John the Baptist was in prison when he heard the marvelous stories about Jesus, and he sent his disciples to ask, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” (Matthew 11:2–3).

Whaaa … ? This is a remarkable question! John the Baptist doesn’t know whether Jesus is the Messiah or not?

John was pretty clear about who Jesus was when he baptized him. Not only did he recognize Jesus’s priority and ask that Jesus baptize him (Matt. 3:14), but he heard a voice from heaven proclaiming Jesus as God’s son. His conclusion at the time: “I have seen and I testify that this is God’s Chosen One” (John 1:34).

John’s very purpose was to be the messenger who would prepare the way (Matt. 11:10). How could he not know?

The familiarity probably went back even further, since John and Jesus were related. Their mothers were cousins (or “relatives”—see Luke 1:36), and Jesus’s mother Mary stayed with John’s mother Elizabeth for the last trimester of Elizabeth’s pregnancy. Heck, the boys might have played together.

And John has to ask who Jesus is?

We find more confusion in the John the Baptist story when we try to figure out who John really is. Jesus cites an Old Testament prophecy that says that the messenger who will prepare the way for the Messiah would be the prophet Elijah. Jesus then makes clear that John the Baptist is this reincarnation of Elijah (Matt. 11:14).

But wait a minute—in another gospel, John makes clear he’s not Elijah (John 1:21).

This is the problem with harmonizing the gospels: they don’t harmonize. We shouldn’t treat them as history but the end product of a long and harrowing journey during which much was probably lost, added, and changed, but we don’t know what.

As Randel Helms in Gospel Fictions puts it, the gospels were intended “less to describe the past than to affect the present.” Let’s treat them for what they were meant to be, documents making a theological point rather than history.

When I was a child, 
I spoke as a child,
I understood as a child, 
I thought as a child, 
but when I became a man, 
I put away childish things.
— 1 Cor. 13:11

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 8/27/12.)

Photo credit: Wikipedia

The Hermit Kingdom’s Brilliant Comrade, Kim Jong Un, is rocking a new hairstyle that is big news. One source critiqued it this way: “The style is a variation on Kim’s signature shaved sides, but with the top now sculpted into a high, wedge-shaped pompadour that sits atop Kim’s head like a hat, or perhaps a small, dormant woodland creature.”

Some speculate that he’s trying to look more like his grandfather, the founder of North Korea and still its “Eternal President.” Grandfather Kim was a revolutionary hero, and Li’l Kim may be using his new hairdo to declare that he’s maturing into that role.

Why so much excitement over a haircut? Because North Korea is a dangerous and unstable enemy, and there’s so little information that even something this trivial is parsed for clues.

Remind you of Someone?

And that’s also the Christian’s task. They have their own unpredictable Great Leader whose intentions they must infer from minimal clues. Christians become pigeons in a B.F. Skinner experiment, where intermittent reinforcement produced better results than continuous reinforcement. The dribbles of approval they infer falling from God’s table are enough to keep them eager for more.

Kim’s uncle was executed a year ago, presumably with Kim’s approval. Similarly, God is also dangerous, and Christians unashamedly admit that he’s killed millions. But, like the North Koreans who wept genuine tears at the death of the previous leader in 2011, Christians are quick to justify God’s actions. Someone’s child dies? Their faith is strengthened. The Canaanite genocide? Those bastards had plenty of chances. The Flood? They deserved what they got. In fact, God’s actions are good by definition.

I wonder if they say that about Kim in North Korea.

North Korea is officially the “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” but how can a dictatorship be democratic? I suppose in the same way that Yahweh the genocidal murderer is “all loving.”

Don’t we have better, more tangible things to talk about in North Korea than a haircut? Instead of the hair, we could ask about the quality of life of North Koreans. And instead of God worship, we could focus on helping his children.

God knows he’s not doing it.

Choose faith in spite of the facts.
— Rev. Joel Osteen

Image credit: Vox

Christian podcaster Jason Rennie, in an interview with John Loftus, gives an example that he hopes will stretch the natural vs. supernatural distinction to the breaking point. Just how long will atheists cling to the natural explanation?

It’s all the fault of Elvis

He proposes a deliberately ridiculous natural explanation for the gospel story: time-traveling insurance salesmen led by a clone of Elvis go back in time to manufacture the idea of Jesus to get the concept of “Act of God” into insurance law. He asks whether this is more improbable than the gospels being true. It’s natural, but does that mean that it beats the supernatural explanation?

Rennie touches on an important point—the distinction between the rule of thumb “a plausible natural explanation beats a supernatural explanation” and “any natural explanation beats a supernatural explanation.”

The first statement is enough for me. We don’t always have natural explanations—science has many unanswered questions, for example—but where we do, the natural explanations that dismiss the supernatural explanations are all plausible. There’s no need to support a crazy natural explanation simply because it’s natural. We have quite plausible natural alternatives to the gospel story and needn’t imagine time-traveling clones of Elvis.

But ignore that for now. Let’s actually compare these two alternatives.

Introducing the “Like what?” test

Consider the pieces of this proposal one at a time—first, the clone of Elvis. With the “Like what?” test, we ask, “So you propose a clone of Elvis? Like what? What precedents do we have that would make such a thing possible?”

In this case, we have quite a lot of precedent. We’ve already cloned two dozen species of animals.

Next: insurance salesmen eager to improve their business. There’s no problem finding precedents to this.

Time travel? This one is quite far-fetched, but it’s simply technology, and we understand technology. We’ve seen almost unbelievable progress in technology in the last 200 years. No one today can even sketch out how time travel might work—indeed, it may be impossible—but 10,000 more years of technology might well deliver this.

Note that this isn’t about time traveling wizards. We have no precedent for that. Everything here is natural.

How crazy is the Elvis story, anyway?

In summary, the explanation has:

• A clone of Elvis, like clones of sheep and dogs that we’ve already made.
• Cost-cutting insurance salesmen, like insurance executives today.
• Time travel, like the technology today that would seem miraculous to people just 50 years ago.

That hardly means that this ridiculous explanation is the best one—while it’s possible, it fails because of Occam’s Razor. It brings no evidence to support it over likelier explanations. But we have precedents for all major components of the story.

Consider the other explanation in play

Now apply the “Like what?” test to the supernatural explanation, that the Jesus miracles happened pretty much as claimed in the Bible. Like what?

Here, we have no universally-accepted supernatural explanations. Christians don’t accept the supernatural stories of Hinduism, Muslims don’t accept those of Christianity, not everyone accepts ghosts or other paranormal phenomena, and so on.

The only prior examples on which there is universal agreement is that there are false supernatural claims. Consider supernatural claims about the sun, for example: the Greeks explained it as Apollo in his chariot, the Mesoamericans said that Quetzalcoatl created the current sun (the previous four having been destroyed by disasters), and the Salish said that the raven brought the sun to mankind. All nonsense, we agree.

Present a universally-accepted prior example of the supernatural—like clones, salesmen, and technology in the Elvis story—and the gospel story has some standing. As it is, it doesn’t even leave the gate. The Christian position is trounced even by this deliberately ridiculous example.

Any sufficiently advanced technology 
is indistinguishable from magic
— Arthur C. Clarke

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 8/15/12.)

Photo credit: Wikimedia

Christianity continues to change with the times—it has 42,000 denominations and counting—and I nurture the hope that it will adapt to become more civilized, at least in the West. Maybe a strain could simply be cultural Christianity, a philosophy or way of life with no supernatural baggage. Millions of practicing “Christians” don’t actually believe, and they deserve to keep the good things of Christianity while discarding the unsupportable claims.

One thing holding Christianity back is the Great Commission. This was the final charge of Jesus to his disciples before he returned to heaven. “Go and make disciples of all nations,” he tells them in Matthew 28:19. Sounds like Christians are obliged to actively get out there and spread the meme. But that stands in the way of Christianity becoming a healthy worldview instead of the dogmatic busybody that conservative politics has made it in America.

But are Christians’ hands really tied? Consider who Jesus was talking to. He wasn’t talking to today’s lay Christian; he was addressing the disciples. You flatter yourself to imagine that you’re one of the Twelve, and the charge of the Great Commission was placed on your fragile shoulders.

Nevertheless, most Christians still hear that, yes indeedy, Jesus was addressing them. Let’s pursue this and see if it holds up.

The lesser commission in Matthew

There are several variations of this assignment of Jesus. An earlier commission in the same gospel also charges the disciples to hit the road, but this time Jesus gave them superpowers. They had “authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness” (Matt. 10:1). If the commission comes with power to help carry it out but Christians today don’t have those powers, then they probably weren’t given the commission either.

And even more superpowers

In another gospel, Jesus sends the disciples on their way with a power you’d think would be reserved for God himself: “If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven” (John 20:23).

We see something similar in Matthew. Jesus said to the disciples, “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (Matt. 18:18). Binding means to forbid and loosing means to permit, both by an indisputable authority.

The disciples weren’t ordinary chowderheads like you and me. They obviously had superpowers not available to the rank and file. I wonder then how Christians can imagine they share the disciples’ assignment.

Four reasons to ignore the Great Commission

Many Christians are uncomfortable with the idea that they make baby Jesus cry by not witnessing to strangers. I’d like to empower them by showing why this isn’t their fight.

1. Jesus wasn’t talking to you. The Great Commission was given to the apostles. Don’t flatter yourselves—you’re not Matthew or Peter or John.

2. Apologists acknowledge the difference. Some apologists capitalize on this and use it to their advantage.

Here’s the problem they face. The book of Acts shows Paul healing a lame man, Ananias curing blindness, and Peter raising the dead. “Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles.”

What about the incredible power of prayer? In Matthew, Jesus says, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” In Mark, Jesus says, “Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” In John, Jesus says, “He who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do.”

Trouble is, it doesn’t work that way for Christians today, and everyone knows it. Many apologists will avoid the problem by saying that these remarkable claims were relevant only to the disciples. That works, but then the Great Commission logically falls into the same category.

3. The Bible makes a nutty demand? Then rationalize away the demand! Christians easily dismiss aspects of the Bible that don’t translate well into modern Western society—God’s support for slavery, polygamy, genocide, human sacrifice, and so on. God’s position is clear, but loftier principles override the Bible, and Christians (correctly) take the sensible approach where there are conflicts. If pushing your beliefs on others also doesn’t seem right, maybe that’s because it isn’t.

And what’s the point of evangelization anyway? Fundamentalists will tell you that it’s the Holy Spirit that does the work, not your evangelization, “so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8–9). Surely the omnipotent Holy Spirit has the capability to save souls and isn’t constrained by what people do or don’t do.

4. It’s not everyone’s job to evangelize. Paul says that we have different gifts (1 Corinthians 12:4–11). You may simply not be an evangelist. And don’t take on the teaching role lightly: “Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly” (James 3:1).  

There’s no need for the Great Commission

Christians have been told that it’s their duty to save people. Just imagine if your neighbor went to hell simply because you were too lazy to convince him that he was worthless scum who needed what your church was selling.

Paul makes clear that this fear is unfounded. Comparing the symmetry of Adam’s sin with Jesus’s sacrifice, Paul said, “For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous” (Romans 5:19). The price has been paid—you’re good. (Thanks to Greg G. for this insight.)

We see a similar attitude in the parable of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25. The King gives eternal life to those who lived honorable lives. Evangelism and mandatory beliefs aren’t necessary.

Christians, discard the great baggage of the Great Commission. There’s work enough to just live your life as a good Christian. If someone asks, you can give the “reason for the hope that you have” (1 Peter 3:15).

If instead you want to follow the lead of Jesus, he spoke at length about helping the disadvantaged. That’s a charge that makes a lot more sense.

Take from the church the miraculous, the supernatural,
the incomprehensible, the unreasonable,
the impossible, the unknowable, the absurd,
and nothing but a vacuum remains.
— Robert G. Ingersoll

Photo credit: Wikipedia

In the beginning … God walked in the Garden of Eden like an ordinary supernatural Joe. He dropped by Abraham’s for a cup of coffee and a chat. He didn’t know what was up in Sodom and Gomorrah and had to send out angelic scouts for reconnaissance: “I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me” (Genesis 18:20–21). God didn’t know the depths of Abraham’s faith and had to test it. Afterward Abraham proved willing to sacrifice Isaac, he says, “Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son” (Gen. 22:12).

But, like Stalin gradually collecting titles, God has now become omniscient and omnipotent. He’s gone from needing six days to shape a world from Play-Doh and sprinkle tiny stars in the dome of heaven to creating 100 billion galaxies, each with 100 billion stars.

If you want to double check your math, that’s 6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kg of universe.

If God is to change with time, you’d think that his biblical demonstrations of power would likewise increase with time, but the reverse is true. From creating the universe, he’s weakened such that appearing in a grilled cheese sandwich as Jesus is about as much as he can pull off today. He has the fiery reputation of the Wizard of Oz but is now just the man behind the curtain.

Even God’s punishments became wimpier. A global flood, with millions dead is pretty badass. Personally smiting Sodom and Gomorrah is impressive, though that’s a big step down in magnitude.

And it’s downhill from there—God simply orders the destruction of Canaanite cities, and to punish Israel and Judah, he doesn’t do it himself but allows Assyria and then Babylon to invade. As Jesus, he doesn’t kick much more butt than cursing a fig tree, and today he simply stands by to let bad things happen.

It’s almost like the Bible is mythology and legend, and God’s followers have boosted their own self-image by boosting the image of their god.

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God
who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect
has intended us to forgo their use.
— Galileo Galilei

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 8/4/12.)

Photo credit:Why There is no God

If the Bible story were true, it would be consistent. It wouldn’t change with time. God’s personality wouldn’t change, God’s plan of salvation wouldn’t change, and the details of the Jesus story wouldn’t change. But the New Testament books themselves document the evolution of the Jesus story. Sort them chronologically to see.

What did Paul know?

Paul’s epistles precede Mark, the earliest gospel, by almost 20 years. The only miracle that Paul mentions is the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:4). Were the miracle stories so well known within his different churches that he didn’t need to mention them? It doesn’t look like it.

Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles  (1 Cor. 1:22–3).

The Jews demand signs? Then give them one. Paul had loads of Jesus miracles to pick from. But wait a minute—if the Jesus story is a stumbling block to miracle-seeking Jews, then Paul must not know of any miracles.

Evolution of the story

Miracles come later, with the gospels. Looking at them chronologically, notice how the divinity of Jesus evolves. He becomes divine with the baptism in Mark; then in Matthew and Luke, he’s divine at birth; and in John, he’s divine since the beginning of time.

The four gospels were snapshots of the Jesus story as told in four different communities at four different times. The synoptic (“looking in the same direction”) gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke share much source material, and they have much overlap. Nevertheless, 35% of Luke comes uniquely from its community (such as the parables of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son), and 20% of Matthew is unique (such as Jesus and his family fleeing to Egypt after his birth and the zombies that walked after Jesus’s death). And John is quite different from these three, having Gnostic and (arguably) Marcionite elements, reminders of important early versions of Christianity that are now gone.

Eyewitness claims

This synoptic similarity undercuts the argument that the gospels are eyewitness accounts. If the authors of Matthew and Luke were eyewitnesses, why would they copy so heavily from Mark? The authorship question (that Mark really wrote Mark, etc.) that grounds the claims that the gospels record eyewitness history is another tenuous element of the evolving story, as I’ve written before.

The gospels don’t even claim to be eyewitnesses (with the exception of a vague reference in John 21:24, in a chapter that appears to have been added by a later author). And even if they had, would that make a difference? Would tacking on “I Bartholomew was a witness to all that follows” to a gospel story make it more believable?

Would it make the story of Merlin the wizard more believable?

Eyewitness claims in noncanonical gospels

Consider some of the noncanonical (that is, rejected) gospels that include attributions. “I Simon Peter and Andrew my brother took our nets and went to the sea” is from the Gospel of Peter, and “I Thomas, an Israelite, write you this account” is from the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. These gospels are rejected both by the church and by scholars despite these claims of eyewitness testimony. Why then imagine that the vague “This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down; we know that his testimony is true” (John 21:24) adds anything to John?

Arguing that the canonical gospels are eyewitness testimony is dangerous when apologists must want to reject other gospels that make that claim. This is one of several arguments that they clumsily try to be on both sides of.

There are dozens of noncanonical gospels. Christian churches reject these in part because they were written late. But if we agree that the probable second-century authorship for (say) the gospels of Thomas, Judas, and James is a problem because stories change with time, then why do the four canonical gospels get a pass? If the gospel of John, written 60 years after the resurrection, is reliable despite being a preposterous story, why reject Thomas, written just a few decades later?

The answer, it seems, is simply that Thomas doesn’t fit the mold of the flavor of Christianity that happened to win. History, even the imagined history of religion, is written by the victors.

See also: What Did the Original Books of the Bible Say?

God made everything out of nothing,
but the nothingness shows through
— Paul Valery

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 7/27/12.)

Photo credit: cesar harada