Issue #170-Kingdom of the Cults (Part 2), Jonas 3

Biblical Errancy Issue #170-Kingdom of the Cults (Part 2), Jonas 3 Days/3 Nights, Reader Describes His Journey from Fundamentalism, Reader Divides Bible Facts from Lies, Inmate's View of BE, BE Teaches Logical Thought

Nov 10, '08 2:35 PM
by Loren for everyone






Issue #170



Editor: Dennis McKinsey



Feb. 1997



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A national periodical focusing on Biblical errors, contradictions, and fallacies, while providing a hearing for apologists
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COMMENTARY

This month's issue will conclude our analysis of some biblical problems and mistakes found in apologist Walter Martin's book entitled The Kingdom of the Cults.




REVIEW
THE KINGDOM OF THE CULTS (Part 2): Seventh, on page 225 Martin tries to slip in a subtle twist on the Book of James in order to escape from the dilemma it presents to those who adhere to Paul's maxim that you are saved by faith alone. In his continuing battle with Mormon theology he states,
"The Scriptures disagree with the Mormons in their insistence upon good works as a means of salvation. The Book of James clearly teaches (chapter 2) that good works are the outgrowth of salvation and justify us before men, proving that we have the faith which justifies us before God (Romans 4 and 5)."

Martin often worked on the principle that if he talked authoritatively enough and sounded sufficiently resolute in his convictions that would carry the day. But unfortunately, all too often that tactic doesn't fill the bill. In this instance, for example, James 2 proves nothing of the sort. In fact, James specifically states that man is justified by works. While verses 2:14 ( "What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? Can faith save him?" ), 2:17 ("Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone"), 2:20 ("...faith without works is dead"), and 2:26 ("For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also") say both faith and works are necessary for salvation, verses 2:21 ("Was not Abraham our father justified by works..." ), 2:24 ("Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only"), and 2:25 ("Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works...") say works alone are sufficient. And that is diametrically opposed to Paul's reliance upon faith alone. Martin could not have picked a worse chapter to prove his point. He should have avoided James 2 as if it had the plague.

Eighth, on page 299 Martin attacked the Unity School of Christianity's employment of Matt. 11:14 to prove reincarnation. While talking about John the Baptist, Jesus said in that verse ("And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come"). Jesus clearly referred to John the Baptist as the deceased Elias. In response Martin says,

"Jesus was here commenting on Malachi 4:5 and applying to John the Baptist the mantle of prophecy in the tradition of Elijah. Christ, in answering the Jews, merely gave the prophecy its true meaning. Neither the context nor the prophecy refers in any way to John being a reincarnation of Elijah...."

Martin's defense is little more than a variation on the old cliche: That's what it says but that's not what it means. The problem lies not with the fact that the verse is being interpreted too literally, but with Martin's inserting a construction that is alien to the text. Nowhere does the verse imply, much less state, that a "mantle of prophecy in the tradition of Elijah" is being bestowed on John the Baptist. That is a wholly gratuitous overlay. The fact is that Jesus said John the Baptist is Elias, not merely an inheritor of his mantle.

Ninth, the weakest attack upon the cults mounted by Martin in his book lies in his assault upon the Adventist belief that the Sabbath, Saturday, is the true day of worship, not Sunday. Here, more than anywhere else, his arguments fall like duck pins in a bowling alley. On page 460 Martin states,

"We may certainly assume that if the Sabbath had meant so much to the writers of the NT; and if, as Adventists insist, it was so widely observed during the early centuries of the Christian Church, John and the other writers of Scripture would have equated it with the Lord's Day, the first day of the week. Scripture and history testify that they did not, and Adventists have, therefore, little Scriptural justification for their Sabbatarianism."

While magicians practice sleight of hand, Martin practices sleight of head. True, NT writers never equated the Lord's day with the Sabbath or the 7th day of the week, but what Martin artfully neglects to mention is that they never equated it with the first day of the week either. He tries to give his readers the impression that because the 7th day is never equated with the Lord's day, the 1st day becomes the Lord's day by default. Sorry! But that's not how it works. Martin says

"the Lord's Day, the first day of the week."

Where does the Bible ever state that the Lord's Day is the first day of the week, or the first day of the week is the Lord's Day? Martin slipped in this little tidbit, hoping his readers would not catch a wholly unsubstantiated assumption. The phrase "the Lord's Day" only appears once in all of Scripture.

To prove that Sunday is the Lord's Day, Martin relies upon extra biblical sources, especially church fathers, instead of Scripture, since the latter doesn't support his position. He states,

"The Church Fathers provide a mass of evidence that the first day of the week, not the seventh, is the Lord's Day."

Not only does he leave the Bible in order to make his case but, interesting enough, three of the ten sources he cites, don't even prove the very point he is trying to make. Where do any of the following citations specifically state that the Lord's Day is Sunday? He cites:
•Didache of the Apostles ("On the Lord's own day, gather yourselves together and break bread and give thanks"),
•Bardaisan, ("Wherever we be, all of us are called by the one name of the Messiah, namely Christians and upon one day which is the first day of the week we assemble ourselves together and on the appointed days we abstain from food"),
•and the Epistle of Pliny to the Emperor Trajan ("They [the Christians] affirmed...that the whole of their crime or error was that they had been wont to meet together on a fixed day before daylight and to repeat among themselves in turn a hymn to Christ as to a god and to bind themselves by an oath...; these things being duly done, it had been their custom to disperse and to meet again to take food--of an ordinary and harmless kind. Even this they had ceased to do after my edict, by which, in accordance with your instructions, I had forbidden the existence of societies").
Again, where do any of these sources say the Lord's Day is Sunday? Where are the two equated? Even Bardaisan's comment that they assembled on the first day of the week does not prove or state that's the Lord's Day.

Of the seven remaining citations, only one, just one, calls Sunday the Lord's Day. Cyprian (Bishop of Carthage) states, "The Lord's Day is both the first and the eighth day." All the rest, which includes Ignatius (Bishop of Antioch), Justin Martyr, The Epistle of Barnabas, Irenaeus (Bishop of Lyons), Eusebius, and Peter (Bishop of Alexandria), link the two only indirectly by referring to the Lord's Day as the day of the resurrection.

Martin concludes this section by saying on page 461,

"In their zeal to establish the authority of the Sabbath, Adventists either reject contrary evidence as unauthentic (and so conflict with the preponderance of scholastic opinion), or they ignore the testimony of the early church. Although they seem unaffected by the evidence, the fact remains that the Christian Church has both apostolic and historical support for observing the Lord's Day in place of the Sabbath."

How wrong can you be? Martin is accusing Adventists of practicing precisely the attitude that he so vividly exhibits. He rejects contrary evidence by completely ignoring the fact that Scripture nowhere justifies substituting the Lord's Day for the sabbath, Saturday, and he relies upon a "preponderance of scholastic opinion" as if that were sufficient to overrule the clear teachings of Scripture. Since when did the pronouncements of a body of extra-biblical individuals have precedence over Holy Writ?

He also says he has apostolic support for the belief that the Lord's Day should be observed in place of the Sabbath. Unfortunately he is never so kind as to cite his apostolic verses, and in the final analysis that is all that really matters to a true Christian. No doubt the lack of citations can be attributed to the fact that there are no verses to cite.

As further evidence of his confusion, Martin continues by saying,

"Recently the Adventist radio program Voice of Prophecy circulated a 31 page pamphlet entitled, Authoritative Quotations on the Sabbath and Sunday. In it they quoted 'leading' Protestant sources to 'prove' that Sunday usurped the Sabbath and is a pagan institution imposed by Constantine in 321.

However, many of the sources quoted actually establish what the Adventists flatly deny; i.e., that the seventh-day Sabbath is not the Lord's Day or the first day of the week, but is, in fact, the seventh day as its name indicates.

Since the Adventists are willing to quote these authorities to buttress their position in one area, surely they will give consideration to contradictory statements by these same authorities in another:

At this point Martin injudiciously decided to quote these Adventist authorities.

1. "The Lord's Day did not succeed in the place of the Sabbath.... The Lord's Day was merely an ecclesiastical institution.... The primitive Christians did all manner of work upon the Lord's Day" (Bishop Jeremy Taylor, Ductor Dubitantium); 2. "The observance of the Lord's Day [Sunday] is founded not on any command of God, but on the authority of the church" (Augsburg Confession of Faith, quoted in Catholic Sabbath Manual); 3. "But they err in teaching that Sunday has taken the place of the Old Testament Sabbath and therefore must be kept as the Seventh day had to be kept by the children of Israel" (J.T. Mueller, Sabbath or Sunday); 4. "They (the Catholics) allege the Sabbath changed into Sunday, the Lord's Day, contrary to the Decalogue as it appears, neither is there any example more boasted than the changing of the Sabbath Day" (Martin Luther, Augsburg Confession of Faith); 5. "Although it (Sunday) was in primitive times and differently called the Lord's day or Sunday, yet it was never denominated the Sabbath; a name constantly appropriate to Saturday, or the Seventh day both by sacred and ecclesiastical writers" (Charles Buck, A Theological Dictionary); And 6. "The notion of a formal substitution by apostolic authority of the Lord's Day (meaning Sunday) for the Jewish Sabbath (or the first for the seventh day)... the transference to it perhaps in a spiritualized form of the Sabbath obligation established by promulgation of the fourth commandment has no basis whatever, either in Holy Scripture or in Christian antiquity" (Sir William Smith and Samuel Cheetham, A Dictionary of Christian Antiquities).

Thus the Adventists have in effect destroyed their argument by appealing to authorities which state unequivocally that the first day of the week is the Lord's Day and that it was observed by the early Christian Church from the time of the Apostles."

After having read these quotations, one can only conclude that Martin got lost in the shuffle somewhere, or is hoping his readers will be. He quoted sources that, in effect, are proving the Adventist position instead of his own. He failed to carefully note the wording of the fourth commandment ("Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work; but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God...."). In other words, the sabbath is to be honored not the Lord's Day, whenever that may be. The Fourth Commandment directs mankind to observe the sabbath, and nothing whatever is said regarding paying homage to the Lord's Day. He helped discredit his own argument. The sources he cites actually say the Lord's day did not replace the sabbath, and observance of the Lord's day is not based on scripture but on church teachings.

After ill-advisedly quoting these authorities Martin concludes,

"Thus the Adventists have in effect destroyed their argument by appealing to authorities which state unequivocally that the first day of the week is the Lord's Day and that it was observed by the early Christian Church from the time of the Apostles."

The Adventists did not destroy anything of the sort, because their concern is with honoring the Sabbath, not the Lord's day. After all, isn't the Sabbath the day to be honored? Where do the Ten Commandments say "Honor the Lord's day and keep it holy"? What difference does it make if several authorities allege that the first day of the week is the Lord's day? That's not the day that matters. That's not the issue. And what difference does it make if the early Christian Church was observing the Lord's day from the time of the apostles? All that would prove is that members of the early Church were ignoring a clear mandate of Scripture. Honoring the Lord's day, even if it could be proven that Sunday was the Lord's day, was not one of the original commandments.

Martin has done everything he can think of to shift the focus from concentration on the word "sabbath" to concentration on the phrase "the Lord's day" because everyone knows the former can only be the seventh day or Saturday. By trying to shift the attention of everyone to "the Lord's day" and somehow link that with Sunday, he hopes to be able to justify the systematic violation of the fourth commandment by nearly all of Christendom.

Martin concludes his steady descent into quicksand by saying, "It should also be carefully noted that in their 'Authoritative Quotations' the Adventists overlook the fact that nearly all the authorities argue forcefully for the Lord's Day as the first day of the week, and state that legal observance of the Sabbath terminated at the cross (Col. 2:16-17)." Which day of the week is the Lord's day is of no consequence, since there is no obligation to honor the Lord's Day in the Ten Commandments. It's the sabbath that matters. But even more importantly, Martin says that "legal observance of the Sabbath terminated at the cross." Oh really! Then what are Christians doing to honor the Fourth Commandment, may I ask? After all, it says Honor the sabbath and keep it holy. Nowhere does it say honor the Lord's Day.

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR


Letter #707 from DM of Supply, North Carolina

Dear Dennis.
I spoke with you about the passage in Matt. 12:40 ("For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth") and you suggested I write to you about it and here goes.

The difficulty caused by Matthew 12:40 when compared to other passages in the Bible was the first one that initially caused me to lose confidence in the inerrancy of the Bible. I was a born-again Christian, totally sold on the infallibility and inerrancy of the "Word of God". I spent ten years (1974-84) attending services with the Worldwide Church of God, voraciously reading the "Plain Truth", and the "Good News" magazines, studying the Ambassador College Home Bible Study Course and hundreds of other "booklets" and "reprint articles" that claimed to impart the plain truth to the spiritually hungry. I really believed that I was being "called" by God to understand his truths. From 1974 to 1988 I did not consider myself "born again". The WCG taught at that time that no one is "born again" until the return of Christ. However, I left the WCG in 1984 (for personal reasons) and four years later I did the unthinkable. I joined a Sunday keeping church in Atlanta! It was the First Baptist Church, pastored by Charles Stanley. Such a move was not made lightly, and despite being four years removed from WCG indoctrination, I still had difficulty making the change. I never totally embraced all the doctrines that the rest of the members of FBA held, but rather I held a combination of some of the beliefs I had held in the WCG and some of the beliefs held by the majority of members at FBA. I even refused to call myself a baptist but rather called myself a "Christian who worships in a baptist church." I was already a freethinker in the making because I determined that a church would never again dictate for me what was true and what was false without my full informed consent. It is true that my "full informed consent" was insufficient at the time because my idea of full and informed consent was reading apologetic works from different denominations that believed in the inerrancy of the Bible. In other words, I wanted to know what different denominations taught so I could be better qualified to select what was true and what wasn't, but I limited myself to those who believed in the inerrancy of the scriptures. To me, inerrancy couldn't even be debated, so I never thought about reviewing my beliefs on inerrancy, just the different doctrines that denominations disagreed upon.

This criteria didn't last long. When you have spent 10 years of your life in a church believing with all your heart and soul you have the truth and no one else has it, and you are so convinced you have the truth you would even die for it, but later find some of your doctrinal beliefs were in error, it makes it difficult to totally sell out the second time. Yes, I was in a baptist church, but I never sold my soul to them. I began an investigation on Christian doctrines and determined that the FBA would be my home church until I found something better. I knew then I had been wrong before, terribly wrong, and I didn't want to be wrong again. I could testify how fervently one could believe something, and be absolutely sure of it and later discover it to be false. I would sometimes lie in bed at night and talk to God, imploring him to help me to KNOW the truth. I could see that intelligent people at FBA believed the doctrines they held, so how could they be wrong? But then I remembered that the WCG had their intelligent people too, and they held just as fervently to their beliefs. I didn't imagine myself as intelligent as some of them, so I wondered how could I ever be certain again. I was sure that the intelligent ones prayed just as fervently as I for the truth and yet they arrived at different conclusions from each other. It was becoming obvious to me that intelligence wasn't enough. A person had to totally empty himself of any prior beliefs and start over, even if he had to begin with the basic question of: Is the Christian Bible the word of God? Of course no matter how hard I tried to be impartial, I still was aware that I was prejudiced in my belief that the Bible was the word of God. I had to MAKE AN EFFORT TO BE FAIR.

It was during the summer of 1988 that things really began to change. I first noticed a discrepancy between Matt. 12:40 and the other passages describing the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. I also noticed the conflicting genealogies in Matthew and Luke. I read the apologetic works for answers and they all failed to provide satisfying answers. My Christian friends told me to just "trust God", but that didn't help resolve the issue. Once one begins to entertain the very real possibility of mistakes in the Bible, then all kinds of thoughts begin to occur. The implications for a fundy like myself are huge. My whole world view was threatened. But I'm getting off the subject. My change from fundy to liberal Christian to outright infidel took a little over 12 months, from the summer of 1988 to early fall 1989. Once a crack in the dam occurs, it is only a matter of time before the whole thing collapses. Two difficult passages that couldn't be reconciled became outright contradictions, but the implications of Matt. 12:40 being a contradiction did more to damage the trustworthiness of the Bible than the genealogies did. Too much was riding on Matthew 12:40 for it to prove to be a contradiction. Once my internal bias for the Bible had been damaged, I began to notice more "difficulties" and "discrepancies" that in time I had to admit were contradictions or absurdities. The trickle became a stream, the stream became a flood. You can figure the rest. I left FBA in the fall of 1989 and ceased being a "member" at that time. I called myself a deist when I left and used deist interchangeably with atheist from fall 1989 to fall 1991, at which time I began to have contacts with the writings of freethinkers like myself, and was able to accept the label "atheist" without worry.

In December 1992 I came into contact with the Truth Seeker magazine and through them I was able to contact you, Farrell Till, the Freedom From Religion Foundation and others. It is always a joy to read of others who have had similar experiences like myself. Thanks for your publication.

Letter #708 from RN of Moscow, Idaho

Dear Dennis.
I enclose a check for $20 for which please send me a couple of your videos.... We hope to show them on the public access channel on the local TV cable.

Moving to another topic, (What follows is my analysis of "THE HARMONY OF THE GOSPELS"--Ed.)

Most Christian bookstores sell what are known as "harmonies of the gospels." These books purport to put the contents of the four gospels into one continuous account. This is supposed to serve two purposes: one, to be a sort of "reader's digest" of the gospels for people who have little time to read; two, to smooth out, or "harmonize," the contradictions among the gospels.

Although several dozen of these harmonies are currently available, new ones continue to be written in the hope that someone will finally determine what "really" happened in the gospel stories. But this is a vain hope, because back in the middle of the second century A.D. the gospels already contradicted each other. And if they were not the original manuscripts, they were certainly very early copies of them.

So about the year 160 a Christian writer called Tatian compiled the very first "harmony of the gospels." He picked out the events and sayings that appealed to him and left out the rest. But other Christians did not agree with his choices, so they have been playing the same, old, no-win game of "harmonizing the gospels" ever since. The gospels cannot be harmonized because they have contradicted each other from the very beginning.

(What follows is my analysis entitled LIES ABOUT THE BIBLE--Ed.)

LIE: The Bible is without error or contradiction.

FACT: The Bible is filled with errors and contradictions from cover to cover.

LIE: The Bible consists of exactly 66 books.

FACT: The Jewish Bible has 39 books; the Catholic Bible 72; some Protestant Bibles 66. The 1611 KJV has 72 books in it.

LIE: The Bible is the "Word of God."

FACT: Nowhere does the Bible make such a claim.

LIE: The OT contains many prophecies about Jesus of Nazareth.

FACT: There is not a single reference to Jesus in the OT.

LIE: The OT teaches that there is life after death.

FACT: In the entire OT no one dies and goes to heaven. And there is no hell in the OT religion. Death is the end. (Except in Daniel, ca. 167 B.C., the latest book in the OT)

Beware of evangelists who lie about the Bible. They are wolves in sheeps' clothing. They just want your mind and your money.

Letter #709 from JS of Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan

Dear Dennis.
Here's a couple of bucks for that prisoner guy in Texas (Letter #697; Issue #167). Take this and add it to all the other money that will surely pour in from all freethinking Biblical Errancy readers, and give him a decent subscription to your august journal.

I stand by my statement referred to in Letter #693 part j; same issue: Not only is DA obviously a nut, but you have begun to attack people's motivations, something I never saw in the first three years of Biblical Errancy. As I said previously, this is a positive development. Of course, this necessarily implies that Biblical Errancy is up against not mere ignorance but psychological problems. And if this be true, then I wonder about the ancient cliche: If you stand on the street corner arguing with a fool for too long, people will soon wonder who is the fool!

If you don't question the motivation of people like DA, then you are either a fool or extremely naive. DA is like the typical Unitarian: he believes what he wants to believe, then expends enormous amounts of energy justifying his beliefs.

One last thing: when you say things like "relevant back issue" or "years ago," can you cite chapter and verse? People need to know where to look in the back issues of Biblical Errancy for the information you are referring them to. Five years ago I knew where to find anything in Biblical Errancy merely from memory; that is no longer the case.

Editor's Response to Letter #709

Dear JS.
A concerned subscriber has been kind enough to purchase a subscription for the inmate in Texas, and some back issues have been sent to him courtesy of another generous donor. I trust he will put his copies to good use in his ongoing struggle with his religious environment, since they can't very well be used for much else in view of his current status.

Insofar as the analogy you draw between arguing with DA and standing on a corner arguing with a fool is concerned, that has come to my mind in fleeting moments as well. No doubt many people would agree with your assessment of DA, including Unitarians, but I don't think the latter are going to be very happy with your comparison between them and DA.

Lastly, if you force me to give the actual cite every time I refer to what I said in past issues of BE, then I might have to delete some of what I intend to say. I, like you, long ago forgot what I have in each issue and made no attempt to memorize them. I don't have time to create the kind of index that is needed for this type of retrieval. The technical aspects of BE are a concern that I have largely left to others over the years. All I can do at this stage of the game is make my references and hope others will believe me or look them up. The first couple of years I had every issue memorized, but that kind of comprehension has long since gone by the boards.

Letter #710 from FDN of Huntsville, Texas

(FDN is a Texas inmate who wrote to us earlier, and in doing so prompted one subscriber to buy him a subscription to BE and another to buy him the first 20 issues of BE--Ed.)

Dear Dennis.
I got the fabulous package of back issues and news of another year's subscription to your great polemics. I attribute much of my clear understanding and continued advancement in learning "how to think " to Biblical Errancy. Your intensity to reason fulfills a daily desire I have to stimulate the "critical thinking" part of who "I am." And when I say "thank you" over and over it takes on a hollowness I try to avoid. During this one life, acts of thoughtfulness and the greatest act of all, kindness, such as you and two of your other subscribers have shown, simple as it may seem to some, deserves more than a thank you. However, I am limited by our language and my situation. So, would you please accept and convey a deep sense of appreciation that a mere thank you could not accomplish.

Also please feel free to publish my address, which is P.O. Box 32 248997, Huntsville, Texas 77348. I enjoy discussing any topic, both with freethinkers or religious individuals.

Editor's Response to Letter #710

Dear FDN.
I have no doubt you kind sentiments are appreciated, not only by me but by your benefactors as well. Incidentally, you have inadvertently hit upon a key element of this whole enterprise, a factor that is often overlooked. After having engaged in biblical dialogue and debate for more years than I originally planned, I have come to the conclusion that many biblicists defend religion in general and the bible in particular because they are simply unable to think critically, logically, objectively, or accurately. They have real problems marshaling the critical thinking that is so inseparable from good reasoning. That can primarily be attributed to the fact that some basic premises incompatible with logical thought were inculcated during their vulnerable formative years of youth. They have serious difficulty thinking rationally when confronted with facts that do not meld with what they have been taught, especially in regard to religion and the Bible. To put it simply, they just can't think straight when certain topics appear on their radar screen. The power of their wish almost invariably exceeds the strength of facts. They just can't see non sequiturs, unsubstantiated conclusions, superstitions, and anemic arguments. And they can't seem to separate that which is trivial from that which is significant.

Letter #711 from TS of Prescott Valley, Arizona

Dear Dennis.
Just a note to inform you that the Prescott Community Access Channel 13 is constantly having problems with your B.E. video tapes and usually ends up showing only a portion of your program.

This frequently occurs also whenever the Atheist Forum is shown. I called Channel 13 complaining about this, and I'm always given an apologetic excuse about the computer "shifting the tape."

This never happens during religious programs, so I can't help but wonder if the real problem lies with adults who are thinking like children (superstitious), also acting like children. Keep up the good work!!

Editor's Response to Letter #711

You are beginning to get a feel for what I have been encountering for years. Having been in this business for a long time and encountered numerous roadblocks, there is no doubt in my mind that official and unofficial censorship is the real problem in far too many instances. I never cease to be amazed at the number of people who spout free speech platitudes without surcease until their own basic beliefs are under serious assault.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: (a) We are still seeking volunteers willing to play our video programs on their local access channels. In my earliest shows I am somewhat ill at ease as you can probably tell, but I settle down as time goes by. Frankly I was concerned about how they would be received.

(b) We are still publishing the names and addresses of those wanting to be contacted by people living nearby. If you wish others to contact you, just send us your name and address for inclusion in a future issue.