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Need a Christmas present for someone who enjoys wrestling with Christianity’s role in modern society? Consider my new book, A Modern Christmas Carol, available as paperback or ebook.
In December, thoughts turn toward Christmas. In particular, to the Isaiah quote in Matthew’s narrative of the birth of Jesus: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (Matt. 1:23).
Matthew documents the fulfillment of a prophecy written 750 years earlier. Powerful evidence of the truth of the Bible?
Well … no. The first reason is the reason by which anyone would reject a claimed prophecy: the evidence of the fulfillment is not independent but comes only through authors (of Matthew and Luke) who one must assume had read the prophecy. They had motive and opportunity to claim a fulfillment where none existed. (I write more about common-sense requirements for a fulfilled prophecy here.)
The original prophecy in Isaiah
But was that quote from Isaiah even a prophecy of a messiah? You’d expect something like, “The LORD God understands the burdens of His people and will send a savior. And ye shall know him by this sign: the virgin will give birth to a son” and so on.
Here’s what that chapter of Isaiah is actually talking about. In the early 700s BCE, Syria and Israel allied with nearby countries for protection against Assyria, the local bully that was vacuuming up smaller states. Judea refused to join the alliance. Syria and Israel, fearing a potential enemy at their rear, moved to conquer Judea.
God spoke through the prophet Isaiah to tell the king of Judea that, with faith, his enemies would be destroyed. Isaiah gives him a sign: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel” (7:14). Before the boy is old enough to understand right from wrong, Syria and Israel will be destroyed.
The meaning of the Immanuel prophecy
In other words, in five years or so, your enemies will be destroyed—that’s the point of the Immanuel story. The boy simply acts as a clock. And not only is Immanuel not a messiah, his three-verse story isn’t even a significant part of this chapter, which goes on to describe the impending conquest of Judea by Assyria and Judea’s painful future.
Isaiah prefaces the prophecy to the king with, “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign.” This sign must be a near-term event, since the king won’t live long enough to see the birth of Jesus centuries later.
Yes, the Immanuel story is a prophecy, but it’s a prophecy that is to be fulfilled in five years, not 750. (And was the prophecy even fulfilled? Apparently not, according to the 2 Chron. 28:5–6 summary. We see another history of the battle in 2 Kings 16:5, with Judea the winner this time, but to argue that Isaiah’s prophecy was fulfilled you must argue that the Bible is contradictory.)
Where’s the miracle?
The Immanuel story doesn’t even claim to be a miracle. Women are virgins before having sex, by definition. The story says that a woman who’s never had sex will then do so, become pregnant, and deliver a boy. Happens all the time. If this prediction involved a miracle, we’d expect more would be made of it to eliminate the (obvious) mundane explanation.
Where’s the Jesus parallel?
And if Immanuel’s story is supposed to foreshadow Jesus, where does the Immanuel prediction (“before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid to waste,” Isa. 7:16) map in Jesus’s life?
Does Isaiah even say “virgin”?
To make things even more difficult for Matthew’s claim, the word “virgin” in Isaiah 7:14 doesn’t really say that. First-century scholars could have had access to two versions of Isaiah, the Hebrew original and the Greek translation, the Septuagint. Since the author of Matthew was literate in Greek, he was likely more familiar with the Greek version. But these two versions use different words here—“young woman” in the Hebrew original and “virgin” in the Greek translation. The NET Bible uses the older Hebrew term and has a thorough footnote documenting the scholarship behind this decision.
Why do most Bibles use “virgin,” even though the best sources use “young woman”? Perhaps only to avoid embarrassing Matthew. And that may be changing. The new Catholic Bible, the revised New American Bible (2011), drops “virgin” in favor of “young woman.”
Is Isaiah fulfilled in Jesus?
Matthew prefaces his Isaiah quote by saying, “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet” (1:22), but the prophecy isn’t fulfilled since Jesus is never called Immanuel—not just in Matthew but anywhere in the New Testament. In fact, Matthew contradicts his own claim of fulfillment just two verses later: “And [Joseph] gave him the name Jesus.”
Pope Benedict’s 2012 book, The Infancy Narratives, emphasizes that the virgin birth is one of the “cornerstones of faith” and assures us that it is not a myth. Though he rejects the idea that mythology entered the gospels, everybody who was anybody during that time in the eastern Mediterranean was virgin born—Alexander the Great in Greece, the Caesars in Rome, the Ptolemies in Egypt.
Despite the proliferation of virgin birth claims at the time, all were false except for the one for Jesus? That needs a lot of evidence, especially when Matthew’s argument is built on nothing more than the misreading of a prophecy that expired centuries earlier.
This is the third biblical prophecy claim that I’ve studied (I’ve also written about Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22). Each has unique features, but I’m struck by one similarity: in context, each is plainly not talking about a future messiah. No serious scholarship is necessary to see this, just a willingness to let each chapter speak for itself. Only a determination to maintain the idea of supernatural prophecies, regardless of the evidence, props them up.

I pray that one day we may live in an America 
where Christians can worship freely, in broad daylight,
openly wearing the symbols of their religion …
 perhaps around their necks? 
And maybe (dare I dream it?)
maybe one day there can be 
an openly Christian president. 
Or, perhaps, 43 of them. Consecutively.
— Jon Stewart

 
(This is a modified version of a post that originally appeared 12/10/12.)
Photo credit: Steve Day

Antony Flew created waves with his 2007 book There is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind. He was a prominent atheist philosopher who converted to deism. Attacked or ignored before, Flew suddenly became a darling within many Christian circles and was celebrated as one of the 20th century’s most important philosophers.
Antony Flew, the Christian coup
A 2009 Greg Koukl podcast gives an example of this Christian reaction. Koukl blathered on about what a top-flight philosopher Flew was. He attacked the idea that Flew was losing it, as some atheists charged. “Just read his book and see,” he said. He said that scientists like Dawkins should feel privileged to be in the same room with a great philosopher like Flew. And so on.
Koukl is often motivating, and that was the case here. However, I doubt that it motivated me in the direction that he was expecting. In the first place, and you need only look on the cover to see this, Flew wasn’t the author. It says “Antony Flew with Roy Abraham Varghese.” Maybe Flew wrote most of it, but I doubt it. The “with” customarily means that the other guy wrote it all.
There are other clues. This book is structured in a very different way than a typical nonfiction book in which someone lays out a thesis and then supports it with evidence. It has long summaries of the thinking of other people—Heisenberg, Schrödinger, and so on. No original thinking here, just summaries.
For example, it has a book report-like summary of part of Infinite Minds by John Leslie, which talks about quantum laws and special relativity. Flew’s background gives no indication that he was comfortable with this kind of science, and even if he was, who cares? He wasn’t a physicist or even a science journalist, and he brings no authority to his analysis of physics.
There are also lots of places like this: “In my new introduction to the 2005 edition of God and Philosophy, I said, ‘I am myself delighted …’” (p. 123). Flew was reduced to quoting himself? He can’t just say what he wants to say?
Another example: “In The Presumption of Atheism and other atheistic writings, I argued that we must take the universe itself …” (p. 134). Here again he’s referring to himself as if he were another person. The book is peppered with this structure. It looks exactly as it would if someone (I don’t know … maybe someone like Roy Abraham Varghese?) were told to write a book-length essay on someone else’s philosophy and tried to couch it as if written by the great man himself.
Was Flew losing it in his waning years?
Here’s how Flew summarized his new position in a 2007 video:

If the integrated complexity of the physical world is a good reason, as Einstein clearly thought it was, of believing that there was an intelligence behind it, then this argument applies a fortiori [even more strongly] with the inordinately greater integrated complexity of the living world.

Let’s step through Flew’s argument.
1. Einstein is really smart. True, but this is an irrelevant appeal to authority.
2. Einstein said that there’s an intelligence behind the physical world. False, but even if he did, so what? A really smart guy says that there’s a god behind the curtain, pulling the levers of reality, so therefore it must be so?
3. If you think the physical world is complex, the living world is way more so.
4. If there’s intelligence behind the physical world, there’s even more reason to believe that about the far more complex biological world. Complexity doesn’t demand design. A pile of straw is complex (imagine documenting each piece), but it wasn’t designed.
Flew approvingly mentioned Einstein’s reluctance to go “where [he] didn’t have any authority at all and wasn’t inclined (reasonably enough) to talk about it.” Too bad Flew himself didn’t follow that advice!
The relevance of Flew’s conversion
Let’s return to Koukl’s point about Dawkins vs. Flew. The book itself shows the ridiculousness of this complaint. In the beginning of the conclusion chapter, it lists “the three items of evidence we have considered in this volume—the laws of nature, life with its teleological organization, and the existence of the universe.” These three are all squarely in the domain of science! Now who’s the interloper into a field that he’s unqualified to critique?
If Varghese wants to spin Flew’s works or glean a theistic argument out of Flew’s writings, that’s fine, but what did Flew himself add to this project besides give permission? The image comes to mind of someone helping a senile old man sign his name to the release form. One critic of the book said, “Far from strengthening the case for the existence of God, [the book] rather weakens the case for the existence of Antony Flew.”

If you are drawn into controversy,
use very hard arguments and very soft words.
Frequently you cannot convince a man by tugging at his reason,
but you can persuade him by winning his affections.
— C.H. Spurgeon

How do you separate fact from fiction? What procedure do you go through when confronted with a truth claim? This procedure should be practical rather than cumbersome, and it must be objective and fair rather than being biased toward a particular worldview. The goal should be finding the truth, not supporting a predefined conclusion.
I’ll go first. I only have two principles.

• Accept the scientific and historical consensus, where there is one. In fields where there’s a high barrier to entry (becoming a physicist, for example), a layman is unqualified to evaluate evidence in that field and must rely on experts. That doesn’t mean that the experts are right, but the consensus is the best provisional approximation of the truth that we have at the moment.
• Use the Principle of Analogy. This is the common-sense observation that we have much experience already with things that really exist (rocks, planets) and things that don’t (unicorns, legends). Let’s use this experience to find the best fit for any new claims. (I discussed the Principle of Analogy in detail here.)

Let’s take this procedure for a test drive with 15 categories of claims. (As we go through these, see what your procedure would make of them.)
Mythical animals such as unicorns, fairies, and leprechauns: fiction. Science tells us that these don’t exist and that there is no precedent for the magical powers attributed to some of these animals.
Animal surprises like the coelacanth, gorilla, Komodo dragon, and okapi: fact. Conclusive evidence for these animals was discovered only in the twentieth century.
Cryptozoological claims such as the Loch Ness Monster, Yeti, and Bigfoot: fiction. Science says that the arguments for these animals are insufficient. However, since these are (typically) claimed to have no special powers, there is a chance that evidence simply hasn’t been found. Science has been surprised before by new animals.
Curious life forms like the giraffe, blue whale, bacteria, volcanic vent life, and carnivorous plants: fact. Science tells us that they exist, even if we haven’t seen any personally.
Mythology like the Iliad, Gilgamesh, and Beowulf: fiction. Myths are sacred narratives that explain some aspect of reality (for example, the myth of Prometheus explains why we have fire and the Genesis creation myth explains where everything came from). History notes many examples of supernatural tales like these for which there is no evidence.
Legends like Merlin, Lady Godiva, and the Choking Doberman urban legend: fiction. Though they can include miracles, legends are otherwise plausible events that (unlike myths) are grounded in history. History tells us that there is insufficient evidence.
History like Alexander the Great, Hannibal, and Julius Caesar: fact. These generals won some remarkable battles. Though supernatural stories arose around these men (not surprising in a pre-scientific culture), history rejects the supernatural elements.
Fiction like The Wizard of Oz and Harry Potter: fiction (obviously). Most are clearly labeled as fiction, though the label is occasional lost or ignored—Orson Welles’ Halloween, 1938 War of the Worlds radiocast is a famous example.
Individual claims of supernatural events like miracles, ghosts, and demonic possession: fiction. Though these are widespread and customized to each culture, history and science reject these for lack of evidence.
Individual claims of extraterrestrials like seeing a UFO or an alien encounters: fiction. Like claims for cryptids, these don’t rely on the supernatural, but science has insufficient evidence to conclude that they exist, particularly when other explanations (hoaxes, misidentification, etc.) are available. “But no one has debunked case X!” may be true but is hardly proof of an alien claim.
Pseudoscience like ESP; telepathy; Ouija boards; Nostradamus, Edgar Cayce, and other predictors of the future; and speaking to the dead: fiction. Insufficient evidence.
Fringe medicine like homeopathy, crystals, and Kinoki foot pads: fiction. With the stakes so high, fringe medical claims are common, whether by charlatans or people who honestly think they’ve found a new cure. But when alternative medicine provides the evidence that it works, it’s simply called “medicine.”
Science like black holes, undersea volcanoes, planets around distant stars, quantum physics, and the Big Bang: fact. Science has a remarkable track record, though, as stated above, its claims are provisional.
Conspiracy theories like the moon hoax or 9/11 as an inside job: fiction. Some conspiracies are accurate history, but many, like these examples, do not have the evidence.
Books from the other guy’s religion like Hinduism, Buddhism, Scientology, Christian Science, and Mormonism: fiction. Historians discard the supernatural. That supernatural claims were made is often history, of course, but not that the claims are accurate.
That’s 15 categories, some of which are fact and some fiction. What are your criteria for separating fact from fiction, and what do they make of these examples?
The challenge for the Christian is to have an objective list with no “except for my religion” caveats. When Christians throw their net of truth into the water, a winnowing procedure that’s fine-meshed will pull up Christianity but also a lot of other religions. A procedure that’s coarser (like mine) will reject all religions.
What objective procedure can Christians have that will show Christianity as the only valid religion? I can imagine none.

Very few established institutions, governments and constitutions …
are ever destroyed by their enemies
until they have been corrupted and weakened
by their friends.
— Walter Lippman

Photo credit: Hasin Hayder

Historian Richard Carrier nicely illustrates the magnitude of the Christian claim by showing its place in a series of exponentially increasing claims. I’ll summarize my interpretation here, but for his version see Why I Am Not a Christian (35–9).
It’s one thing to have each step in a series exceed its predecessor simply in degree. For example, “I have a yellow car” is a narrower (and more surprising) claim than “I have a car.” It is different in degree simply because there are fewer yellow cars than cars of any color. Let’s call this a linear progression.
More interesting are steps that are different in kind, an exponential progression of steps. This is admittedly a sloppy use of “exponential” and “linear,” but I think it suggests the magnitude of difference between changes in degree and the more dramatic changes in kind.
Here are five steps in an exponential progression. Claims at each step become increasingly unlikely.
1. Claims that are common such as, “I own a car.” In parts of the world where car ownership is common, this is not a surprising claim.
2. Claims that are uncommon such as, “I own a third-century Christian manuscript.” This is very uncommon—there might be just dozens of individuals who can make this claim rather than the hundreds of millions who could claim car ownership—but it’s plausible.
3. Claims that are unprecedented such as, “I own a 400-foot-long nuclear-powered submarine.” Such submarines do exist and no new science would be needed for this to be a true statement. Nevertheless, the facts that (1) there is no record of a person owning such a thing, (2) they are very difficult to steal, and (3) they are enormously expensive to build makes this claim very implausible.
4. Claims that are inconceivable today (but perhaps reasonable tomorrow) such as, “I own a time machine.” These machines do not exist today. New science and technology would be needed to build one, if it could be built at all. On the optimistic side, humanity continues to uncover new science and invent new technology, so a claim in this category might become possible in the future.
5. Claims without precedent such as, “A supernatural being created everything and interacts with humans on earth today.” This claim is popular, but it is built on nothing. There is no objective evidence of any supernatural being, let alone one that created the universe.
Big submarines do exist, so someone might own one someday. Technology does exist, so time machines might be built in the future, and then someone might own one. But science recognizes no supernatural claims, and there’s no reason to imagine that they will become more plausible in the future. No future developments in science or technology will help God make himself more available.
We can imagine a man building a time machine (Wells’ The Time Machine, 1895 or Back to the Future, 1985), and we can imagine God revealing himself to an ordinary man (The Shack, 2007 or Genesis, first millennium BCE). These imaginings are desirable, but they are fiction.
Of course, billions of people today believe in some variation of this supernatural claim, but because these many claims are mutually contradictory they do more to argue that humans invent religions than that god(s) exist. The Christian who eagerly points to the billions who believe in a supernatural something will also be quick to undercut this popularity by rejecting an all-roads-lead-to-God attitude.
Christian apologists advance “God did it!” in response to a scientific impasse such as “How did life originate?” or “What came before the Big Bang?” but they ignore how far-fetched the supernatural claim is. They confuse familiarity with plausibility, and on this exponential scale, God isn’t remotely plausible.

When deciding between two competing theories,
always go with the one that doesn’t involve a magic spell.
— Emo Philips

Photo credit: J. Gabás Esteban