Issue #124-Prayer, Joshua, JM's Tract Continues: P

Biblical Errancy Issue #124-Prayer, Joshua, JM's Tract Continues: Points 14 & 15, Several Sets of 10 Commandments

Nov 10, '08 5:40 AM
by Loren for everyone






Issue No. 124

April 1993
PRAYER--Undoubtedly some of the most stupefying aspects of biblical teachings circulate around the whole area of prayer and the efficacy of supplications to a higher being. The entire topic reeks with statements that are in direct opposition to our daily experience. James 5:13-15 says, "Is any among you afflicted? let him pray.... Is any sick among you? let him call the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil.... And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up...." If that were true, hospitals and physicians would be superfluous. You could just have church elders pray over all those who are ill. But as all knowledgeable people know, many individuals have paid with their lives because they trusted this belief. They chose clergy over surgery and paid the supreme penalty for their naivete.
Even more absurd are statements that promise believers the moon if they will only persevere in the faith. Christians are told they will obtain anything they want, for example. Matt. 7:7-8 says, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you. For every one that asks receives; and he that seeks finds; and to him that knocks it shall be opened." One should carefully note that no strings are attached, which only further divorces this statement from reality.
Equally absurd comments promise the believer powers comparable to those of superman, but qualifiers are attached. Matt. 21:21-22, along with Mark 11:23-24, says, "Jesus answered and said to them, Verily I say to you, If you have faith, and doubt not, you shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if you shall say to this mountain, Be removed, and be cast into the sea; it shall be done. And all things, whatever you shall ask in prayer believing, you shall receive." So now, as long as you have faith, it can be done. A qualifier is attached. Several verses clearly say that you can do anything as long as it is done in Jesus' name. John 14:13-14 says, "Whatever you shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in my name, I will do it." And John 16:23-24 says, "Verily, verily, I say to you, Whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name: ask, and you shall receive, that your joy may be full." Another verse, 1 John 3:22, says that you will receive whatever you ask as long as you keep his commandments. So, Christians are repeatedly told that the world is their oyster as long as they pray, ask with faith or in Jesus's name, or keep the commandments. Although obligations are attached to most promises, that is by no means true of all.
However, the most obvious refutation of prayer's efficacy is apparent to anyone who has either engaged in prayer or witnessed prayer in action. In virtually every instance prayers go unfulfilled. [Those few that appear to be successful will be discussed later.] And they often fail miserably. Why is this? After all, didn't God's book promise the universe to anyone who would join the faith and ask in the name of Jesus? So what's the problem? This question has been posed to apologists for centuries, and their answers are no better now than they were 2,000 years ago. On page 112 in Hard Questions apologist Frank Colquhoun directly confronts the problem of why prayers go unanswered by saying, "Here then are two blunt reasons why our prayers don't seem to produce the goods. First, because we don't really ask in faith. That means that we don't believe God can answer this particular prayer even though we say it, just in case! Secondly, all too often, as we've already seen, we only ask for things to please ourselves, whether they are good for us or not. God answers the first kind by ignoring it, because frankly it isn't a real prayer at all. And he answers the second by saying 'No'. So, because men always tend to blame God when things go wrong, we say, 'He hasn't answered my prayer' when he certainly has! It's just that he hasn't answered it our way."
In other words, according to Colquhoun, God answered it, and the answer is "no." Although this may appear to be a plausible reply, the unmistakable fallacy in Colquhoun's line of reasoning lies in the fact that it conflicts with clear statements in Scripture. Matt. 7:7-8 and Luke 11:9-10 have no provisos, addenda or restrictions attached. All you have to do is ask, seek, and knock, and it's yours. There is no obligation or requirement to ask for something that does not please ourselves. In fact, why would somebody ask for something that didn't?
Secondly, whoever heard of a Christian asking something from God while believing God was too weak to respond? Colquhoun is accusing those who fail to have their prayers answered of not believing God is omnipotent.
Thirdly, Colquhoun conveniently ignored all those failed prayers offered by people who did have faith. What about them? Or is he going to contend that every unanswered prayer emanated from someone who lacked faith in God's powers? That is patently absurd on its face, in light of the fact that those who pray the most are nearly always those most convinced of God's potency.
On pages 204 and 205 in The Bible Has the Answer, apologists Morris and Clark provide the following response to the same question. "There are, however, certain conditions to be met before we can rightly expect God to answer our prayers. The first is that there be no unconfessed sin in our lives. If we are deliberately living in disobedience to God's Word, then obviously we cannot expect Him to grant our requests."
Where on earth are they getting this nonsense? What conditions? As we saw earlier, some verses have no conditions whatever, and others merely require the supplicant to have faith, keep the commandments, or ask in the name of Jesus. And of these there is certainly no dearth. Nothing is said about "unconfessed sin", although it would no doubt be desirable from an apologetic perspective if there was. Morris and Clark continue, "No one has a right to pray to God for personal needs if he has ignored God's Son and the tremendous sacrifice He made for us on the cross.... We must also be in right relationship with the members of our own family. Another condition for answered prayer is faith that God will keep His Word.... Finally, one's purpose in prayer is important. Selfish, covetous prayers obviously are not pleasing to God."
Like Colquhoun, Morris and Clark have not only rewritten and supplemented Scripture to suit their own predilections, but ignored all of the prayers that have gone unanswered, even though the requirements Morris and Clark inserted into the text were adhered to. Everyone knows hardcore Christian believers who failed to have their prayers answered satisfactorily, although they met every requirement attached to prayer by Colquhoun, Morris and Clark.
Apologists often try to counteract the massive number of disappointments accompanying all of these prayer-related verses by relying on one lone verse, 1 John 5:14, which says, "This is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he hears us." The theory behind employment of this verse is that God will only grant prayers that are submitted according to His will. And since nearly all prayers go unrequited, nearly all prayers aren't being offered according to His will.
Two problems accompany this defense. First, no reservations or preconditions are attached to several of the verses we cited earlier, such as those in Matt. 7 and Luke 11. Anyone who insists upon interpreting 1 John 5:14 as having a condition attached, has only created a contradiction between it, on the one hand, and Matt. 7:7-8 and Luke 11:9-10, on the other. The latter have no reservations. Secondly, the verse says that if we ask according to God's will, he will hear us; it does not say we mustask according to His will in order to be heard. If I say a dog is an animal, I am not saying that in order for something to be an animal it must be a dog. First John 5:14 is saying that if I ask something in God's name it will be granted, but that does not mean I must ask it in his name in order for it to be granted. It does not say that it will be granted only if I ask in his name. The option of choosing other paths which could succeed as well is left open.
A few apologists also seek to escape through James 4:3, which says, "You ask, and receive not, because you ask amiss, that you may consume it upon your lusts." But it, too, is inapplicable, because it applies only to the particular group of people James is addressing, and it does not explain the failure of all those prayers submitted without lusts being involved. For most assuredly, every failed prayer is not involved in lusts.
Another response fed to those who are scripturally weak, but distressed by the number of ineffective prayers, is that you need to pray more. As incredible as it may be, that is precisely the tack taken by some ministers, priests and rabbis. According to them, unanswered prayers can be attributed to the fact that you didn't pray enough; you didn't pray hard enough; you didn't say the right prayer; you didn't have the right attitude or frame of mind; you weren't penitent enough, or you weren't sincere enough. In other words, by one rationale or another, the distraught supplicant is led to believe that he or she is the problem, not the inefficacy of prayers in general. One would think that after millions of failures, people would get the message. But millions don't. They keep trying to ram a square peg into a round hole. You would think that sooner or later they would realize that the problem lies not with the ineptitude of the supplicant, but with the insufficiency of prayer itself. It's like telling a drowning man that his problem lies in an inadequate supply of water. One can't help but think of the senior citizen with a very serious ailment who is told to pray by the local minister. She prays, but the illness worsens. She is subsequently told to pray more, but the sickness grows even more threatening. Finally the minister tells her to pray without surcease. So she prays so hard her sides hurt, but she dies anyway. Now, what do many religious people conclude from this? They often decide that she did not meet one of the prior criteria, while a sane man concludes that prayer is useless.
Prayer also suffers from the malady of selectivity. People will shout to the housetops about the one prayer that seemed to be answered, while quietly ignoring all those that collapsed. Not only do religious people focus on the few alleged successes, while ignoring a myriad of failures, but they fail to see that they have not established a cause and effect relationship between the desired event and the prayer. How do you know the prayer caused it? How do you know that it would not have happened, regardless? Just because I pray for an event that subsequently occurs does not mean the prayer caused it, any more than a loud bang causes the bullet to leave the barrel of a gun. Every time a loud bang occurs, a bullet goes out the barrel. But one would be foolish, indeed, to conclude that the bang, rather than the ignition of gun powder, caused the bullet to be expelled. When the subject of selectivity arises, along with the inability of superstitious people to see that reality is sending them a message contrary to that which they wish to hear, the following story comes to mind.
One day the son of an old farmer came in and said to his father, "One of the ewe lambs is dead. Well, said the father, that's all for the best. Twins never do very well anyhow. The next morning the son reported the death of the other lamb and the old man said, Well, that is all for the best, the old ewe will now give more wool. The next morning the son said, The old ewe is dead, too. Well, replied the old man, that may be for the best, but I don't see it this morning.
Like the old man, religious/superstitious people force interpretations on events that conflict with reality's message.
And lastly, another major problem with prayers is that the petitioner has taken it upon himself to ask God to alter his thoughts and behavior to fit the needs of an undeserving sinner. Ambrose Bierce described prayer as a request that the laws of the universe be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy. In a very real sense, every prayer denotes an attempt to affect, alter, or influence the activities of God. People who pray apparently don't realize that they are giving suggestions or advice to an omniscient being. How is that for an immense display of intellectual pomposity, haughtiness, arrogance, and conceit! Yet, these same people will accuse freethinkers of being victims of their own egos. The words of Thomas Paine on page 44 in The Age of Reason summarize this predicament as well as any, "Mankind finds fault with everything. His selfishness is never satisfied; his ingratitude is never at an end. He directs the Almighty what to do, even in governing the universe. He prays dictatorially. When it is sunshine, he prays for rain, and when it is rain, he prays for sunshine. He follows the same idea in everything that he prays for; for what is the amount of all his prayers, but an attempt to make the Almighty change his mind, and act otherwise than he does? It is as if he were to say--You, God, know not so well as I."
You would think that those who pray would realize that if God wanted it done that way, he would so act; and if he does not want it done that way, then who are they to suggest otherwise?
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JOSHUA--One of the more common Christian misconceptions is that Joshua wrote the Book of Joshua. Their conclusion is no doubt based on the fact that the book bears his name. But, unfortunately, several verses within the Book, itself, obviate any possibility of Joshua being the author. First, Joshua 24:29-31 deals a blow comparable to that dealt to the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch by the closing narrative in Deuteronomy. It states, "And it came to pass after these things, that Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died, being 110 years old. And they buried him in the border of his inheritance.... And Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that overlived Joshua...." Obviously, Joshua could not have written an account of his own death. Second, Joshua 10:13 says, "And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the Book of Jasher?" The Book of Jasher was not written until after the time of David, because 2 Samuel 1:18 says, "David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and over Jonathan his son: (Also he bade them teach the children of Judah the use of the bow: behold it is written in the book of Jasher)." For the author of the Book of Jasher to have known what David did, he would have to have written the book after David lived. Thus, Joshua, who lived long before David, could not have written Joshua 10:13. Third, Joshua 24:33 says, "Eleazar the son of Aaron died; and they buried him in a hill...." Eleazar died 6 years after Joshua, so Joshua could not have written this account. Fourth, it is hard to believe that Joshua would have written Joshua 6:27, which says, "So the Lord was with Joshua; and his fame was noised throughout all the country." Such lack of modesty and humility is hardly worthy of a great leader. Fifth, and lastly, Joshua 15:63 says, "But the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the people of Judah could not drive out; so the Jebusites dwell with the people of Judah at Jerusalem to this day." The Israelites did not dwell in Jerusalem until after the time of David. Jerusalem did not come into the hands of the Jews, until subdued by David as is shown in 2 Sam. 5:4 and Chronicles. This passage in Joshua, therefore, could not have been written until after the death of Joshua. Judges 1:1 and 1:8 say, "After the death of Joshua it came to pass...the children of Judah had fought against Jerusalem, and taken it, and smitten it with the edge of the sword, and set the city on fire" and also show that Jerusalem was not taken until after the death of Joshua. So how could Joshua have written Joshua 15:63?
Similar problems confront those who allege David was the author of Psalms. How, for instance, could David have written Psalm 137:1, which says, "By the rivers of Babylon we sat down, yea, we wept when we remembered Zion" when it refers to an event which did not happen until 400 years after David died, namely, the Babylonian Captivity?
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DIALOGUE AND DEBATE
Letter #508 Continues from Last Month (Part x)
[Point #14 in our pamphlet was: Matt. 27:9-10 quotes a prophecy made by Jeremy the prophet. Yet, no biblicist has ever been able to show me where it lies in the Book of Jeremiah--ED.]
JM's Defense is: This one is really absurd. Mr McKinsey thinks that if something Jeremiah spoke is not written in the Book of Jeremiah, that he did not say it. The passage is found in Zechariah 11:12. The prophet Zechariah, "makes use of the older prophets, especially Jeremiah, hence the Jewish saying that 'the spirit of Jeremiah dwelt in Zechariah'." Mr. McKinsey must really be hard up to drag this one up as a legitimate objection to the Bible. He just had to find something wrong with the Bible.

Editor's Response to Letter #508 (Part x)
The only absurdity involved lies in your explanation, JM. I asked you where the comment could be found in Jeremiah and you said it can be found in Zechariah, which is only a backhanded way of admitting it isn't there. In other words, Matthew lied. I'd rest my case but you threw out some additional tidbits. If you had taken the time to read back issues of Biblical Errancy, especially those having to do with Accommodations, you would have seen that the prophecy is not to be found in Zechariah, either. The facts in the two cases don't match, and for that reason Zechariah 11:12 is inapplicable. In addition, who has whose spirit is irrelevant. We are dealing with a quotation that is directly attributable to an OT prophet, a comment by Jeremiah which, in fact, does not exist.

Letter #508 Continues (Part y)
[Point #15 in our pamphlet was: Heaven is supposed to be a perfect place. Yet, it experienced a war in Rev. 12:7. How can there be a war in a perfect place, and if it happened before why couldn't it occur again? Why would I want to go to a place in which war can occur? That's exactly what I am trying to escape, aren't you?--ED.]

JM's Defense is: The war in Revelation 12:7 was not a carnal war where tanks and guns were used, or even swords. This was a vision to show how Satan rebelled against God. This was a spiritual war. This is the very kind of war that Mr. McKinsey thrives on in his publication Biblical Errancy. When one reads this publication, one can see that Mr. McKinsey's statement is not only false, but it is false to the point that he goes around waging (spiritual) war upon those who believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God. Tell us, Mr. McKinsey, has anyone ever forced you to debate them? I think not! Mr. McKinsey loves a good fight, and he knows it.

Editor's Response to Letter #508 (Part y)
What difference does the kind of war make? It was a war, wasn't it? And I don't remember saying or even implying it was fought with tanks and guns. I said Revelation 12:7 alleges there was a war in heaven. I fail to see what part of the statement is false. Would you be so kind as to elucidate? Most of your paragraph isn't even relevant to the issue. In fact, your comment, "Has anyone ever forced you to debate them," borders on the fatuous. You quickly leaped from a defense of the Bible to an attack upon my motives. I don't love a good fight. I love an effective exposure of deception, propaganda, prevarication, and subterfuge. We don't wage war upon "those who"; we critique a "book which".

Letter #508 Continues (Part z)
Why will spiritual war not happen in heaven again? Simply because the only people that will be in heaven will be those who are safe (babies, children under the age of accountability, and mental deficients), those who faithfully served God on earth, and angels who faithfully served him in heaven. In short, there will be no one there to cause spiritual war. An atheist would not be satisfied in heaven for five minutes, because if he was not interested in serving God a few years on earth, he certainly will not be satisfied with serving him in eternity. This is merely a quibble that Mr. McKinsey produces because he needs to find something wrong in the Bible.

Editor's Response to Letter #508 (Part z)
If there is anything this question is not, JM, it is a quibble. It goes to the crux of the whole issue. The entire thrust of Christian teachings with all the concommitant baggage (Jesus, salvation, original sin, the resurrection, faith, works, etc.) is geared toward the attainment of heaven. And if you tell me a war occurred in nirvana, that can't help but raise major concerns. A war in the very place which billions of Christians seek to enter is a quibble? Are you serious? Don't be ridiculous! It's a consideration of major importance, and Christians understandably seek to minimize its impact. In fact, they would just as soon not even talk about the issue, or this verse in particular, if at all possible. Secondly, you say it could not occur again because of the nature of those allowed to enter. But weren't these the kinds of people who occupied heaven prior to the first war? Third, a question that has been asked many times in BE deserves repeating. Where does the Bible say anything about an "Age of Accountability"? And fourth, I really wish you and your compatriots would stop impugning my motives by alleging that I work very hard to find biblical shortcomings. I assure you that I don't have to work very hard to find an incredible number of things wrong with Scripture. The Bible is a veritable goldmine of contradictions, errors, and fallacies. As I have said so often, it contains more holes than a backdoor screen. So, after all is said and done, my original question--Why couldn't a war in heaven occur again?--still stands.(To Be Continued Next Month)

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Letter #525 from LC of Lufkin, Texas
Dear Dennis.
I am writing in regard to letter #520 in BE issue #119. The writer, HB of Alexandria, Virginia, suggested that you conduct a critical exposé of the Ten Commandments. You pointed out that BE had already provided a critique of the divine Decalog. In that regard, I'm sure HB will be carefully reviewing back issues in the weeks ahead. However, there is one question concerning these paragons of virtue that is almost never addressed.
From the maze of intricate, incomprehensible and often contradictory rules with which the Pentateuch is filled, scripture readers can barely manage to extract the Ten Commandments. To make things even more confusing, there are two clearly defined sets of commandments listed in the Book of Exodus. One set is given in Ex. 20:1-17. Another quite different set is given in Ex. 34:14-26. The Exodus 20 set is the one universally accepted. But oddly enough, it is the set given in Exodus 34 that is identified as the real Ten Commandments (Ex. 34:27-28). This set bears little resemblance to the Exodus 20 set, and is absolutely irrelevant in today's world. Dennis, your knowledge of things biblical is much greater than mine. So, please, if you can, answer the question, "Which set is the real McCoy?"
...I recently undertook a review of literature relating to the Ten Commandments and compiled a short paper pointing out some of their more ludicrous aspects. Not only are the Ten Commandments (both sets) shown to be bad law, it soon becomes obvious to any objective reader that the entire Exodus story is nothing more than out-and-out fiction. It never happened!
I believe HB would find my paper helpful in rebutting Bible believers. If he or she will contact me at (409) 637-l026, I will be happy to provide a copy at no expense.

Editor's Response to Letter #525
Dear LC.
You correctly noted that there is a set of commandments listed in Exodus 20 and another set in Exodus 34. Although they are similar in regard to such matters as worshipping God and honoring the sabbath, a far larger number of differences are quite apparent. The key points, however, are that although Exodus 20 relates the list of what most people consider the Ten Commandments, only the list in Exodus 34 is actually called the Ten Commandments (Ex. 34:28) and only the list in Ex. 34 was carved on tablets of stone. So far, your argument is reasonably sound. The problem is that Deut. 5 has a list that is almost identical to that found in Ex. 20, and is located between Deut. 4:13, which refers to the Ten Commandments and two tablets of stone, and Deut. 10:1 and 10:4, which also refer to the Ten Commandments and two tablets of stone. So that could mean that the commandments in Deut. 5, which are the same as those in Ex. 20, are the real Ten Commandments. However, the waters are muddied even further by the fact that Deut. 4 has a list of commandments that resemble those in Ex. 34, which implies that the rules most people know as the Ten Commandments are not the real Ten Commandments after all. The word "commandments" is thrown around rather loosely in Exodus, and especially Deuteronomy, and the question becomes which set of rules among the batches available are the real Ten Commandments? The actual phrase "The Ten Commandments" is only used three times (Ex. 34:28, Deut. 4:13, and Deut. 10:4) and never in regard to the group of laws most people associate with the Ten Commandments. Determining which set of commandments were carved in two tables of stone does not solve the problem, because those in Ex. 34, Deut. 4, Deut. 5, and Deut. 10 were all so treated. Like so much of the OT narrative, the problem is something of a muddle. But that is to be expected from a book composed of conflicting accounts of the same events by different authors. I discovered this discrepancy over 15 years ago, and you might want to approach with caution. More bothersome than anything else is the fact that the commandments found in Ex. 20 and Deut. 5, which nearly all denominations refer to as the Ten Commandments, are never referred to as "The Ten Commandments."