will try to address this issue rather than just regurgitating discredited apologetic arguments.
First of all I'd like to thank you for the work you do in rebutting the fantastic claims of Bible inerrantists. In the current political climate, I believe it is of the utmost necessity for skeptics to speak out firmly against irrationality.
In Matthew Perman's response to you he says, "While martyrs of other religions have died for what they sincerely believed was true, the difference is that the disciples would have been dying for what they sincerely knew was a lie! As I said in my article, `Ten people would not all give their lives for something they know to be a lie.' Therefore we must conclude that the disciples believed that Jesus rose and appeared to them because Jesus really did rise and appear to them!"
First of all, it is not necessary to conclude this because Perman is making some assumptions that may or may not be erroneous. The first is that there were disciples at all who died because they believed they had seen the risen Jesus. What has come down to us through history are the names of men who are the same as those of the supposed disciples to Jesus, who were supposedly killed because they didn't renounce their belief in Christ. Is it accurate to assume that because they had the same names, those who were supposedly executed were indeed the same men as described in the New Testament? It is suspected with a good deal of evidence that later Christians were not above altering historical documents to portray their religion in a better light. Redactions in the writings of Josephus are the best example of this sort of alteration. The assumptions that Perman makes are that the men executed were disciples of Jesus and that a Jesus existed, so these men could have been his disciples.
Perman also makes the assumption that these men who would have had to have died for what they "knew" was a lie were rational and not hallucinatory or deluded. Perman presumes to know that men do not die for causes which they know to be a lie. If Perman were in a similar situation and felt that he was going to be executed anyway, I wonder if he would recant even if he knew that he was dying for a lie. I submit that Perman might be more than willing to martyr himself for what he knew to be a lie if he felt that in so doing it would cause others to stand and fight for whatever his cause du jour might be.
In essence, Perman is professing to be able to read the minds of those long dead when he makes the assertion that no one would die for what they knew to be a lie. If there are examples anywhere of men or women who have died for a lie, this renders Perman's argument invalid. Unfortunately, it is nearly impossible to really know what any individual truly believes. But isn't this fact also a problem with Perman's argument?
(Stephen Sommers, 67 West Indian Sage, The Woodlands, TX 77381; e-mail ssommers@ix.netcom.com)
Your refutation of Matthew Perman's article on the resurrection was masterful. I don't see how people of his ilk can possibly take such a story seriously, but then again inerrantists would take Jack and the Beanstalk as "revealed truth" if it were found in scripture! There's a big difference in being a rationalist and a rationalizer.
(Jon Nelson, 15225 Cantara Street. Panorama City, CA 91402.)
I notice that Anek Imphita, ("From the Mailbag") considers himself a "wise man." As well, he considers himself as one who subscribes to approaching issues with "wisdom, reason and the ability to think and discover the truth freely." He dismisses "those people" who do not, from his perspective, apply these things to their thoughts and logic.
It is nice to see that, finally, a skeptic has shown a real contradiction. Note what Anek states at the beginning of his letter when discussing his approach to reading the Bible: "I have picked up the Bible and tried to read it many times, but when they say that the stories in the Bible must be accepted as true stories, I cannot make my brain accept it, so I put it down. How can a man read a fairy tale childish story and accept them as truth?"
First of all, please note: Anek says he has never even read the whole Bible; he just "puts it down." He states that he relies on second-hand (at the least) interpretations and opinions of the Bible to make up his mind--hardly a "reasonable" way to reach a conclusion. He states that he is one "who discovers the truth freely," yet he doesn't even read [what] the Bible says before deciding it is untrue. He states that the stories in the Bible are "fairytale/childish" yet he has not even read them or the context they were written in! He implies that those who subscribe to such "stories" are "destroyers, who bring darkness to this world, not the light as they say," yet he hasn't even read what "they" say.
Anek states that "I cannot make my brain accept it"--so, Anek, do you make your brain do things and think things? If so, what is it in you that performs this function? Do you force yourself to believe things? If so, then the truth really has little meaning to you; you are only interested in what you want, or "force yourself," to believe. Is this what you term the "free discovery of truth"?
Conjecture, opinion, feeling and assumptions have given Anek his conclusions: his "truth" if you will. Is it reasonable to dismiss something as a falsehood without even looking at it? Is a person "wise" who makes a conclusion without even considering any evidence or making observations? Is one "discovering" anything when one isn't even looking and hasn't even found anything?
Anek encourages TSR to "keep doing what you are doing"--and what exactly is that? Do Anek's comments reflect the sole purpose and meaning for TSR: to falsely represent an idea, or a religion, "putting it down" before even honestly considering it? Do skeptics make a habit of forming irrational conclusions such as Anek's? Or is his an isolated incident?
Anek states that he "wishes that more people have the chance to read these (TSR) marvellous works." If everyone was like him, they would put it down before reading it anyway, so it would make little difference what TSR said!
No wonder the atheistic and skeptical argument does little convincing: it argues the lack of substance in Christianity with fluff of its own. As the old saying goes: the skeptical position has its feet firmly planted in mid-air.
And the Editor "supports" this way of thinking. Knowing the editor as I do, you'll have to pardon me for not being surprised.
Anek, I suggest being honest and giving the Bible a fair read and a fair and introspective consideration; it deserves at least that much before you dismiss it.
(David Court, 28 Mitchem Drive, Etobicoke, ON, Canada M8W 2S8; e-mail hoover1@newtcom.ca)
EDITOR'S NOTE: The name David Court will be familiar to all TSR readers who are also subscribers to the errancy list on the secular web. He tries to respond to every posting that presents a biblical inconsistency or discrepancy, and his chief way of responding is simply to deny that a contradiction has been proven, no matter how compelling the evidence. He is the typical Jack-and-the-Beanstalk type that Jon Nelson referred to above.
Space restrictions will not allow me to review Court's fallacious apologetic methods that he has displayed on the Errancy list, but we can see in his letter that he is not above distorting statements to mean what he wants them to mean. He began his letter by saying he had noticed "that Anek Imphita... considers himself a `wise man,'" when in reality all that Mr. Imphita said was that "wise men appreciate and honor you." This was intended as nothing more than an obvious compliment that he was extending to me, so it is certainly a distortion to try to make it mean that Mr. Imphita was boasting that he was a wise man.
Because Mr. Imphita has tried many times to read the Bible but finds the stories insulting to his intelligence, Dave Court distorts this to mean that Imphita relies on "secondhand interpretations and opinions." If a Christian should try "many times" to read the Qur'an or the Book of Mormon but found its content too fantastic to maintain his/her interest, I'm sure Mr. Court would not call this Christian's rejection of these books reliance on "secondhand interpretations and opinions," but if a non-Christian finds it difficult to swallow the nonsense in the Bible, this is "secondhand interpretation and opinion." Well, I'm sure many Errancy subscribers will agree with me when I say that this is typical David Court logic. I wonder if he would mind telling us how idiotic ancient literature would have to be before one would be justified in considering it nothing more than myth and superstition.
Mr. Imphita said that he had tried "many times" to read the Bible, so a reasonable person would recognize that many attempts to read the Bible could bring enough familiarity with its content to justify labeling it a collection of myths and fairy tales, so it is hardly accurate of Mr. Court to say that Mr. Imphita hasn't even read what "they" say. After all, how much of the Book of Mormon would Mr. Court have to read before he would be entitled to reject it as a book that is too incredible to believe? At any rate, if Court thinks that Mr. Imphita has been unfair in his opinion of the Bible because he may not have read it all, I will issue a challenge that Court may want to accept. I have read the Bible--many times--and I don't hesitate to say that it is a book riddled with ancient myths and superstitions, inconsistencies, contradictions, discrepancies, absurdities, and failed prophecies. If Mr. Court thinks this is an unfair representation of the Bible, he is free to respond to any articles that I publish in this paper or to submit his own defense of the Bible. I will gladly publish it. The only problem for him is that I will publish it simultaneously with my rebuttals (which he will then be free to rebut). I really don't expect Mr. Court to take advantage of this opportunity.
Please keep me on your mailing list. I received the recent copy yesterday and, as usual, I devoured very word!
I admitted to myself and others that I am an atheist, after 40 years of living, 20 married to a preacher. Ugh! At last, I found happiness, peace, and contentment, never possible in the fetters of religion. I love The Skeptical Review.
(Dr. Dorothy B. Thompson, P. O. Box 562, Bandon, OR 97411.)
I ran across your article on the internet; then I read that you were an ex-Church of Christ preacher. I was a Church of Christ member all of my life.
When I was at Freed-Hardeman in '69-71, I decided to let Christ control my life and use me to spread the gospel. After all, if we had the truth and the world would be saved only if we gave them that truth, every Christian would have to get serious about salvation. Well, guess what? Bullshit!
It's good to know there's someone who had the courage say, "Look, we've been lied to and the real truth is important. Please send me the Skeptical Review.
Thank you and God Bless (Oops). Keep up the good work. Were you ever a speaker at the Freed-Hardeman Lectures? You'd be good in Open Forum.
(Rex A. Mobley, 501 County Road 513, Rienzi, MS 38865.)
EDITOR'S NOTE: By coincidence, I am an alumnus of Freed-Hardeman too. My first ministerial training was done there a decade before Mr. Mobley's time, when it was only a junior college. I'm sure that I would not be welcome there as a speaker. I have, in fact, tried to arrange a debate there, but the proposals have received no responses.
I consider it significant that Mr. Mobley contacted me through the internet. The posting of all TSR articles on the secular web has brought hundreds of subscription requests. I consider the internet one of the greatest opportunities for freethinkers to combat religious irrationality. If you have a multimedia computer, you should seriously consider putting it on line so that you can receive information and participate in on-line discussions of biblical issues. TSR articles can be accessed at http://www.infidels.org/library/magazines/tsr/. To subscribe to the Errancy list owned by TSR, send the two words "subscribe errancy" to major-ii@infidels.org. This will add your name to the list to receive copies of all postings and entitle you to respond to postings of interest to you.
These arguments over details can get tedious but nonetheless are enlightening. What I would like to see more of is what is known--in the scholarly sense-- about the origins of the various books in the Bible and their authors. Pick a book, any one, and tell us how and why it was written, and who the real authors might be, and what editing was done, and when and why. And what was the agenda of the authors and editors?
(Wayne Yoder, 5249 Mountain Crest Drive, Knoxville, TN 37918.)
EDITOR'S NOTE: The subjects Mr. Yoder suggested are certainly fascinating, but the average Christian fundamentalist would summarily dismiss such articles as "liberal" nonsense. In my opinion, success is improbable with them, at best, but more likely when the Bible is taken, just as they study it in their church classes, and shown to be contradictory and inconsistent in its content. All they can do then is scream, "You're taking it out of context!"
In case anyone is interested in the subjects Mr. Yoder
mentioned, I would recommend Who
Wrote the Bible? by Richard Elliot Friedman as a good source
of information on the origin of the Old Testament, and Who
Wrote the New Testament? by Burton L. Mack for the same type
of information on the New Testament. Motives behind the editing of New
Testament books is discussed in The
Orthodox Corruption of Scripture by Bart D. Ehrman. These
books can be obtained from H. H. Waldo, Bookseller, P. O. Box 350,
Rockton, IL 61072. The telephone number is (815) 624-4593.
