Issue #183-Does the Bible Contradict Itself (Pt. 3

Biblical Errancy Issue #183-Does the Bible Contradict Itself (Pt. 3-Does God Lie or Protect the Just), Age of Sources, Chemistry, Big Bang, Evolution, Prisoners/Self-Esteem, Testing God, JB's Letter to Pastor

Nov 10, '08 3:23 PM
by Loren for everyone





Issue #183 March 1998, Editor: Dennis McKinsey


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



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REVIEW

DOES THE BIBLE CONTRADICT ITSELF? (Part 3)

Last month's issue discussed a couple of contradictions addressed by W. Arndt in his book Does the Bible Contradict Itself? that have bothered biblicists for centuries. We can now continue with additional examples.

On page 126 he confronts the conflict between 1 Sam. 16:1-2 ("And the Lord said unto Samuel, How long wilt thou mourn for Saul, see I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? Fill thine horn with oil and go; I will send thee to Jesse, the Bethlehemite; for I have provided Me a king among his sons. And Samuel said, How can I go? If Saul hear it, he will kill me. And the Lord said, Take an heifer with thee and say, I am come to sacrifice to the Lord " ) and Prov. 12:22 ("Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord; but they who deal truly are His delight").

Arndt states, "The charge is made that God, who in the text from the Book of Proverbs strictly prohibits lying or deception, in the passage from First Samuel Himself commands His Prophet to engage in an act of duplicity and that hence the same God who forbids deceiving people in one passage in another endorses it. A careful consideration will show that the charge is...unfounded. In 1 Samuel 16:1-2 God orders Samuel to anoint one of the sons of Jesse as king of Israel, and when Samuel points out that this is a very dangerous thing, God orders him to offer up a sacrifice at the house of Jesse and on that occasion to attend to the anointing of the king. There is no reason to charge God with ordering Samuel to do something dishonest in this case." Wrong! Of course, there is. God told Samuel to say he had come to sacrifice to the Lord when that's not the reason at all. It's merely a pretext.

Arndt continues, "It is true, when Samuel was asked why he was going to the house of Jesse, his reply was, to offer up a sacrifice to Jehovah. But was that telling a lie? No, he went with that very purpose, and nothing compelled him to tell inquirers of all his designs in going to the house of Jesse." Another falsehood. That certainly was not the very purpose; that was a subterfuge, a ruse, a concoction. In fact, the 16th chapter does not even directly state there was a sacrifice. The fifth verse focuses on this issue the closest but it does not specifically state that a sacrifice occurred.

Arndt continues, "There is certainly nothing dishonest in our speech if, when on the way to the house of a friend in whose company we wish to inspect some lands which we should like to purchase, we simply make the statement, on being asked as to the object of our trip, that we intend to pay a visit to our friend. In that case we are stating the truth, and no one will charge that we are deceiving the questioner by our reply."

As if we did not get enough of this kind of deception and double talk from our political leaders, now we have to endure it from religious spokespersons who are supposedly operating on a higher plain. To say that no one will charge that we are deceiving the questioner by our reply is patently false. I will. That is by no means the real reason and to say that we are doing so in order to pay a visit to our friend is trickery. That is neither the reason nor the motivation, merely a by-product.

Secondly, the parallel Arndt draws between the two accounts is invalid. In 1 Sam. 16:1-2 God not only created a deception but a lying pretext as well, while in the second account the speaker is relating one correct aspect of the whole event but omitting some key information. Although both accounts are deceptions, the main difference is that in the former a direct lie is concocted, submitted, and propounded.

Arndt continues by stating, "Haley (author of the famous apologetic work Alleged Discrepancies in the Bible--Ed.) has this paragraph, which states the situation quite exactly: It is our privilege to withhold the truth from persons who have no right to know it and who, as we have reason to believe, would make a bad use of it. Lord Harvey well observes: 'Secrecy and concealment are not the same as duplicity and falsehood. Concealment of a good purpose, for a good purpose, is clearly justifiable.... in God's dealings with individuals, concealment of His purpose till the proper time for its development is the rule....'" But God is not merely concealing information, as is occurring in the land deal, he is directly telling a man to lie, pure and simple. To perform a sacrifice was not the reason for Samuel going to Jesse. Although Lord Harvey's quote has merit, duplicity and falsehood rather than secrecy and concealment apply to God's behavior in the original contradiction.

On page 132 Arndt faces the contradiction between Job 2:3, 7 ("And the Lord said to Satan, Hast thou considered My servant Job that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth evil?.... So went Satan forth from the presence of the Lord and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown?") and Prov. 12:21 ("There shall no evil happen to the just; but the wicked shall be filled with mischief"). Arndt states, "No evil shall happen to the just man, says the Bible. And yet, according to the same Bible, Job, who was a just man, had to suffer evil if ever a man did. How shall we harmonize the declaration in Proverbs with the history of Job? The solution lies in the meaning of the term evil, which in the sense employed Prov. 12:21 describes real hurt or damage to us. Did Job experience evil of this sort? He did not. We must remember that his sufferings were merely temporary, that they led him into a deeper knowledge of God and His ways, that they served as a fire of purification, which made him a better man, that they were the precursor of greater wealth and bliss than he had enjoyed before.... For a while it seemed, it is true, as though Job's lot was a terrible one. in reality it was most blessed."

At this stage of his book Arndt appears to be merely groping for answers.

First, he contends, "We must remember that his sufferings were merely temporary" which is wholly irrelevant. Who cares how long they lasted. The fact is that Prov. 12:21 says "There shall no evil happen to the just." It says NO evil. It did not say the just man will experience evil for only a short period of time or temporarily.

Second, Arndt alleges, "his sufferings...led him into a deeper knowledge of God and His ways" which is also irrelevant, since Prov. 12:21 says "There shall no evil happen to the just." Arndt is trying to shift our focus by saying, "Yes he suffered, but it made him a better man." To Arndt I would say, "What difference does that make in so far as this contradiction is concerned? He suffered, didn't he!"

Third, Arndt states, "Prov. 12:21 describes real hurt or damage to us. Did Job experience evil of this sort? He did not." Is he serious! I wonder if he has ever had boils or known someone who has.

And finally, Arndt states, "For a while it seemed, it is true, as though Job's lot was a terrible one." Whom is he trying to snow! There's no "seemed" to it. It was terrible and if Arndt doubts this, then perhaps he would be willing to endure "sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown." That should awaken him to the errors of his ways with celerity.


DIALOGUE AND DEBATE

Letter #768 from DA of La Puente, California (Part a)

(DA wrote the following comments regarding our 179th issue in which we wrote a critique of DeHaan's 1962 apologetic work entitled Genesis and Evolution--Ed.).

You're dealing with an ancient book written in 1962. OK it went into a 16th printing in 1978, but that is still a long time ago and we may never encounter someone who even remembers the text.... You should avoid reviewing such forgotten works. A quick visit to a book store's religious department might show you what people are actually reading and what they need analysis of.

Editor's Response to Letter #768 (Part a)

I can't help but feel you are trying to plow me under with laughter sometimes, DA, because virtually every one of your letters has at least one belly-shaker, and this appears to be it. So a book written in 1962 is too ancient to be reliable and I should consult more current writings. If you think 1962 is too ancient to be potent, imagine what that does to the Bible. If reliability is dependent upon age, and the older a work is the less credible or powerful it becomes, then the Bible must be among the most dubious and anemic writings in all of history. With supporters like you the Bible does not need critics like me.

Second, you mean biblical defenses were less powerful 35 years ago than they are today. Really! Well what tomes of today do you feel are more potent than those of Haley (1876), Collett (Before World War I), Torrey (1909), Arndt (1955), DeHoff (1962), and DeHaan (1962) to cite only a few examples?

Letter #768 Continues (Part b)

(On page 1 I quote DeHaan as having said, "The first verse of the Bible determines whether you are a believer or an infidel. What you think of this verse determines your whole attitude toward the rest of Scripture." Later, on the same page DeHaan states, "You either believe it or reject it." To all of this I said, "This is the kind of subtle indoctrination that is indicative of the more crafty apologetic writers...."--Ed.).

To this DA asks, "Your in your face flat statement is subtle? I don't know if I want to read something blunt."

Editor's Response to Letter #768 (Part b)

You have great difficulty interpreting what lies on the page before you, DA, especially when it does not conform to what you want to read or interferes with your predisposition to transform texts into something desirable. I said DeHaan's statement was a "kind of subtle indoctrination." I did not say my comment was intended to be subtle.

Letter #768 Continues (Part c)

(In the 179th issue I said, "one can only shudder at the prospect of using the Bible as the final authority in a subject like chemistry, when none of the chemical elements is mentioned--"Ed.).

DA now says,

I would prefer a more specialized text myself, but my computer program finds 81 mentions of iron, 156 mentions of gold, 123 mentions of silver, 5 mentions of tin, and several mentions of lead...in just the OT. That is several hundred above none.

Editor's Response to Letter #768 (Part c)

Now who are you trying to deceive, DA? None of these "mentions" has anything to do with the science of chemistry but, instead, are directly related to mining, the extraction of valuable minerals, measuring someone's wealth, or constructing with minerals. Do you see any reference to symbols, atomic weights, atomic volumes, or other chemical properties of elements? In fact, do you see any reference to the science of chemistry, period? Of course not. Biblical writers would not know a periodic table from a four-legged kitchen contraption upon which you eat. It is precisely this kind of sleight of hand that causes biblical apologetics to be held in such low esteem by knowledgeable and unbiased observers.

Letter #768 Continues (Part d)

You state, "Matter is all that exists and it has always been here; it has always existed." You might want to recheck your physics. Big Bang theory says there was no matter prior to that event, circa 10-20 billion BC. (A bit before 4000 BC perhaps, but a creation of matter in both cases.)....

Editor's Response to Letter #768 (Part d)

You need to recheck not only your physics but your logic as well, DA; there is no "might" to it.

First, you assume that the Big Bang theory is the last word in astrophysics. Steady State theoreticians would hardly agree with that and they are considerably more knowledgeable in this whole field than you will ever be. To them matter has always existed.

Second, if matter came into existence by an explosion, a big bang, then the obvious question to be asked would be: What banged? If something exploded, then it had to exist prior to the existence of the explosion.

Third, you talk as if the Big Bang theory is a proven fact and you were an eyewitness. Your ideas may be ancient, but you aren't. It is a theory, not a demonstrable, conclusive fact. Why do you think it is called the Big Bang Theory?

Fourth, you say ten to 20 billion years BC is "A bit before 4000 BC perhaps." With figures that divergent, tongue-in-cheek won't even provide you an escape.

And fifth, you say "creation of matter" in both cases. So, in so far as the development of the universe is concerned, you are equating the Big Bang theory with the mythology of biblical creation. I am sure Big Bang proponents are glad to hear that. Why don't you just call them pseudo-scientists and be done with it.

Letter #768 Continues (Part e)

You state, "Evolution does indeed teach there is upward development...." Not really. Evolution tells us one species comes from another, but only our own bias classifies this as upward development. There is change, but it can either be "upward," "downward," or "sideways." Like beauty, the direction is largely in the eye of the beholder.

Editor's Response to Letter #768 (Part e)

First, considering the fact that life evolved from life forms not appreciably different from simple one-celled organisms to beings with an extremely complex physiological makeup, including a very complicated brain, I would say that evolutionists have proven their case beyond any reasonable doubt. Bias has nothing to do with scientific fact. Are you saying organisms have not in fact become more complex and intricate as time has passed? Are you saying life began with mankind and evolved downward eventually giving rise to viruses, one-celled organisms, etc.? I assume you have something to substantiate a theory as bizarre as this. Would you care to provide some examples of evolution going downward? Some of our readers would probably be more interested than I.

Second, how can a scientific fact as to whether or not an organism is becoming more or less complex or more or less adapted to its environment be comparable to making a subjective judgment regarding beauty? We are dealing with science, not artwork.

Letter #768 Continues (Part f)

You say, "Prisons are heavily populated with people who have low self-esteem...," Better recheck your sources.... Low self-esteem has been a liberal buzz phrase these last few years, and it is both badly defined, and blamed for most everything, without much attempt to produce any actual evidence. When actual research has been done, the results have been rather painful to the theory. People in prison in fact have rather high self-esteem, certainly higher than the facts justified. Those with high self-esteem think they deserve the other guy's money and that they can get away with the crime.... Increasing self-esteem of criminals would increase crime.

Editor's Response to Letter #768 (Part f)

First, you could do with some checking yourself my friend. Only in your case you need to check sources other than those upon which you are relying. Prisons are heavily populated with school dropouts, low achievers in employment and other enterprises, and people whose environmental upbringing has been anything but conducive to the enhancement of self-pride and contentment with one's character. And you are subtlety trying to tell me that these are factors favorable to having a high opinion of one's capabilities and worth. Who are you trying to beguile?

Second, would you be so kind as not to characterize me as a liberal or insidiously allege that I am blaming low self-esteem for most everything. When and where did I say that? Would you either cite chapter and verse or confess your blunder.

Third, research by whom? The right wing or fundamentalist sources with whom I suspect you are allied judging from some of your extraneous comments! Now those are reliable sources, indeed!

Fourth, you really exposed your rightist or fundamentalist philosophy in regard to this issue when you said, those with high self-esteem think they deserve the other guy's money and that they can get away with the crime. Since time immemorial you and your colleagues have been preaching that the conditions in which one is raised, heredity, and other material factors are of far less importance to a person's status than individual decisions and responsibility, when that philosophy is no truer now than the first day it was uttered eons ago. You and your cohorts have always tried to blame the victim rather than the conditions or system in which the victim was raised or to which he was subjected. If that is true, then carefully explain to me why blacks comprise between 50% and 60% of the prison population in the United States while they are only 11% of the general population? You would do well to watch our 59th TV program in which this issue is covered more extensively.

Fifth, your Christian indoctrination really came to the fore when you said, "Increasing self-esteem of criminals would increase crime." So low self-esteem and a poor opinion of one's self worth is beneficial to society as whole. You would have us believe that the more people look upon themselves as pieces of dung, to quote Martin Luther, the better off we all are. It is just that kind of comment that really blows the man-hole cover and exposes your philosophy for the sewer that it is.

And lastly, I said "Prisons are heavily populated with people who have low self-esteem..." which is not only accurate but qualified, while you said, "People in prison in fact have rather high self-esteem...." which is not only inaccurate but absolutist in nature. You're following in the footsteps of your favorite book, I see. If you had bothered to take a simple course in logic you would know that your comment is phrased in such a manner as to refer to all people in prison, which is preposterous. Every person in prison has high self-esteem? Are you serious? On second thought, maybe you have more than one belly-shaker this month.

But we are getting too far afield from biblical errancy. BE is not a politico/sociological journal.

Letter #768 Continues (Part g)

With regard to my Letter #750...I never said you should not have the last word in BE. Rather I said you should not cry so hard when the editors of other publications deny you the last word. They are simply doing what you do.

Editor's Response to Letter #768 (Part g)

Don't you have any intellectual integrity? Let's revisit the dialogue verbatim. On page three of the November 1997 issue I said, "DA begins his letter by quoting me as having said to him in Issue 168, 'I get the last word in an individual issue, since I don't know of any other practical way it can be done, do you?'" He replies, "Sure. Do it the same way loads of editors have done with my frequently hostile letters to them. Print it and make no response. Highly practical...."

Clearly you are saying I should not have the last word but I should merely print the words of others without commenting upon them. For you to assert that you never alleged I should not have the last word is patently false.

After laying down this false premise, which is nothing more than an attempt to lead people astray, you falsely allege, "You should not cry so hard when the editors of other publications deny you the last word". When did I "cry so hard" because "the editors of other publications denied me the last word?" You made this charge previously and it was answered in the 168th issue, showing that your memory appears to be no better than your logic.

In regard to this issue, I also stated on page 2 in the 168th issue, "Fourth, the word 'steamed' is not only inaccurate but hyperbolic, unless, of course, you choose to characterize every objection as being 'steamed.'

You love to close with some kind of smart aleck remark, so I will invoke one of your favorites by saying see you next month.

(To Be Continued in the Next Issue)


LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Letter #769 from DC Via Email

(DC has some problems with the idea of God which generates several tests in his mind--Ed.)

Dear Mr. McKinsey,

Test #1: If God can do anything, can He find something that HE can't do? If He can find something that he can't do, then is he still omnipotent? If not, do you credit God with only limited omnipotence?

Test #2: If God can do anything, and if He knows everything, does He know a way to kill himself? If so, and God can be killed, is He really Eternal or Omnipotent? If not, then is He really Omniscient?

Test #3: The Bible teaches that Jesus died for your sins in the ultimate sacrifice. Is this true? Some men have sacrificed their lives for other men. They have died and not come back to life. Some ordinary men have died for their friends with no expectation of coming back to life. Jesus reportedly expected to come back to life and reportedly did come back to life, ie., his death was temporary. If you accept that a man's death is a meaningful sacrifice, then how can a temporary death be superior to the permanent death of some ordinary men? If the death of Jesus is a true story, then how was it an ultimate sacrifice, when men have already done the same or more than God?

Test #4: The Bible teaches that modesty is a virtue. Yet, the Bible also teaches that God is Holy, perfect, and to be praised forever.

Editor's Response to Letter #769

Dear DC. Your questions are well taken but why are you directing them to me? Wouldn't it be more appropriate to address to them to the religionists?

Letter #770 from JB Via Email

(Last month's issue contained a letter in which JB explained why he left Christianity. In this second letter JB continues the kind of inter-relational conversation one can expect during an open rejection of religion in general and the Bible in particular by relating the following statement to his pastor.)

To my former pastor:

Last night I learned that my father-in-law called you and told you that my wife and I have lost faith. Let me confirm that it's true that we have indeed lost faith. I had intended to inform you myself at a time of my own choosing, because I did not want you to be in the dark indefinitely about whatever must have happened to us. Anyway, I might as well take this opportunity to anticipate some questions you may have, so I will do so now.

First, the reason we lost faith is simply that we came to the conclusion that the Christian religion is false. I came to this conclusion, quite contrary to my own wish, after years of sincere and thorough study of the Bible and evangelical apologists. My wife followed me into unbelief soon after I lost faith, because of her long and intimate familiarity with my comprehensive knowledge of the Bible and my ability to make sense of it and defend it, which I had demonstrated over the years while leading my small group Bible study. When I told her that I had lost faith because of the serious and foundational fallacies of the Bible, she knew that my new position had to be well grounded in fact, because nothing else would have caused me to change. She knows that there is no secret persistent sin, or angry defiance against God, or unpleasant experience with the church behind my loss of faith. She had seen me struggle to resist coming to this conclusion, but the contrary evidence overwhelmed my intellect, and, if I may paraphrase Josh McDowell, "my heart cannot worship what my mind cannot accept." There is much more that could be said here, but I want to be brief. If you inquire, I will be glad to fill in the story with more detail.

Second, neither the members of my small group nor anyone else at MC [church] know that we have lost faith. When I lost faith, I simply told my small group that leading the Bible study had become too stressful, and that I would not be leading it anymore -- the truth, but not the whole truth. We did not reveal our loss of faith for two reasons. ...

We decided that it would be too traumatic to tell the children.... Instead we are teaching them to think critically and helping them come to their own conclusions as they are ready.

And I did not want to shake the faith of my small group members, especially while we ourselves were in the throes of coping with the collapse of our entire world view. So, since no one knows, you will not need to do any damage control with my former small group members.

Third, I release you from any bond of confidentiality that my father-in-law may have placed on you when he spoke with you. Although we don't make a point of telling people, my wife and I do not mind any longer if other people know that we have lost faith.... You may mention or discuss the matter with others at your own discretion....

Fourth, you may take our names off the church roll at your leisure. We received a call from a deacon of the church shortly after we stopped coming to church, and I believe we told him we were taking a break from church to reevaluate our beliefs and to spend more time together as a family. Of course, we no longer expect to come back, and so our names can come off the roll. We are not in a hurry for you to do this, however, as it makes little difference to us whether we are on the roll, although it is probably abhorrent to you to keep atheists on the church roll any longer than absolutely necessary.

Fifth, we harbor no animosity toward you or the church in general. Some church leaders, whose power of reason is strong enough that they should know better, are culpable for misleading or deceiving people, because they immorally teach dogmas whose truth they recognize to be uncertain. I regard most church leaders, however, simply as victims of the Christian Delusion. I believe the Delusion commandeers the leader's rational faculties and shields itself from the light of reason. I regard myself as formerly a victim of the Delusion, and I regard you as still a victim of the Delusion. If I regarded you as undeluded, then I *would* have animosity toward you for knowingly manipulating people with falsehoods. I hope that the impact of my loss of faith will put a chink in the armor of your Delusion, and ultimately liberate you from its repressive control. After the difficult transition period, life really is better this side of Christianity.

Finally, I regret that we left the church without a word, especially after having worked with you in various ways to make MC [church] successful. But from our point of view, we had no other choice. How could we possibly have asked you for pastoral support to figure out how to live without faith?! And the relationships we had cultivated in our small group were exactly antithetical to the kind of relationships we would have needed to support us through this loss. Your duty and theirs would have been to shepherd us back into the fold, and so we had to struggle through the loss of faith on our own. In this limited sense, loss of faith is harder than the loss of a loved one, since there is no support of (believing) friends or family to carry one through a loss of faith. Although the news has reached you earlier than I would have chosen, I am glad that you now know why we left. It has bothered me that we left you uninformed about the nature of our departure. In any case, I hope that our relationship can remain cordial, although obviously it must be on different terms than before.

(Next month JB will describe the philosophical problems he had with the Bible--Ed.)

Letter #771 from RR of Palestine, Texas

You may find this interesting. Those whom Jesus raised from the dead, cured of leprosy, or blindness, failed to become his followers. Not one of them appeared at his trial. Not one offered to bear witness of his miraculous power. Certainly there never was a greater miracle, and yet Matthew, who was present-- who saw the Lord rise, ascend and disappear--did not think it worth mentioning. Christian scholars admit that they do not know why.

They also admit that, if the four gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, they must have been written in Hebrew. And yet a Hebrew manuscript of any one of these gospels has never been found. All have been, and are, in Greek.

Letter #772 from JT Via Email

Dennis. Just got #176, in which FA (Letter #735 under Dialogue and Debate) says Jesus never missed a meal. Yet, Matthew 4:2 says: "And he fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was hungry." So he missed around 120 meals in a row.

Editor's Response to Letter #772

Good point, JT. I should have mentioned it in my reply. Can't get em all. There are just too many holes in their arguments.

Letter #773 from Jimmy Via Email

Dear Dennis. I am a born-again skeptic. Thank you so much for the availability of your Biblical Errancy newsletters via the web. I am a recent walk-away from Christianity, and your impeccable logic has helped me to see things more clearly. I consider myself a survivor, and I consider you a helper. Soon I will be strong enough to start working to right the wrongs which I have committed as a Christian, a fundamentalist, and a deceiver.