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More Damning Bible Contradictions: #25 Was Jesus Crazy or God?

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We’ve blown past the initial promise of 20 Bible contradictions and are now at #25 (part 1 here). Let’s continue the Christmas theme and investigate a contradiction in the details surrounding Jesus’s birth.

Jesus is crazy

Too little is made of a surprising passage from Mark. Jesus was preaching in Galilee, and then:

When [Jesus’s] family heard about [Jesus being nearby], they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind” (Mark 3:21).

The point of the story contrasts his actual family, who think he’s crazy, with his disciples, who have abandoned their professions to follow him.

“Who are my mother and my brothers?” Jesus asked. Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers!” (Mark 3:33–4).

Contradiction #25: Was Jesus crazy, or was he God?

The interesting thing here is his family calling him crazy. How was that possible, when it was clear from other gospels that Jesus was divine? First, consider the evidence in Matthew.

  • Joseph discovered that Mary was pregnant. He planed to divorce her quietly, but an angel appeared and told him, “Do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:20–24).
  • The magi followed a magical star that (somehow) pointed them to Bethlehem. (More on the Star of Bethlehem here and here.) An expensive and time-consuming trip to worship the king of the Jews required expensive gifts: “On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh” (Matt. 2:11). Gifts worthy of a king would have dramatically improved this peasant family’s quality of life, though that is never evident.

And consider the clues in Luke’s very different nativity story.

  • Now it’s Mary who gets the celestial visitation, and this time it’s before the conception. The angel Gabriel said, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:28–38).
  • Shepherds are told by angels that the Messiah had been born in Bethlehem and “When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them” (Luke 2:8–18).
  • Mary and Joseph took baby Jesus to the Temple in Jerusalem for “purification rites.” There they met Simeon, a devout man who had been promised by the Holy Spirit that he would see the Messiah. As he held Jesus, he praised God and said that the promise had been fulfilled (Luke 2:25–38).
  • At age 12, Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem after the Passover celebration to converse with the Jewish teachers. “Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers” (Luke 2:46–51).
  • Luke makes clear that these events aren’t lost on Mary. It says that “Mary treasured up all these things” after hearing the shepherds and the angels (Luke 2:19) and after seeing Jesus with the teachers (2:51). After hearing Simeon identify Jesus as the Messiah, “The child’s father and mother marveled at what was said about him” (2:33).

Not only are Mary and Joseph assured that their son is divine, but this isn’t a family secret. Word has spread far. The magi informed Herod’s court, and Herod killed infant boys for fear of a rival to the throne; the shepherds tell everyone they can about the angels’ message; Simeon publicly states in the Temple that Jesus is the Messiah; and the Temple teachers see his wisdom for themselves.

Making sense of the contradiction

Let’s return to Mark, where Jesus’s mother and brothers want to take charge of him because he’s crazy. Jesus can’t be both crazy and divine. But drop the requirement that these stories must harmonize, and the resolution is easy.

Matthew and Luke copy (sometimes verbatim) from Mark. In fact, 97 percent of Mark is copied by either Matthew or Luke or both. However, the nativity stories appear only in Matthew and Luke, and the “Jesus is crazy” story appears only in Mark. Mark threw the holy family under the bus to make the point that following Jesus is a higher calling than familial loyalty, but Matthew and Luke didn’t copy that story, perhaps because, as we’ve seen here, it conflicts with the clear evidence in the nativity stories that Jesus is different because he’s divine.

Mark and the other two synoptic gospels had different agendas. Remember that each of these gospels was written decades after the death of Jesus. During this time, dynastic succession was typical. David’s son succeeded him as king, and Herod’s son succeeded him as king, so who would succeed Jesus? (Let’s ignore that the End® was to have happened within months or a few years after Jesus’s death and assume that the movement needed a new leader.) Jesus had no children, so a brother would be an obvious choice.

This created a doctrinal conflict between Paul, who hadn’t even met Jesus in real life, and the James/Peter faction, who installed James, the brother of Jesus, as a leader in the Jerusalem church. The gospel of Mark takes Paul’s viewpoint, so it’s motivated to undercut James by saying that James and the rest of Jesus’s family didn’t believe him. Matthew takes a more Jewish, pro-James view.

In this case, you must set two New Testament books against each other to find the contradiction. Another example of this is how spices were applied to the body after the crucifixion. The gospels of Mark and Luke say that women failed to apply spices on Sunday morning, while John tells us that two men were successful on Friday evening.

But then you have cases where the contradiction is in a single book. For example, John the Baptist wondered if Jesus was The One despite having seen the dove of the Holy Spirit descend on Jesus during baptism, and these stories are both in Matthew.

As usual, the puzzle neatly resolves itself with a natural explanation.

It’s important to understand that history and theology
are interwoven in biblical history,
and nothing about the life of Jesus
can be theologically true that is historically false.
— Christian scholar Ben Witherington

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Image from Ben White, CC license
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Was Jesus Born to a Virgin? William Lane Craig Answers This and More (3 of 3).

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William Lane Craig (WLC) was asked by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof six questions about Christianity (part 1).

“Was Jesus really born to a virgin?” was the initial question, which is a good topic for the Christmas season. Let’s wrap up with the final two questions.

How critical should Christians be of their own religion?

“Over time, people have had faith in Zeus, in Shiva and Krishna, in the Chinese kitchen god, in countless other deities. We’re skeptical of all those faith traditions, so should we suspend our emphasis on science and rationality when we encounter miracles in our own tradition?”

WLC responded:

I don’t follow. Why should we suspend our emphasis on science and rationality just because of weakly evidenced, false claims in other religions?

Apparently, Christians should declare their supernatural beliefs correct and above reproach. It’s the other guy whose religion is false, not yours.

Yes, this is how believers play the game, but this gives no defense of those unbelievable beliefs.

This is the same kind of childish thinking that WLC would laugh at if it came from a believer in another religion. And yet he said in his primary work, Reasonable Faith, “Why should I be robbed of my joy and assurance of salvation simply because someone else falsely pretends, sincerely or insincerely, to the Spirit’s witness?” In other words, why let some nitwit’s crazy claims of the supernatural upset my completely sensible claims of the supernatural?

This would be a good spoof or a test of Poe’s Law, but this is no caricature; this is actually his thinking. More here.

WLC defends his position:

I champion a “reasonable faith” that seeks to provide a comprehensive worldview that takes into account the best evidence of the sciences, history, philosophy, logic and mathematics.

No, there’s nothing reasonable about what you do because you cherry pick science to suit your agenda. Cosmology says that the universe has a beginning, so you grab that. That’s something you can use. But when Biology says that evolution is sufficient to explain why life on earth is the way it is, you reject it. The honest researcher follows the facts, but your arguments are just Christian dogma with footnotes.

I get the impression, Nick, that you think science is somehow incompatible with belief in miracles. If so, you need to give an argument for that conclusion.

Science follows evidence, and that’s why it’s reliable, while religion doesn’t. Science is always provisional and sometimes changes based on new evidence, while religion doesn’t care about evidence. Science has a track record of success in teaching us new things about reality, while religion doesn’t.

Do the math.

What is Christianity’s role in improving society?

“You’re an evangelical Christian, and let me acknowledge that religious people donate more to charity than nonreligious people and also volunteer more. But I’m troubled that evangelical leaders have sometimes seemed to be moralizing blowhards, focused on issues that Jesus never breathed a word about—like gays and abortion—while indifferent to poverty, inequality, bigotry and other topics that were central to Jesus’ teachings.”

On the topic of charity, we’ve all seen articles with statistics arguing that Christians or atheists are more likely to be associated with some good or bad trait. I’m sure you can find good things that are more associated with Christians than atheists, but donations to charity isn’t likely to be one of them. Donations to churches or ministries don’t count—churches are more like country clubs in the fraction of income that actually goes to good works—and if you remove that, Christians as a group aren’t any more generous. (More here.)

The amount that passes through a church to help needy people might only be a few percent of their income. But then, who can say for sure when churches’ financial records are inexplicably secret?

WLC agreed that Christians can embarrass their religion but blamed it on the press highlighting the nutty people.

He moves on:

Just know that the Christian church is involved not only in defending the sanctity of life and marriage but in a whole range of social issues, such as combating poverty, feeding the homeless, medical care, disaster aid, literacy programs, fostering small businesses, promoting women’s rights and drilling wells, especially in the developing world.

And how much do churches actually give to good works? Who knows when their books are closed? If you want to work on something useful, encourage churches to demand that the church exemption to annual filing of IRS 990 forms be removed. This lack of transparency makes churches look like they have something to hide, and many do.

Notice how he’s slipped in conservative politics (“sanctity of life and marriage”) with obviously good things like literacy, civil rights, and combating poverty. I’ve responded too often to count to WLC’s positions against same-sex marriage and abortion choice, so follow those links for more. But I agree that the Christian church has been on the right side of some social issues. A century ago, the social gospel was active in improving social problems like “economic inequality, poverty, alcoholism, crime, racial tensions, slums, unclean environment, child labor, inadequate labor unions, poor schools, and the danger of war” (Wikipedia). It’s great that the American church has been a vocal advocate for social improvement, but it’s a shame that that’s largely in its past.

You have a plastic Jesus who can demand care for widows and orphans or, as seems more common today, he can focus on lower taxes, smaller government, and gun rights.

WLC concludes:

Honestly, Christians have gotten very bad press.

You act as if that was unwarranted, but you’re too modest. No, you’ve earned that bad press!

Theists don’t trust each other.
Why should we trust them?
—  David Madison, Debunking Christianity

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Image from NH53, CC license
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Is America the Greatest Country in the World? A Rant.

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You might have seen a popular clip from the television series The Newsroom (2012 – 2014) where Will McAvoy (played by Jeff Daniels) is the anchor and managing editor of a news show. In the clip, McAvoy is part of a panel in front of a live audience.

McAvoy takes nothing seriously at first, but things get real at 1:36 in the video. Then at 2:30, in response to a softball question, “Why is America the greatest country in the world?” he says,

There’s absolutely no evidence to support the statement that we’re the greatest country in the world. We’re 7th in literacy, 27th in math, 22nd in science, 49th in life expectancy, 178th in infant mortality, 3rd in median household income, number 4 in labor force, and number 4 in exports. We lead the world in only three categories: number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real, and defense spending, where we spend more than the next 26 countries combined, 25 of whom are allies.

McAvoy dismisses the pleasing answer and instead follows the evidence.

Inspired by this stream-of-consciousness speech, here’s the unhinged rant I’d like to hear from one of the politicians in the presidential race. There must be one who’s fed up with the status quo. To someone in a crowded political field who wants to go out with a bang, let me give you the first draft of your goodbye speech. If you can’t change the society by getting elected, maybe you can change it by giving it a kick in the ass.

☙

“When I consider those stats, I see government as a big part of the problem. There’s no backbone, no willingness to make the tough call and take the heat. Politicians fiddle while Rome burns. Take climate change—yes, reducing our carbon footprint is difficult, but aren’t we adults here? Can’t politicians do what’s right? Do their job? Make the tough decisions?

“The scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change is plain enough, but there are political benefits to ignoring responsibility and leaving the mess for someone else. But put aside any controversy. Suppose climate change were real, humans were largely responsible, and all the evidence pointed there. Would political and business leaders then be ready to take the tough steps necessary to improve society? Of course not! Defiance on this issue would look just like it does today. ‘Lack of evidence’ is a smokescreen. Our leaders have become Bartelby—they’d ‘prefer not to.’

“There are 40 members of the House Science and Technology Committee. How many reject the scientific consensus on climate change, evolution, or the Big Bang? What I find incredible is that when political leaders reject science, they often aren’t shy about it. They publicly and proudly reject the consensus in a scientific field they don’t understand.

“Imagine what their political forebears in the wake of Sputnik would have said. Science delivered—indeed, it took us to the moon twelve years later. We followed science then, but we can pick and choose now? Let me suggest that competitive pressure from other countries, eager to capitalize on those poor educational stats, creates every bit of a Sputnik moment right now. We don’t have the luxury of appeasing science-averse special interests.

“Remember what JFK said about putting a man on the moon: ‘We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills.’ What is our Apollo program? Are there no more big projects to tackle? Do we no longer have the stomach for that kind of national challenge?

“After 9/11, an outraged America turned to President Bush, and we would’ve followed him anywhere. For example, he could’ve said that this attack highlighted our energy dependence on the Middle East, so we needed an Apollo Project for energy independence—practical solar power, safer nuclear power, maybe even fusion power. And while we’re at it, recreate the world’s energy industry with America in the middle of it again. But no, we had a trillion dollars lying around, so we spent it on a war. Opportunity missed.

“Conservatives hate big government, unless it’s an intrusive government that tells you who you can’t marry and what religious slogans to have in public buildings. They hate government spending, unless it’s on things they like, like the military or anything in their district.

“My conservative friends, I’ve got to comment on your priorities. You seriously put opposition to same-sex marriage near the top of your list? You’re standing in the way of marriage, two people who love each other. I can’t imagine a worse target to put in your crosshairs from a PR standpoint. What’s next—grandma and apple pie? Hate fags in private if you must, but you really need to think about how this looks to the rest of society.

“And just so I piss off everyone, let me note traditionally liberal nuttery like a mindless rejection of nuclear power and GMOs, fear of vaccines, and coddling of college students. You remember college, the place where you’re supposed to be challenged? Students at many colleges are encouraged to be thin skinned and easily offended. Being uncomfortable and off-balance sometimes is part of the learning process.

“Limiting offensive speech can be another liberal tendency. So a religious group is feeling put upon by frank criticism—tough. Ditto anyone who is offended by a religious sermon. I energetically support free speech for pastors saying that fags are evil and atheists deserve hell, because I use the same free speech right to argue how idiotic their positions are.

“Today we find ourselves in another interminable presidential campaign cycle. It’s a tedious and expensive chess game where candidates try to avoid saying anything interesting that might come back to bite them. Last time, this process cost over $2 billion. I’m sure any of us could’ve found smarter ways to spend 95 percent of that.

“Many candidates are eager to show America how pious they are. Some will brag about how they pray before major decisions or choose the Bible over science when they conflict. What’s the problem with America’s politicians? Last time I checked, there was just one openly nontheistic member of Congress. In science, religious belief decreases with competence, but we’re to believe that all but one of the 535 members of Congress are theists? Congratulations, Christianity—you’ve subverted Article 6 of the Constitution and imposed a de facto religious test for public office.

“To see how Congress likes to spend its time, there was a 2002 Ninth Circuit ruling declaring ‘under God’ in the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional. In protest, the House assembled on the steps of the Capitol to publicly say the Pledge and loudly accentuate the ‘under God’ bit. Take that, First Amendment! Another example: we had a motto that fit America beautifully, E Pluribus Unum, but Congress replaced that with the one-size-fits-all ‘In God We Trust.’ I’ll bet that made God’s day.

“Congress always seems to be able to fit Christianity into its agenda. On the list of goodies religion has been given, the one that annoys me the most is closed financial records. The American public makes a contract with nonprofit organizations—we give them nonprofit status, and they open their books to prove that they spent the money wisely. That’s true for every charity in America except churches, and about $100 billion annually goes into religion’s black box. Want to find out if CARE or the Red Cross spend their donations wisely? You can find their IRS 990 form online in about 30 seconds, but don’t try the same thing with a church.

“You might say that churches fund soup kitchens and other good works. Sure, but how much is this? Maybe ten percent of their income? Or is two percent closer to the mark? Call churches ‘charities’ if you want, but these are charities with 90 percent overhead or more. Compare that to 10 percent for a well-run charity. Christians, don’t you see how bad this makes you look? You’re okay with God knowing what your churches do with their money, but you’re embarrassed to show the rest of us who are picking up the slack for your tax-free status. Christians should be shouting loudest to remove this perk.

“And let’s compare churches’ $10 billion a year of good works to what happens when society helps people. Federal programs for food, medical care, disability, and retirement spend about 1.5 trillion dollars annually. Government support for public schools and college is another half-trillion dollars. As a society, we do much good, and churches’ contribution is small change.

“Christianity in America has become more of a problem than a solution, though it wasn’t always so. Christians will point with justified pride to schools and hospitals built by churches or religious orders. The Social Gospel movement from a century ago pushed for corrections of many social ills—poverty and wealth inequality, alcoholism, poor schools, child labor, racism, poor living conditions, and more. Christians point to Rev. Martin Luther King’s work on civil rights and William Wilberforce’s Christianity-inspired work on ending slavery. But today, we hear about the Prosperity Gospel, not the Social Gospel.

“Can you imagine—Christians at the forefront of social improvement? They’re sometimes on the generous side of social issues today, but the headlines go to the conservative heel draggers.

“To see Christianity’s impact on society, consider some statistics: 46 percent of Americans believe in some form of the Genesis creation story, 22 percent think that the world will end in their lifetime, 77 percent believe in angels, and 57 percent of Republicans want Christianity as the national religion.

“This is the twenty-first century, my friends. When you open your mental drawbridge to allow in Christian wishful thinking, consider what other crazy stuff comes in as well. It also distorts our priorities, and the time spent wringing our hands over same-sex marriage or fighting to keep a Christian monument on public property is time we’re not spending on actual problems—international competitiveness, infrastructure like roads and bridges, campaign finance reform, improved education and health care, and so on.

“Christian morality is Bronze Age morality, which serves us poorly today. Christians scour the Bible for passages to support what they already believe. They might keep the verses against homosexuality, say, but reject those supporting racism, slavery, rape, and genocide. Christians celebrate faith, just about the least reliable route to the truth. And they’ll pray, thinking they’ve achieved some good, rather than actually doing something about a problem.

“We can agree to disagree—you have the right to believe in the supernatural, but know that in this country, the Constitution calls the shots, not God. Elected officials answer to the law, the Constitution, and their constituents. If you want to answer to a supernatural power that’s higher still, don’t run for public office. The Constitution defines a secular public square, and we’re stuck with it. Creationism and prayer stay out of public schools, and ‘In God We Trust’ stays out of the city council chambers. Though many Christians are determined not to see this, keeping religion out of government helps them as well as atheists.

“America the greatest country? There was a study comparing 17 Western countries, America included, on 25 social metrics—suicide, lifespan, divorce, teen births, alcohol consumption, life satisfaction, and so on. We were dead last for more than half of those 25. But who cares when we were number one in God belief, prayer, belief in heaven and hell, and rejection of evolution!

“Remember this next time some conservative politician or pundit tells you that society is going downhill because of lack of God belief or no school prayer. No, God belief is inversely correlated with social health.

“Another way society is broken is in income disparity. I love capitalism, but c’mon—there’s a limit. To get a condensed introduction to this, look up ‘Gini coefficient.’ It’s a single value that captures an economy’s income inequality. It was constant for decades, but it shows that U.S. income inequality has become steadily worse over the last thirty years.

“Another look at income disparity is the pay of top company’s CEOs. Americans think CEOs make 30 times more than the average worker. In fact, it’s ten times higher than that, which is a far higher disparity than that in any other country.

“Conservative politicians have gotten Christians protecting the status quo. Machiavelli would be proud, but is this really the society that Jesus would be pleased to see? Would Jesus be standing in the way of expanded health care? Would he be pro guns and pro death penalty? Would he be more concerned about first-term abortions, or would he be more concerned about the ten million children under five who die in the Third World every year? Perhaps you’ve forgotten the Jesus we’re talking about—he’s the one who said, ‘What you have done to the least of these brothers and sisters of mine you have done to me.’

“Christians, politicians are leading you around by the nose. They assure you that the sky is falling so you’ll rally around, but they have no incentive to solve problems. Solved problems mean no reason for voters to support them. Think for yourself.

“Look, I don’t have the solutions. As with Cassandra, no one would much care if I did. But let me suggest some of the problems: religion that doesn’t know its place and politicians who don’t know their jobs.

“Does someone have to sacrifice their political career by doing their job? Making the tough call? Big deal—in decades past, Americans sacrificed their lives. Do the right thing. Make a decision you can look back on with pride. Maybe America will surprise you and actually pay attention. A politician doing the right thing, and damn the consequences? That would be newsworthy.”

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 10/21/15.)

Image from Beverly, public domain

 

 

Was Jesus Born to a Virgin? William Lane Craig Answers This and More (2 of 3).

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William Lane Craig (WLC) was asked by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof six questions about Christianity (part 1). Since “Was Jesus really born to a virgin?” was the initial question, this seemed a good topic to begin the Christmas season. Let’s continue.

Must we take the Bible as literally true?

“You don’t believe the Genesis account that the world was created in six days, or that Eve was made from Adam’s rib, do you? If the Hebrew Bible’s stories need not be taken literally, why not also accept that the New Testament writers took liberties?”

WLC replied that Genesis 1–11 is “history clothed in the figurative language of mythology,” but why think that it’s history at all when it looks like mythology and nothing more? And if there’s history in the Garden of Eden or Flood stories, how do you reliably sift it out of the myth? Why imagine that it’s any more historical than the tales in the Babylonian Enuma Elish or Epic of Gilgamesh? The obvious conclusion is that all three are mythology. Only excellent evidence, which no apologist provides, would save Genesis from the mythology category.

By contrast, WLC calls the gospels ancient biography. Here I agree. But WLC’s argument may be relying on the ignorance of his readership. We understand what biography means, but ancient biography is not merely biography written long ago. Wikipedia gives this definition: “Ancient biography, or bios, as distinct from modern biography, was a genre of Greek (and Roman) literature interested in describing the goals, achievements, failures, and character of ancient historical persons and whether or not they should be imitated.” Ancient biographies often were moral critiques, showcasing a life as a good example to follow. So, yes, the gospels were ancient biographies, not biographies as we know them, which meet the high standards of historical or journalistic accuracy.

But the New Testament has contradictions

“How do you account for the many contradictions within the New Testament? For example, Matthew says Judas hanged himself, while Acts says that he ‘burst open.’ They can’t both be right, so why insist on inerrancy of Scripture?”

I explore the contradiction between the Judas accounts here.

WLC replied:

I don’t insist on the inerrancy of Scripture. Rather, what I insist on is what C.S. Lewis called “mere Christianity,” that is to say, the core doctrines of Christianity.

That the Bible has contradictions is a stop-the-presses problem. How could an omnipotent God allow his message get in circulation looking just like any other ancient manmade book of legend and mythology? Cobble together your own personal response as you choose, but this should prompt anyone who is actually following the evidence to reconsider the entire Christianity project.

Christians don’t lose much sleep if their religion gives no respect to the facts, so we unfortunately won’t make much headway following that angle.

WLC wants to focus on “mere Christianity,” the core beliefs that Christians typically don’t fight over, but problems remain. For example, the Trinity is one of those core beliefs, and yet that doctrine isn’t in the Bible. And isn’t it odd to allow the feuds between denominations define your core beliefs?

As for mere Christianity, why stop there? Why not mere religion, where Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, and all the rest find the intersections of their religions? (More here.) It’s nice to seek harmony with fellow believers, but it seems an odd way to find the truth.

Harmonizing perceived contradictions in the Bible is a matter of in-house discussion amongst Christians.

That’s not an in-house discussion. This is the fodder that apologists will use when I point out contradictions, so let’s not pretend that this is off-limits to critique from outsiders. I will continue to highlight contradictions within Christianity or the Bible.

And let me add an aside on harmonizations. I’m sure that there is some harmonization or rationalization for any contradiction that I might bring up. But the apologist’s job isn’t to simply find an answer to puzzles like these, it’s to find the better answer. A contorted rationalization will never beat the naturalistic explanation, that Christianity is just another manmade religion.

Concluded with the final two questions in part 3.

Blasphemy is speech that has been outlawed
to prevent your religion from losing arguments.
— seen at the Godzooks blog

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Image from Oleg Sergeichik, CC license
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Was Jesus Born to a Virgin? William Lane Craig Answers This and More.

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It’s the Christmas season! World-famous philosopher William Lane Craig (WLC) was asked by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, “Professor, Was Jesus Really Born to a Virgin?” The conversation ranges over this and additional topics that all need a response.

Was Jesus born to a virgin?

“I must confess that for all my admiration for Jesus, I’m skeptical about some of the narrative we’ve inherited. Are you actually confident that Jesus was born to a virgin?” (I’ll use italics for the interviewer’s questions.)

WLC responded:

For a God who could create the entire universe, making a woman pregnant wasn’t that big a deal! Given the existence of a Creator and Designer of the universe (for which we have good evidence), an occasional miracle is child’s play.

Apparently, WLC’s strategy is to dig his hole deeper. No, you have terrible evidence for God as the supernatural creator of the universe. Look around and see that people are Christians because they were raised that way, not because they are compelled by the evidence to accept Christianity’s claims. I agree that God making the entire universe is a bigger unanswered question than his making a virgin birth, but how has this advanced your argument?

Historically speaking, the story of Jesus’ virginal conception is independently attested by Matthew and Luke and is utterly unlike anything in pagan mythology or Judaism. So what’s the problem?

“What’s the problem”?? I gotta give him swagger points for that. Yes, the virgin birth is written in two accounts, but these are contradictory*. As for Jesus’s conception vs. those of other important figures, mythology and legend are full of supernatural births (some virgin births and some just god/human couplings). Palestine was at the crossroads of Greek, Roman, and Egyptian civilizations and more, and these societies had many supernatural births. For example, Dionysus (Greek culture), Caesar Augustus (Roman), and Amenhotep III (Egyptian) were all said to have had supernatural births. (More on Christianity as a copycat religion here.)

The typical Christian response is that those stories are quite different from that of Mary and Jesus. Perhaps they are, but so what? Jesus was said to have been divinely conceived, just like many other gods before him—that’s the commonality. Was it likelier (1) that Jesus’s supernatural birth was the only one that was the real deal or (2) that it, like all those that came before, was just mythology, legend, or other human invention?

An essential part of the Jesus birth story that WLC doesn’t mention is that the virgin birth is claimed to have fulfilled a prophecy from Isaiah 7 (which writes about a Judean king from the eight century BCE). It didn’t.

Early Christians picking up the supernatural birth and adding it to their story, like a bower bird adding a pretty rock to its nest, isn’t hard to imagine. We can see the recent evolution of Christianity in Mary’s position within the Catholic church. Catholic theologians concluded, without scriptural evidence, that she must have been born free of original sin (the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, 1854) and then that she must have been assumed into heaven without dying (the doctrine of the Assumption, 1950). If Christianity can still pick up new doctrines now, it could do so in its earliest days.

How about that, kids? A poor peasant girl from the outskirts of nowhere grows up to be the mother of God. Work hard and eat your vegetables, and maybe you, too, can be the source of a Christian doctrine!

Was Jesus a miracle worker? Or just a great moral teacher?

“Why can’t we accept that Jesus was an extraordinary moral teacher, without buying into miracles?”

WLC replies:

You can, but you do so at the expense of going against the evidence. That Jesus carried out a ministry of miracle-working and exorcisms is so widely attested in every stratum of the sources that the consensus among historical Jesus scholars is that Jesus was, indeed, a faith-healer and exorcist.

Let’s just say that Jesus as an “extraordinary moral teacher” is debatable and move on to that consensus. I always respect the scientific consensus, unlike WLC, who doesn’t care much for Biology’s consensus about evolution. However, the “consensus of historical Jesus scholars” doesn’t mean the collected opinion of free agents because most Jesus scholars are constrained by doctrinal statements. This means that they aren’t free to follow the evidence but must come to a predetermined conclusion. This makes their consensus meaningless.

As for Jesus as a “faith-healer and exorcist,” we know today that evil spirits don’t cause disease, and yet the gospels have Jesus performing many exorcisms as cures. Consider which of these two options seem likelier: (1) evil spirits caused disease 2000 years ago in the time of Jesus but they’ve stopped, or (2) evil spirits never were a cause, and the gospels simply reflect the pre-scientific thinking of their time (more).

And why does Paul, the earliest source of Jesus information, say nothing about Jesus performing healings? In fact, Paul mentions no Jesus miracles of any sort. More.

One unsurprising possibility is that the Jesus in Paul’s mind was quite different from the Jesus documented in the gospels decades later. A religious message that changes over time is easy to imagine from a naturalistic standpoint, though that is hard to imagine coming from a supposedly historically accurate document.

More questions will be answered (and critiqued) in part 2.

There was an old bugger called God,
who got a young virgin in pod.
This disgraceful behavior
begot Christ our Saviour,
who was nailed to a cross, poor old sod.
— Dylan Thomas

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*Here are two contradictions in the Luke and Matthew birth narratives.

Luke makes clear that Mary and Joseph live in Nazareth, but Matthew suggests that they lived in Bethlehem. There is no mention in Matthew of them traveling to Bethlehem, suggesting they already live there; the wise men find them in a house rather than a stable or inn, suggesting a permanent home; and Joseph had initially planned on returning from Egypt to Judea (where Bethlehem is) but was convinced to go to Galilee instead (where Nazareth is), suggesting that Nazareth hadn’t originally been their home.

Also, each gospel gives a historical reference that allows the birth to be dated (the death of Herod and the governorship of Quirinius), but these are different dates.

 

Image from Camylla Battani, CC license
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Four Blood Moons: Revisiting John Hagee’s Embarrassing Failure (2 of 2)

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In part 1, I summarized John Hagee’s “Four Blood Moons” hysteria, which culminated with its final lunar eclipse four years ago.

So what was supposed to happen?

We need to learn from Reverend Hagee precisely what was supposed to happen and when. Hagee told us, “The coming four blood moons points to a world-shaking event that will happen between April 2014 and October 2015.”

Okay, but that’s rather vague. Hagee said (in a video that is, embarrassingly, still in the Hagee Ministries channel), “God is literally screaming at the world, ‘I’m coming soon.’”

Surely the creator of the universe can do better? “Something is about to change,” according to the book’s subtitle.

Okay, forget it. Hagee won’t be specific because he can’t. Perhaps the purpose of the book wasn’t to enlighten the flock but (dare I say it?) to make money. It turns out that Pastor Hagee wasn’t the first to think up the four blood moons idea, though you wouldn’t know it from his movie, where he claims to have come up with this connection. Hagee loves money like sharks love chum.

Others piled on and predicted financial disaster after the end of the Shemitah year (didn’t happen—the Dow was up on the next trading day). Unsurprisingly, those financial prophets didn’t conclude that their game is groundless. One pundit concluded that God simply didn’t want to make himself predictable. It’s clear that no lesson has been learned, and the next breathless, invented crisis among gullible Christians is in our near future.

One element of this hysteria is a “the sky is falling” attitude. Prophecy-hungry Christian charlatans point to the worrisome news of the moment—Iran’s nuclear ambitions, ISIS, problems in Israel, Ebola, police shootings, droughts and forest fires, same-sex marriage, and more—and imagine that these are the signs of the End.

No, that’s not bad. You want bad? How about the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48) that killed between three and eleven million people in Europe? That was bad. Or how about 1942–43 when it looked like the Axis powers might succeed and carve up the world? Or the 1918 flu pandemic that killed up to 100 million people? Or the Black Death in Europe (1346–53), which killed 20% of the world’s population?

Remember when you were a kid in history class, and you asked why you had to learn all that stuff? This is why. It’s so you can immunize yourself from people like Hagee who hope you are ignorant of events like those—events so world-shakingly calamitous that they plausibly could have signaled an end of the world.

Sorry, Christian apocalypticists, same-sex marriage doesn’t compare.

Consequences

I believe a quote from the Good Book is relevant here.

The prophet who speaks a word presumptuously in My name which I have not commanded him to speak, or which he speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die (Deuteronomy 18:20).

Wow—that’s tough love. I wonder if pastor David Berzins, who was eager to stone gays to death, might have been happy to carry out that punishment since Hagee obviously wasn’t speaking for God since his prophecy didn’t come true.

Hagee had to walk a fine line. He had to be specific enough to mesmerize his flock into buying his books and mailing in checks but not so specific that he could be easily called on a prophecy when it didn’t come to pass. That was the error that Harold Camping made. He spent $100 million to advertise a very specific date for the Rapture, May 21, 2011. Things became uncomfortable when May 21 came and went just like any other day.

After several years of planning, you could imagine a crescendo at Hagee’s web site on the eve of the fourth “blood moon.” Nope—out of a bunch of ads, a single one read, “The final blood moon is coming . . . are you ready?”

Ready for what? Hagee pretty much ignored the blood moons non-event and moved on to the next apocalyptic message so we can get good and scared all over again. John Hagee has become Pastor Freddie Krueger of the (Nightmare on) Elm Street Church. And like the groundless claims in John Oliver’s much-missed megachurch, Hagee’s far-reaching but empty claims are, incredibly, all legal.

If there were justice where you could pull a stunt like this once but then you’d lose all credibility after a failure, I wouldn’t mind. The problem is, there are no consequences. When Hagee and others tap dance away from their false claims, no one will stone them. Their flock will continue to do what they’re told. Like a stage magician, Hagee will focus his flock’s attention on some new book or outreach. While I wonder how Hagee can live with himself, the whole thing looks like a smart financial move in hindsight.

What’s it like on the inside?

Patheos atheist blogger Captain Cassidy wrote about what it was like growing up as a Pentecostal teenager during the “88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988” scare. On why this kind of thing is effective, she said that being on the inside flatters one’s ego. You know that you’ve got it figured out and the naysayers will get theirs soon enough, and then who’ll be laughing? Chillingly, she observed, “Fear lies at the heart of Christianity, not love.”

To remind us of how common end-of-the-world prophecies have been in history, I’ll wrap up with this much-mended “The End is nigh!” sign envisioned by Kyle Hepworth. The End has been predicted more often than you may know.

Christians who know that there’ve been
other Rapture scares in the past
look at new Rapture scares
like other folks look at lottery tickets:
sure, they’ve always failed to win in the past,
but this time might be the big payoff.
The problem is that their payoff
happens for the worst reasons
and at the expense of those who disagree with them.
— Captain Cassidy

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(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 9/26/15.)
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