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Excursus D

REPLIES TO COMMON

FUNDAMENTALIST APOLOGETICS

There comes a time for every skeptic, when he or she gets posed with rhetorical

questions that are commonly seen in books by fundamentalist apologists such as Why

We Believe the Bible by George DeHoff, Evidence that Demands a Verdictby Josh

McDowell and The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel. For those who may not be

acquainted with the evidence, these questions, or challenges to skeptics as they are

sometimes called, can seem quite impressive. In reality, however, the questions posed

are normally quite light-weight and are easily answered. This section answers the

most common rhetorical questions posed by fundamentalists and evangelicals.

RHETORICAL QUESTIONS ON THE SPECIAL STATUS OF

THE BIBLE

Q1. Doesnt the fact that the Bible shows such an impressive uniformity, although

the period of composition spans many centuries, point to the idea that it had

a single (divine) author?

The idea of uniformity is very vague. On the one hand, this claim is trivially true.

One would expect some kind of uniformity in the Bible just on the basis of three

contingent facts:

1. The Old Testament is a collection of books from one specific people in theMiddle East. Thus, we would expect cultural continuity (such as the same

language [Hebrew or its derivative, Aramaic], the same adherence to holy

books, i.e. The Torah etc) to be contained within the books since most

cultures persist for some time through history.

2. Similarly, the New Testament is a collection of books taken from a group(although not homogeneous as we have seen above) of people who lived in

the first and second centuries CE who believed that Jesus coming is a

fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies. Finding some continuity in

its message with the Old Testament is therefore not surprising.

3. Finally, and this must not be forgotten, the books of the Bible were collectedat specific moments in history. The Old Testament for instance was

collected by the inventors of Rabbinic Judaism during the years following

the Jewish revolt in 70 CE. Books that did not correspond to the

theological views of the rabbis were explicitly excludedfrom the canon ofthe Old Testament. Thus, much of this uniformity is not something

which occurs naturally but arose out of an active selection process by

Jewish Rabbis within a given period in history. Similarly many books were

excluded from the New Testament because they did not conform to the

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views of the church fathers that eventually won control over nascent

Christianity.1

On the other hand, this claim of uniformity is wrong. When we look at the details, we

do not find a uniformity of theologies within the covers of the Bible. There are

actually many differing (in some cases diametrically opposite) theologies which can

be found in the Bible. Some examples:

In the Old Testament, for instance we find diametrically opposite views on

life in Proverbs and in Ecclesiastes.2

The racial tolerance preached by the book of Ruth explicitly contradicts the

racist teachings of Ezra-Nehemiah. In the book of Ruth we find the non-

Jewish (Moabite) heroine telling her Hebrew mother-in-law that Your

people will be my people and your God will be my God (Ruth 1:16). Thestory ends with her marrying the Jew, Boaz (Ruth 4:13). In the book of

Nehemiah, we are told that Nehemiah argued from the Torah that a Moabite

should not enter into the assembly of God forever (Nehemiah 13:1). In

Ezra, the eponymous priest tells the returning exiles that they have married

foreign women, to increase the guilt of Israel (Ezra 10: 10) and that they are

to cast off their wives and children (Ezra 10:11, 44).3

Similarly, in the New Testament we find completely opposing views on the

value of good works between the epistles of James and Paul.4 What can be

more opposite than these two verses in their positions of the importance ofworks compared to faith:

Romans 3:28 [Paul]

[A] man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.

James 2:24 [RSV]

[A] man is justified by works and not by faith alone.

Recently, biblical scholar Randel Helms published a book, The Bible Against

Itself: Why the Bible Seems to Contradict Itself(Millennium 2006), that illustrates indetail just how notuniform the Bible is.

The claim that the Bible has an impressive uniformity is in one sense trivial

and in another sense wrong.

Q2. Doesnt the fact that there are more than 5,000 extant manuscripts of the

New Testament (more manuscripts than any other works in history)

guarantee the truth of the New Testament message?

1 See chapter 6.2 We showed this in chapter 1 in the section on Books of Poetry and Ethics.3 Helms, The Bible Against Itself: p1-134 Although I do not have space to explore this in this book, the interested reader can refer

to my website for a comparison between the differing theologies in the epistles of Paul and

the epistle of James (http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/jamesepistle.html)

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The logic behind this question is badly flawed. At most, a high preponderance of

manuscripts guarantees the textual integrity of the document but it does not provide

any support whatsoever for the factual veracity of its contents. In other words, the

preponderance of manuscripts enables us to know what the authors actually wrote in

the original autographs. It does not follow from this that we have proven that what

they have written is therefore true.5

Q3. Arent there verses in the Bible that prove the scientific accuracy of the

Bible?

The presence of a few vague verses that, when interpreted loosely, seem to show

some foreknowledge of modern science must be contrasted with the preponderance of

contradictions, mathematical errors and scientific guffaws found within the pages of

the Bible. On the contrary there are many more verses in the Bible that show that the

biblical authors held essentially pre-scientific and grossly inaccurate views of theworld around them. There are numerous errors in the physical sciences, the biological

sciences and mathematics in the Bible.

Also apart from these scientific and mathematical errors, we must remember that

the Bible contains internal contradictions, numerical contradictions and failed

prophecies. These facts constitute further evidence for the human, as opposed to

divine, origins of the book.6

Q4. Isnt it true that archaeology has never contradicted the biblical accounts and

that new discoveries are being made all the time, further confirming biblicalaccounts?

Modern archaeology has shown that many of the myths in Genesis - the stories of

Creation, Adam and Eve and Noahs Ark - were all derived, or copied, from earlier

Babylonian myths.7 Furthermore, modern archaeological discoveries have put into

doubt the accounts of the Patriarchal Narratives, the Exodus and the Conquest. Even

the existence of an extensive kingdom under David and Solomon has recently been

called into question.8

Thus far from archaeology proving the Bible true, there is now so much

contrary evidence against the historical accuracy of the Bible that the term biblicalarchaeology has been discarded in professional archaeology! The preferred term is

now Syro-Palestinian archaeology.9The whole paradigm of archaeology in the Near

East has shifted away from thinking of the Bible as a reliable archaeological field

guide to that of a collection of ancient fairy tales and legends.

5 See Chapter 6, specifically the section entitled Overwhelming Manuscript Evidence?6 See Chapter 2.7 See Chapter 3.8 See Chapter 4.9 Davis, Shifting Sands: p145

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RHETORICAL QUESTIONS ON JESUS CHRIST

Q5. Wasnt the coming of Jesus so clearly foretold in the Old Testament such that

it is highly improbable that the prophecies would have been referring to

someone else?

Numbers have been quoted to support the supposed extreme improbabilities of

someone else being the prophesied messiah. Lee Strobel claimed, in his book The

Case for Christ, that the probability of someone else fulfilling the prophecies about

Jesus is about one in 1 X 10156 - or 1 followed by 156 zeros!10

However, a detailed examination of these so-called prophecies in the Old

Testament shows that such claims are hollow. Indeed in many cases, modern

fundamentalists and evangelicals have gotten their facts upside down. It was not that

the prophecies in the Old Testament were fulfilled by Jesus life but that these

passages [considered as messianic prophecies by the authors of the gospels] were

usedby them to concoctdetails about the life of Jesus - since they did not have much

information about the life of Jesus.11Other prophecies such as the prophecies of the

virgin birth and of the crucifixion were based on mistakes in translations. Still others

are based on what modern evangelicals and fundamentalists read into the passages.12

Q6. Wasnt the manner of Jesus birth proof of his divine nature?

The whole edifice of the story of the virgin birth is historically unreliable. In the two

extant accounts in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, we find inconsistencies in thegenealogies of Jesus, in the stories relating to Jesus birth in Bethlehem and in the

reason why Mary and Joseph settled in Nazareth. Furthermore, we find that the

historical details of two events correlated with the nativity, the death of Herod and the

census of Quirinius, cannot be reconciled - forHerod died a full ten years before the

census of Quirinius. The story of Herods slaughter of the innocents is uncorroborated

by other historical documents and evidence, and is a fictional creation of Matthew.

Other details of the Nativity have also been shown to be unhistorical.

And of course, as we have seen above, the prophecy of the virgin birth is based

on a mistranslation of Isaiah. We also note that many of the details of the nativitywere concocted from Old Testament passages. In some cases, Old Testament passages

were twistedout of their original context to make them fit the storyline.

The virgin birth is myth, not history; fiction, not fact.13

10 Strobel, The Case for Christ: p24711 For the answer to the fundamentalist stock reply that the apostles would not have

made up such stories about Jesus and would not have died for what they know to be a lie,

see Q9 to Q11 below.12 See Excursus C13 See Chapter 11.

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Q7. Wasnt the character of Jesus, as presented in the gospels, such that it is high

above all human greatness?

It is hard for fundamentalists and evangelicals to see how anyone could view Jesus

with anything but the utmost awe and respect. However it is also true that most

skeptics, myself included, do not see Jesus as that extraordinary in terms of his

teachings or his behavior - as reported in the gospels.

The Jesus portrayed in the gospels is a racist: he referred to non-Jews as dogs

and affirmed that his teachings were meant for Jews only. The ethical lessons

attributed to him were unimpressive and unoriginal. His personality was probably not

much different from other peasant preachers of his era; preaching love at one moment

and cursing his enemies the next. There are even passages that would make one ask

questions about his intellectual prowess.14

Q8. Isnt it historically true that the resurrection happened - surely the existenceof the empty tomb attests to that?

While most skeptics do not doubt that Jesus earliest disciples had some kind of

resurrection experience, they do doubt that the stories of the resurrection, as told in

the Gospels and Acts, are historical.

For instance there are difficulties and contradictions with the burial accounts

given in the gospels. Matthews unique story about the guards placed at the tomb

completely contradicts the details given in the other gospels. The whole idea of Jesus

body being placed in a new and unusedtomb is historically unreliable. Furthermore,there are contradictions among the gospel accounts in almost every detail in the story

discovery of the empty tomb. The balance of evidence seems to show that there was

no empty tomb; that the empty tomb itself was a later development or addition to the

legend of Jesus resurrection.

Similar to the empty tomb accounts above, the other gospels (and Pauls first

epistle to the Corinthians) couldnt agree on many details of the resurrection

appearances. The oldest documents, such as Pauls epistles, seem to indicate nothing

more than a hallucinatory experience. The initial appearances of Jesus were very

likely hallucinatory and fleeting in nature. There are some convincing psychologicalexplanations as to why the resurrection appearances happened to Peter and Paul.

We also note that the resurrections of gods are a very common theme in Greco-

Roman paganism. Just like the case of the virgin birth, it is very likely that the details

of the story of the resurrection are the result of this cultural cross breeding of myths.15

14 See Chapter 13.15 See Chapter 13 specifically section on The Empty Tomb

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RHETORICAL QUESTIONS ON THE WITNESS OF THE

APOSTLES

Q9. Arent the accounts in the gospels, written by the apostles (Matthew and

John) or their close associates (Mark and Luke), historically reliable reportsof the miracles and the life of Jesus?

There is widespread agreement among critical-historical scholars that the gospels

were notwritten by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. These names first appeared as

the purported authors of the gospels only in the second century and were guesses

made by the early church fathers. Internal evidence of the gospels themselves point to

the conclusion that the gospel of Mark was not written by Mark, companion of Peter,

the gospel of Matthew was not written by the apostle of that name, the author of

Luke-Acts could not have been the companion of Paul of that name and finally the

gospel attributed to John was not written by John, the son of Zebedee.

All four gospels were written after 70 CE, at least four decades after the death of

Jesus, with the latest, Luke and John, written almost a century after the crucifixion.

Attempts by fundamentalists to argue for early dates of gospel composition have met

with failure.

At no point do we have in the gospels the account of an eyewitness or even the

friend of an eyewitness.16

Q10. Werent the apostles around to ensure the accuracy of the reports regarding

the life of Jesus in the gospels?

This is based on a very superficial understanding of oral tradition. Indeed we found

that even in cases where the witnesses are still alive, stories tend to take a life of their

own in an unskeptical oral culture. Furthermore, as we have seen above, all the

gospels were written after the calamity of the Jewish War in 70 CE. This upheaval

would have killed many of the eyewitnesses, dislocated many others and dislodged

the memories of most of the rest of the survivors. There are strong reasons to believe

that the apostles were either no longer around or no longer in a position to counter the

falsehoods in the gospels, when the documents started circulating.17

Q11. All the apostles died for their beliefs. Why would they give up their lives for

something they know to be a lie?

There are three assumptions embedded in this question:

1. We know all the apostles died martyrs deaths.

2. What the apostles believed about Jesus is the same essentially as whatmodern fundamentalists and evangelicals believe.

3. People will not die for false beliefs.

16 See Chapter nine.17 See Chapter 10, section on The Oral Tradition

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All three suppositions are demonstrably false.

1. We simply do not know how most of the apostles died.

With the exception of the death of James the son of Zebedee (Acts 12:2) andJudas (Matthew 27:9, Acts 1:18), no other apostolic death is recounted in the

New Testament.18 The traditional material relating to the life of the apostles is

simply unreliable. Apart from the (probably) historical tradition that Peter died

in Rome, we do not know how the rest of the apostles met their end -whether it

was through martyrdom, disease, accident or old age.19

2. What the original apostles believed was very likely not the same as that oftodays conservative Christians.

It must be remembered that since the stories in the gospels were notwritten bythe apostles or any of their close associates [see Q9 above] - it is unlikely that

what is described therein as the teaching of Jesus actually was what the Jewish

preacher taught.

We do know that the theology in the New Testament tend to (although not

always!) be in line with what was taught by the self-proclaimed apostle Paul.

Yet we have strong evidence that Pauls teachings were opposed by the apostles

who knew Jesus, that he had a falling out with them at Antioch and that his last

trip to Jerusalem to reconcile himself with them very probably ended in failure.20

Thus even if it can be shown that some of the apostles died martyrsdeaths, it does not necessarily follow that they died for the same beliefs or

dogmas of modern fundamentalist/evangelical Christianity.

3. People do die for false beliefs

All religions have their martyrs. Even some non-religious political systems -

such as communism - have found people willing to die for them. The last couple

of decades have given us plenty of examples. David Koresh led his Branch

Davidians to fiery deaths in their final apocalyptic battle with the US Bureau of

Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Luc Jouret and his followers of the SolarTemple group committed suicide in Switzerland and Canada in 1994. Marshall

Herff Applewhite and his followers, members of the Heavens Gate community,

18 There are two other deaths with which there is some historical support are the deaths of

Paul and James, the brother of Jesus. Paul was not one of the twelve apostles, so his death

probably in the same general persecution that Peter died in is of no interest. James the

brother of Jesus was very probably not one of the original twelve apostles. James death, of

which probably the most reliable version is in the Antiquities of the Jews 20:9:1, was due

to some internal Jewish political intrigue (he was accused of having broken the law)

which have nothing to do with the resurrection of Jesus or his faith. We know from other

historical sources that James was a strong adherent of the Torah and the charge was a

concocted one.19 Chapter 12, section on The Twelve Apostles20 Refer to my website for a more detailed look at how Paul was opposed by the apostles

who knew Jesus (http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/paulorigin.html#paulvsjeru)

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willingly committed suicide; believing that they were to be picked up by aliens.

The current trend of suicide bombing among Islamic militants is just another sad

example of people only too willing to end their lives for their [unexamined]

beliefs.

In other words being willing to die for ones beliefs has always been the

hallmark of fanatics and true believers. The willingness of these believers to die

martyrs deaths provides no assurance whatsoever that what they believe is true.

A corollary to this is the general belief, as evidenced by the various

apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, that the apostles who were martyred were first

given a chance to recant their beliefs. This was probably based on the

experiences of Christians in the early second century. We find such evidence in

the exchange of letter between Pliny the Younger (63 CE- c113 CE). In a letter

to emperor Trajan (c52 CE - 117 CE) dated around 112, Pliny explained that he

first gave the accused a few chances to deny they were Christians before

executing them.21However when we look at the two apostolic martyrdoms in which there is

some historical evidence that of Peter and James son of Zebedee it is

unlikely in the extreme that they were given such a chance to witness to their

beliefs.

There is a strong early tradition that Peter died in the Neronian persecution

in Rome in 64-67 CE. However the Christians were executed not for their

beliefsper sebut for the concocted charges of being responsible for the great fire

of Rome. In order to deflect accusation of being responsible for the fire, Nero

used the Christian community in Rome as the scapegoat. Thus Neros menwould not have been interested whether the Christians they executed recanted

their beliefs or not. A modern analogy would be the Jewish Holocaust. The

Nazis executed even those Jews who had converted to Christianity. It did not

matter to them whether these people recanted their beliefs or not. Thus if Peter

did die in this general persecution, he probably would not have been given the

chance to recant his beliefs. Therefore his execution could not have been taken

as someone whose death is a witness to the steadfastness of his belief.

As for James the son of Zebedee, again the situation is more closely related

to Neronian persecution than the one of Trajan. Acts 12:2 merely mentioned thatJames was executed as part of Herod Agrippas (10 BCE 44 CE) persecution

of Christians. It does not follow that he would have even been given the chance

to recant his beliefs.

Finally even if they did go to their executions with their faiths intact, it

does not follow that they were in a position to know whether their beliefs were

true or false. Their faith, after all, was in the form of a theology based on

eschatological expectations. They would not know the world would not end

since this is what they were waiting for! Even if this statement is re-casted as the

belief that Jesus was resurrected from the dead, the problem remains. Theapostles certainly had Jesus sightings but this could be explained by modern

psychology. 22 Yet such beliefs could be so deeply embedded especially since

21 Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels: p94-9522 See Chapter 13, section on The Nature of the Appearances.

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it gave their lives meaning and prestige - that they would not have questioned

the reality their experience of this even in the face of death. Such resolute

convictions based on visions or hallucinations are not unique. Joan of Arc

(1412-1431), the Catholic Saint, experienced celestial visions which called on

her to help expel the English from France. She went to her execution fully

convinced of the truth of her visions. Yet few today would accept that God

would take sides in the politics of medieval Europe.23 Muhammad was another

prominent historical figure who was prone to visions and held on to the belief in

their reality throughout his life. So even if Peter and James did die holding on to

their resurrection experience as real, it does not prove therefore that there

actually was a physical tangible Jesus that rose from the dead.

23 Some Catholic apologists have argued that, based on historical reports of Joan of Arcs

intelligence, she was not mentally ill and that this rules out the explanation that her visions

were hallucinations. Yet, as we have seen in our analysis of the resurrection experiences

of Peter and Paul, mental illness is not a precondition for such visions. According to Dr.

Barry Beyerstein (PhD in Biological Psychology) intense transcendent experiences such

as visions, which could lead to life changing conversions, are not uncommon in ordinary,

healthy individuals, many of whom imbue their experience with supernatural or religious

meaning.

(http://home.comcast.net/~dchapman2146/pf_v3n3/NeuroWeird.htm accessed on August

13, 2006)

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