What Would Jesus Do?

The WWJD acronym became popular in the nineties as a way to imagine Jesus approaching a particular problem or opportunity. Would Jesus smoke that joint? Would he skip his homework? Would he stop to help that person? Many young Christians wore a WWJD bracelet to keep the question in mind.

The problem is that this question delivers contradictory answers. Ask Fred Phelps what Jesus would do, and he would’ve said with confidence that Jesus would be preaching, “God hates fags.” Ask Harold Camping, and he would’ve said that Jesus would be warning people about the coming end. Pro-lifers think that Jesus would be picketing abortion clinics. Televangelists say that Jesus would want you to donate lots of money.

Many conservative Christians think that Jesus would reduce taxes, encourage Creationism in public schools, push laws against same-sex marriage, and deny climate change. Many liberal Christians think that he’d celebrate the scientific consensus, support healthcare provided by society (another word for “government”), encourage sex education to minimize unwanted pregnancies, and helping the neediest people.

Pick any contentious social issue—abortion, same-sex marriage, gun rights, euthanasia, our obligations to the needy, and so on—and you’ll have millions of thoughtful Christians taking each of the many contradictory positions.

What good is it?

WWJD is a useless slogan because it’s ambiguous. It’s a synonym for “In your most moral frame of mind, what would you do?” The Jesus of the Bible is a ventriloquist’s dummy who says whatever you want him to say.

BOB: Say Jesus, I was thinking of putting a little extra in the offering plate on Sunday for the food bank.

JESUS (in squeaky voice): Good thinking, Bob! After all, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”

BOB: And speaking of church, I thought that Frank from across the street was a decent guy until I found out that he’s a Mormon. I think I should give him the silent treatment from now on.

JESUS: You’re right there, Bob! Remember that “I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother.”

The problem is pretending that Jesus really is feeding you lines. Dropping this pretense may feel like tightrope walking without a net, but “Jesus” in this case is just a synonym for “conscience.”

If “WWJD” were to become a synonym for “use your best judgment to find the most moral solution to society’s problems,” what’s not to like?

Two hands working
can do more than a thousand clasped in prayer.
— Unknown

Photo credit: sonofgodresources.com

I’ve posted before about some modern-day Christian parables. Here are two more.

Ah, for the good old days when biblical parables made a compelling point! These are pretty weak. If you come across more, let me know.

“Money Troubles”

I heard this one on the radio.

A man goes into his pastor’s office. “I’ve got money problems,” he says. “I try to give what God commands of me, but I’m having a hard time making ends meet. At the end of the month, there are still bills to pay.”

The pastor says, “What if you did what God commands of you and then, at the end of the month, you bring any bills that aren’t covered to me and I’ll pay them. Would you do that?”

“You’d do that? You’d pay the extra bills?”

“That’s not the question,” said the pastor. “If I agreed to pay the extra bills, would you do that?”

“Sure!”

The pastor said, “Isn’t it odd that you’d trust a frail human like me when you wouldn’t trust God, the all-powerful creator of the universe to help you with your problems …” and blah, blah, blah about how fabulous God is and all the stuff that he’s done for us.

If you’re already drinking the Kool-Aid, this one might hit home, but it does nothing as an argument for Christianity. And the pastor is making a very testable claim—almost a science experiment. He’s all but quoting Jesus:

Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; but I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass in the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, how much more will He clothe you? You men of little faith! (Luke 12:27–8)

My advice: test this pastor’s claim. I wouldn’t hold my breath for verifiable results.

“Celestial Mechanics in the Bible”

I first heard the next story decades ago.

In the early days of the space program, NASA scientists were checking the position of the sun, moon, and planets to make sure that they could safely put up satellites. They checked thousands of years in the future and the past, but the computers ground to a halt. The problem was a missing day in elapsed time. They rechecked their data and the software, but the problem wouldn’t go away.

Puzzling over the problem, one scientist said, “You know, I remember a story from Sunday school. Something about God making the sun stand still so that Joshua could win a battle. Could that be it?”

The scientists were skeptical, but they found a Bible. With a little searching they found Joshua 10:12–13. “The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day.” With a little calculation, they found that this accounted for 23 hours and 20 minutes. They were much closer but were still stuck. They had to resolve that last 40 minutes.

The other scientists looked expectantly at the one with the Sunday school story. “Well, I remember another story,” he said. All eyes were on him. “Something about the sun going backwards.”

There were a few chuckles, but they got out the Bible again and found 2 Kings 20:8–11, where King Hezekiah asked God for a sign, that the sun move backwards ten degrees. Ten degrees out of 360 degrees in a circle—that is, 1/36 of a day. In other words, exactly 40 minutes!

The scientists plugged in this information, and, sure enough, the calculations ran smoothly.

Ooh—let me guess the moral! Modern science needs to get its guidance from the Bible. (Did I get that right?)

Well, Mr. Smarty Pants Scientist—looks like the Goliath of Science has been defeated by the David of Christian Truth!

Despite its longevity and popularity—this story originated in a 1936 book by Harry Rimmer and was popularized by a 1974 book by Harold Hill—it’s bogus. NASA even had to issue a press release denying the popular story.

There are lots of red flags. Even if God had stopped the sun 3000 years ago, there is no way to deduce that from information available to astronomers today, so the entire premise is flawed. And let’s not even speculate at what “stopping the sun” (that is, stopping the rotation of the earth) would’ve done. Concluding 23 hours and 20 minutes from “about a full day” is wishful thinking, and the ten degrees is more properly translated as “ten steps”—an angle based on local instrumentation that we can’t reproduce.

I know what you’re thinking: why waste time on this ridiculous tale? It’s because there are people who believe it.

As usual, imagining that the Bible’s miracle stories really happened takes us to nowhere that can be scientifically justified.

Do unto others 20% better than you would expect them to do unto you,
to correct for subjective error.
― Linus Pauling

Photo credit: Wikipedia

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 4/30/12.)

I’ll wrap up this series on Daniel with one final interpretation of the 70-weeks prophecy, a secular one. If this interpretation is accurate, the 7 years of tribulation, the Rapture™, and all the rest are built on nothing.

(For the first Christian interpretation of Daniel 9 go here, and for the first post in this series, go here.)

Remember the timeframe of the composition of the book. It’s the beginning of the Maccabean Revolt, when things were looking pretty bleak. Jeremiah had said that 70 years in Babylon would erase the sins of the Jews, and God would bring them home and prosper them. But now it’s the 160s BCE, and Antiochus Epiphanes has massacred tens of thousands and polluted the Temple. What’s the deal? Wasn’t the suffering supposed to end?

That’s why Gabriel visits Daniel (in chapter 9) to say that it wasn’t 70 years, as Jeremiah thought, but 70 weeks of years. And—whaddya know?—from the standpoint of the audience, that long period was just about to end.

Below is the interpretation of Chris Sandoval (“The Failure of Daniel’s Prophecies”), which was taken largely from André LaCocque. I’ll step through Daniel 9:25–7 and give that skeptical interpretation.

From the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the leader, comes, there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks.

The 7 weeks and 62 weeks aren’t back to back. Let’s return to the 7 weeks and focus just on the 62 weeks. It starts when Jeremiah’s 70 years starts, in 605 BCE. That prophecy is the “word” that explains the exile and promises the rebuilding of Jerusalem. It ends 62 weeks later in 171 BCE (605 – 62×7 = 171) with the death of the Anointed One, high priest Onias III.

Jerusalem shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time.

The 7 weeks extend from 587 BCE when Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar until 538 when Babylon itself was conquered and exiles returned to Judah (587 – 7×7 = 538). This isn’t part of the big timeline, nor does it need to be. Since we’ve gone from Jeremiah’s 70 years to Daniel’s 70 sevens of years, the number 7 (the number of completion) is obviously important. Chopping out a block of 7 sevens serves several purposes. It leaves a remaining timespan of 62 weeks that plausibly fits between important dates, that 49-year time period was roughly the time during which Jerusalem lay in ruins, and it’s numerically pleasing (with all those sevens).

After the sixty-two weeks, the Anointed One will be put to death and will have nothing.

The 62 weeks is pulled out as a separate unit and makes sense as our primary block of time. Onias, the Anointed One, was put to death in 171.

The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed.

Antiochus Epiphanes is “the ruler.” He was the Seleucid king who corrupted (the word for “destroy” can also mean “corrupt” or “pervert”) the city and Temple. He had tens of thousands of Jews massacred. This was the beginning of the Maccabean Revolt.

He will confirm a covenant with many for one week.

This was also a period of civil war between traditional and Hellenized Jews. Antiochus killed high priest Onias, well-loved by the traditionalists, and made alliances with the Hellenized Jews. From the standpoint of the traditional Jews, the ones behind the rebellion and the writing of Daniel, those Hellenized Jews were collaborators or even traitors.

This begins the final week, 171–164 BCE.

In the middle of the week he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And at the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him.

Halfway through this “week,” Antiochus prevented Jewish sacrifices and created the “abomination that causes desolation,” the sacrifice of pigs to Zeus in the Jewish temple. (That’s discussed in detail in the first post in this series.)

Of course, this whole thing would’ve been a lot easier if the author had dropped the pretense and given names to things, but where would the fun be in that?

Like it or not, this interpretation is both more plausible and is far more honest to the text than the Christian interpretations.

Since the Bible and the church
are obviously mistaken in telling us where we came from,
how can we trust them to tell us where we are going?
— Anonymous

Appendix: Here’s the timeline that shows the important dates (all BCE) and the blocks of time.

Photo credit: rogiro

I attended a free showing of Son of God, sponsored by Seattle’s Mars Hill church. They bought out three screens, and they encouraged their membership to attend and bring an unbeliever. The gospel story may be as good an occasion as any to evangelize, but I can’t imagine any unbeliever hearing much that was new.

Though the movie ended with the Great Commission and I was wearing my “Atheist: I believe in you!” t-shirt, I wasn’t able to tempt any Christians.

Beach Boy Jesus

The movie was based on the recent 10-part miniseries, The Bible. Jesus was played by Diogo Morgado, a 6′ 3″ model from Portugal. I suspect that a Jew from 2000 years ago would have looked substantially browner, shorter, and less gorgeous.

Megyn Kelly from Fox News got into this debate last Christmas when she said, “Jesus was a white man, too … he’s a historical figure—that’s a verifiable fact, as is Santa.” Assuming she’s talking about St. Nicholas, the 4th-century bishop from Lycia (now Turkey), “Santa” probably wasn’t white either.

Overall impressions

This is a feel-good movie for Christians, with plenty of agony to make them appreciate Jesus’s sacrifice (which doesn’t do much for me, BTW). While atheists may find many individual elements of the gospel story that are new to them, very few Americans aren’t familiar with the Jesus story.

The main plot shows Pilate the Roman governor and Caiaphas the high priest trying to keep order in the prelude to the Passover. Interwoven is Jesus preaching, but much of this devolves into familiar but out-of-context platitudes. For example, in one vignette we get “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” and then “Love your neighbor.” In like manner the obligatory John 3:16 was shoehorned in somewhere.

How do you make a Jesus movie?

In the late second century, church father Tatian harmonized the four gospels into the Diatessaron, a big, fat amalgam of the four gospels. Though the Diatessaron did not become popular, Christian apologists today often harmonize conflicting passages in a similar way by arguing that they’re all true.

That struggle was evident with this movie. We would see a story element from one gospel, but then this would highlight the absence of the conflicting version from another gospel. For example, we see Mary and Joseph early in the story with baby Jesus and the Luke nativity story (which doesn’t have magi) combined with the Matthew nativity story (which doesn’t have shepherds).

Mary reappears later in the story, but this conflicts with Mark, which makes clear that Jesus’s family thinks that he’s crazy. According to Mark, his family is not a part of his adult ministry.

On Palm Sunday, Jesus rides triumphantly into Jerusalem on a donkey, but this conflicts with Matthew, which says he rode on two donkeys.

Jesus next cleanses the temple of money changers, but this conflicts with John, who has the cleansing of the temple at the beginning of the ministry.

During the crucifixion, we see the darkness and earthquake from Matthew, but Matthew’s zombie apocalypse is omitted.

Jesus preaches for 40 days after his resurrection, but this conflicts with Luke, which has him return to heaven after just one day.

The gross part

The movie was rated PG-13 for “intense and bloody depiction of The Crucifixion, and for some sequences of violence.” I’m sure Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ was much worse, but this was pretty gruesome. And that’s a conflict, too. The movie takes the flogging and crown of thorns from Mark, but Luke and John have no flogging and a placid Jesus, who seems to be more concerned about those around him than about his own pain.

It’s impossible to tell a Jesus story that respects all of the gospels.

Final thoughts

• John the disciple is our story teller, and appearances of him as an old man on Patmos bookends the movie (yes, I know that these may not be the same guy). He says that all the other disciples died as martyrs, which isn’t true.
• When Jesus realizes at the Last Supper that he is to die a painful death, it comes as a shock. This makes sense of his plea to God, “may this cup be taken from me,” but this conflicts with the omniscient Jesus according to John, who knew things from the beginning of time.
• The story is completely Jewish, and it ends with Peter carrying on the tradition of Jesus. The fact that the gospels were written within a Greek context (not Aramaic) and that the movie includes nothing of Paul isn’t mentioned. This makes for a simpler though less complete story.
• The Obama-Satan was cut from the movie (I suppose the scene would be Satan’s tempting of Jesus).
• When Pilate asked who he should release from prison, I had a hard time not channeling Monty Python’s Pilate from Life of Brian and shouting out (with an Elmer Fudd speech problem), “Welease Wodewick!”

The movie ends with Jesus assuring John that he’s coming soon. No, I’m afraid that didn’t happen, either.

Many false prophets have gone out into the world.
— 1 John 4:1

Photo credit: Christian Film Database

Show one scientific truth about nature or new technology that was discovered first in the pages of the Bible.

Show one disease eliminated from the earth or one missing limb restored through prayer.

Show one person who can preach the gospel in every human language.

Show one Bible prophecy or one prediction by a Christian prophet that is accepted as fulfilled by non-Christians.

Show one supernatural event in the Bible that is accepted by historians.

Show one earthquake or volcano that was halted by an incantation or holy relic.

Show one tsunami or plague whose damage was undone by divine action.

Show any supernatural claim within Christianity that is accepted by non-Christians.

An unbroken record of failure

The Bible has stories of people miraculously cured of disease, but so might a book of fairy tales. The Bible has no discussion of how to avoid germs, no advice to boil water, no sanitation rules for the placement of latrines. It doesn’t even have a recipe for soap.

Jesus could have eliminated plague and smallpox and saved the lives of billions, but instead he withers a fig tree and does less curing of disease in his career than a typical doctor does today. The Bible makes clear that every believer will be able to perform the works of Jesus and more, and yet no medical miracle claims are validated by science.

Some in the early days of the Pentecostal movement claimed the Holy Spirit gave missionaries fluency in any language, though that claim is a little too testable. The “gift of tongues” today usually means a gibberish utterance in no human language.

God hasn’t guided his most cherished creation past problems like war, genocide, slavery, prejudice, pogroms, overpopulation, and environmental disasters. Nor has he helped undo the damage from natural disasters. Faith has never moved a mountain, though the Bible says that it will. And prayer doesn’t do anything measurable.

Christian response

Lots of worldviews can encourage you to do good things, and Christianity is one of them. For this post, I’m focused on just the supernatural claims. The Christian may respond with tangible here-and-now contributions of Christianity to society.

• Majestic cathedrals were built just for Christianity. Show one grand building built by science. How about the Royal Society? Or Scientific American magazine. Or Bell Labs. (And keep in mind that science and engineering put those physical buildings up, not faith.)
• The Sistine Chapel ceiling is a masterpiece inspired by Christianity. Show one great work of art inspired by science. How about the Large Hadron Collider? Or the Hubble space telescope. Or the Eiffel Tower. Astronomy has given us mind-expanding works of art—photos of a distant galaxy, earthrise from the moon, and the earth caught in Saturn’s rings—that Christianity couldn’t begin to imagine. And it’s not like Christianity has a monopoly on religious art. Consider the ancient Indian, Chinese, Mesoamerican, Greek, Roman, and Egyptian art inspired by their religions (see the Egyptian stone relief above).
• Christianity inspired Michelangelo’s art. Show a Michelangelo of science. How about Richard Feynman? Or Albert Einstein. Or Stephen Hawking.

The Christian may respond to demands for evidence that God doesn’t perform like a monkey on a leash. What we see is nicely explained by God not performing at all.

“Religious truth” bears the same resemblance to “truth”
that “homeopathic medicine” bears to “medicine,”
“creation science” bears to “science,”
or “Fox News” bears to “news.”
— Richard S. Russell

Inspiration credit: the core of this post came from Richard S. Russell.

Photo credit: Wikipedia