Biblical Bollocks Galore - But Who's Counting? Not Dumbass Fundies!

Fundies, otherwise referred to in normal parlance as "Christian fundamentalists" are truly so stupid they can't even recognize their own lies and delusions when they blow smoke out of their asses- which is about every two minutes.

They insist we skeptics only find fault with their good Book to be ugly and unkind. They always have a shit load of excuses anytime we point out clear errors, or omissions as well as inconsistencies. Some of their choicest rationalizations (as to why WE are the ones who get it wrong) include the following:

1)Assuming the unexplained is unexplainable: Just because we have not explained everything in the Bible.


Okay, then how long must we wait? Til Hell freezes over? (Btw, we atheist skeptics would rather spend an eternity in "Hell" than two nanoseconds with the likes of  either Pastor Fred Phelps, my hateful asshole sibling formerly known as "Pastor Mike" or Rev. Albert Mohler who now plans to 'double down on evangelicalism").  Anyway, the point is, if these cheeseballs haven't  yet "explained" everything in their book by now it's doubtful they ever will. I mean, sheesh, it's a book (KJV) written with only 8,000 basic words, no equations - not even one differential or tensor eqn. So we aren't talking quantum mechanics or quantum field theory here! They haven't "explained everything" because there' no more to explain!

Another choice excuse:

2) Failing to understand the context of a passage: The Bible says, "There is no God." Of course, the context is, "The fool hath said in his heart. . , 'There is no God' " (Psalm 14:1). Therefore, anyone can make the Bible say anything they want if passages are pulled out of context.


Hmmmmm.....me thinks that resonates an awful lot with question begging. (And, btw, NO skeptic or atheist even if he had it in for your book would eviscerate that much of the original text to make a point - i.e. 'there is no God'! We aren't trying to emulate Mitt Romney after all, in how he relentlessly took Obama's quotes out of proper context!) But aside from your absurd example, the point is if a passage is intended to be taken literally, then HOW LARGE an extended context do we require? A whole page? The whole book? Consider one simple passage from  Deut. 21: 18-21 .   Taking just the words in that lines reference, it is clear to even a non-bible reader that a parent is justified to take any insolent  (or drunkard, or carousing etc.) son  to the outskirts of a city to let the elders stone him to death.

If fundies come back and say we can't take the context so, and we left something out, then, if that is truly so, it means no separate passages can ever be quoted! They might be 'out of context'! Oh, wait, the fundies will respond: THAT context has already been 'approved'.

Another one:

Neglecting to interpret difficult passages in the light of clearer ones:

Yes, well, see Mr. Bumpkin, the point is that your dullard brain is confusing the process of interpretation with literalness. IF the Bible can be taken literally, as you all claim, then it doesn't need interpretation!  Indeed, interpretation then means the Bible CAN'T be taken literally! You only have begun to append the issue of "interpretation" as a fudge factor because we (atheists) have pinned your balls to your brains and exposed all your contradictions and other lies, nonsense.

Yet one more of this crank's list:

Failing to discern figures of speech (i.e., the use of hyperbole) in various verses: For example, when Jesus said: "And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out... And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off" (Matt. 5:29-30). Now, anyone in their right mind knows that He obviously didn't mean that literally!

Well fine! Then, that means the Bible can't be taken literally!! If any one part or minor passage must be subject to interpretation, then the whole house of cards falls down. If one must parse EVEN one statement from JC as "hyperbole" then it follows that if reference is made (in the OT) say to Jonah being swallowed by a whale or "big fish" and living in it for THREE days, that is ALSO "hyperbole".  Once you go through the door of hyperbole, even to try and protect your antiquated  bollocks or bunkum, all bets are off.  And NO, you don't get to cherry pick which passages are real and which are hyperbole, if all related passages are equally implausible to the rational mind.

Now, how about we look at clear, unimpeachable outright mistakes which can have no other interpretations. (And let us bear in mind here, neither "context" or anything else ought to matter if the passage can be taken literally - which is what fundies claim. So, they can't have their cake and eat it. If they claim literal interpretation then they are disallowed from appealing to "context", "exegesis", "eigesis" or any other BS that doesn't fit in with their claim.

First some factual errors:

We read (Gen.:1: 1-5)

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day”


The “light” referred to in the last three sentences is none other than the SUN. However, it's clear from reading each line through that the Earth was supposedly made BEFORE the Sun. (E.g. Earth without form, darkness upon face of the deep).


But this is physically impossible. We know from modern astrophysics that the solar proto-nebula had to collapse first to yield the SUN. (No planets, since they had yet to spin off the collapsing nebular cloud – it hadn’t cooled enough to allow it). As the proto-solar nebula collapsed it also began spinning and gained angular momentum. This angular momentum was then transferred to regions of the nebula that cooled and separated from the whole, and these regions became separate clouds of dust and gas that aggregated into the planets.


As more angular momentum was transferred – the planetesimal’s (each one) acquired their own spin (in a period of revolution) and specific shapes. Thus, the Earth spun off about 1.1 billion years after the solar nebula fully collapsed, and it could not have come BEFORE the Sun. Indeed, the absence of the central mass of the Sun, or ~ 10 ^33 kilograms, the Earth would've instantly been hurled toward the constellation Hercules at 12 miles per second with no central mass to keep it in check. We can compute this exactly using the basic principles of celestial mechanics.

It is clear from this that Gen.1:1-5 has stated a patent impossibility which violates all known laws of physics and dynamics and is therefore WRONG!

Other examples:

1 Kings 7:23 :

"He made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about."


BUT: Circumference = π x Diameter, which means the line would have to have been over 31 cubits. In order for this to be rounding, it would have had to overstate the amount to ensure that the line did "compass it round about."


Lev 11:20-21:


"All fowls that creep, going upon all four, shall be an abomination unto you."


Fowl do not "go upon all four".  Those are mammals, or some reptiles. Hence, this dolt doesn't know the difference between a fowl and a ferret!

Lev 11:6:


"And the hare, because he cheweth the cud..."


Hare do not "chew the cud", cows do.


Deut 14:7:

"...as the camel, and the hare, and the coney: for they chew the cud, but divide not the hoof."


This is wrong on two counts: Hare don’t chew the cud and they do divide the "hoof." Hell, maybe Pastor Mikey wrote it!


Jonah 1:17

"...Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights"

Matt 12:40 says


"...Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly..."


Two errors: first a contradiction between "fish" and "whale"(between biblical verses) and second, whales and fish are not related. (Whales are the largest MAMMALS).

Next thing, since no human can survive for three days in an organic  vat of hydrochloric acid without his bones dissolving, it is clear this MUST be hyperbole!  I mean, look - this has to be at  LEAST as implausible as taking literally JC's command that "if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out". But we must conclude if anyone insists the latter must be taken as hyperbole, but not Jonah being swallowed by a whale and living three days inside it, he must be certifiably insane, or at least as irrational and possibly psychotic as Adam Lanza or James Eagen Holmes! In any case, if he has any guns they ought to be seized for his own good!


Matt 13:31-32: :

"the kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed which…is the least of all seeds, but when it is grown is the greatest among herbs and becometh a tree."


There are two major errors here: first, there are many smaller seeds, like the orchid seed; and second, mustard plants don't grow into trees.


Matt 4:8:

"Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them."


Unless the world is flat, the increase in altitude described simply wouldn't be adequate to see all the kingdoms of the Earth. You'd need to be at least twice the height of Everest to see the "kingdoms" then in existence, and if that was done J.C. would have suffocated from lack of O2.


Conclusion: the Bible (KJV or other) cannot be a “divinely inspired” book. Rather it is a HUMAN-inspired work with all the errors one expects humans to make.



Like the reckless use of language in general (to signify things that can't exist - "fairies", "God", "abominable snowmen") one must regard the Bible only in a metaphoric as opposed to literal sense. By the way, it's unfortunate that we still must explain to stupid people, like Mike, why we take this interest despite the bible being essentially an extended 66-book mythology. DUH, Mr. Bible Puncher! Because you use it to justify all your pseudo-religious crap - from how you treat women and homosexuals, to how you treat unbelievers - and trot it out into the political arena where it impacts millions of lives!  If we didn't keep one eye on you and your stupid book, there's no telling how many bastardized laws you little fuckers would get our congress critters to pass! Even now, as you seek to take away abortion rights!

Obviously, what indiscriminate bible thumpers - who worship their book like an idol - need, is those quantum dots implanted to regulate their insanity!

Mail Call Brane(Pt. II)

Continuation of questions from Brane Space readers:

Q. I am a young, married woman of 28, whose husband of 34 recently had treatment for aggressive prostate cancer. This included a radical prostatectomy followed by hormone therapy using a combination of luteinizing-hormone releasing hormone LHRH or  Leuprolide (marketed as Lupron) and a non-steroidal anti-androgen (Bicalutamide). The problem is that though this treatment ended six months ago (the doctors took him off the hormones since) he has no interest in sex at all! Worse, he’s still bothered by the way the hormones caused his breasts to enlarge so is very body conscious. We have tried everything including massage therapy and even trying to use mutual masturbation, but nothing works! Even watching porn videos doesn’t have any effect! Do you have any suggestions, as I noticed you wrote a number of blogs on your own treatment as well as ‘penile rehabilitation’. – Alissa J., Roanoke, VA

 

A. One of the awful aspects brought out in your question is the way prostate cancer is striking at younger and younger males. To this day, the base causes are still being explored, but my theory is that at least half the new and more aggressive cases can be traced to carcinogenic chemicals, toxins in the environment.

Anyway, as I noted in the blog you referenced (Oct. 14, last year) the real need for the penile rehab is on account of  post-op scarring of the erectile tissue, which - if it progresses too far- will prevent the patient from ever getting his own erections back and lead to an endless struggle with medication. This was according to Dr. John P. Mulhall ('Saving Your Sex Life: A Guide for Men with Prostate Cancer') Dr. Mulhall is the Director of the Sexual & Reproductive Medicine Urology Service based at the Memorial Sloan- Kettering Cancer Center.

He notes that "the incidence of erectile tissue damage, as measured by the presence of venous leak is very uncommon before the fourth month after surgery". However, at eight months after surgery it  "occurs in about 30% of men and at one year 50% of men". This is why it's essential, if men care at all about their future sex lives, they do everything possible to ensure erections of some mode (they are graded on a scale of 1-10 for hardness) occur before the 4th month after radical surgery. Why do erections need to occur? Because the absence of blood, and hence oxygen getting into the penis, leads to ongoing and progressive atrophy and tissue scarring. Mulhall invokes the "use it lose it" saying here. In some cases, indeed, prolonged disuse engenders organs which are badly misshapen (bent as in a U-shape) and essentially unusable because of unequal scarring in different tissues.

His aim in penile rehabilitation is for the patient to chemically-manually induce at least 2-3 erections per week as soon as possible after the surgery (this would be especially needed if HT was to be started after recovery).  In Mulhall's penile rehab program, the pre-op use of PDE5 inhibitors (such as Viagra)  is implemented up to two weeks before surgery. Recall the chemical pathways here: the cavernous nerves close to the prostate gland secrete nitric oxide which stimulates release of an enzyme (cyclic GMP) inside the smooth muscle cells, which promotes relaxation of smooth muscles and erection. (PDE5 blocks release of cyclic GMP, so PDE 5 inhibitors block the action of the cyclic GMP- blocking PDE5's.)

Now, the question is whether your husband was put on such a pre-op therapy. If not, as Mulhall points out, then it would be much more difficult to get success later. Post-surgery, the patient gets a prescription for a PDE5 inhibitor the day the Foley catheter is removed. He is then told to take a full dose of Viagra (100 mg) or Levitra (20 mg) once per week with adequate accompanying stimulation to attain at least a 6 scale out of 10 erection. On the other 6 nights he's told to take a low dose pill (50 mg Viagra or 10 mg Levitra) before going to bed.  Again, if none of this was done, the difficulties would be much much greater in gaining any success. The problems would be magnified if hormone therapy was delivered soon after.

There are, of course, other alternatives as I noted in the blog, including using vacuum pumps as well as the drugs Bimix or Trimix with a 29-gauge needle 1/2" in length for penile injection (as recommended by Dr. Mulhall). There is also the option of having a penile implant, but this also requires surgery.

In any case, the best option is discuss these with a urologist and see what strategy might work at this phase. By all means, explore every possibility since losing one's sex life so early cannot be any fun!

Q. if the Shroud of Turin is separately re-tested and found to be genuine, and more evidence also comes forth to show it really was Jesus, would that make you give up atheism? – Brenda K., Scarsborough, NY

A. Not at all. Merely because the Shroud is proven to be historically accurate, doesn’t prove the additional hypothesis that Yeshua was a God-man. As I noted in my blog on the Mithra-Mithras God-man mythology:
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/12/more-on-mithraic-god-man-mythooogy.html


Mithraism provides the template from which Christianity adopted all its savior myths, including being born of a virgin, rising from the dead, etc. Heck, the Christians even copied Mithras' birth date on Dec. 25th.

J.M. Robertson, author of Pagan Christs, observes (op. cit.)


The celebration of the Mithraic mysteries, of the burial and resurrection of the Lord, the Mediator and Savior, the sacrament of bread and water...all these were in practice long before the first Christian Gospel of a Lord who was buried in a rock tomb


Robertson (op. cit., p. 121) also cites other common symbols that the Christians appropriated from Mithraic traditions, including the Agnus Dei, or "Lamb of God". As he notes:


"The Christian assimilation of Mithraism is still more clearly seen in the familiar Christian symbol in which Christ is represented as a lamb, carrying by one forefoot a cross."

What about the way in which Christians have consistently copied images of Mithras and used them for Jesus? Robertson again (op. cit.) supplies an answer (p. 124):


"The Christian imitation, took place, be it observed, because the features imitated were found by experience to be religiously attractive."

It’s clear from this that the Mithras mythology sticks in the craw of many biblical literalists and even orthodox Christian non-literalists, since their dependency on the notion of one unique "Savior" exposes their egocentric certainty they alone possess the truth. But they are deluded. They merely possess an ancient God-man myth stolen from earlier sources.

More to the point, Oxford Scholar Geza Vermes in The Authentic Gospel of Jesus, dismisses the notion that Christ himself believed himself to be special or a God. Vermes points out any such belief on Christ's part would have been interpreted as self-idolatry. He never ever referred to himself as "Son of God" only as "Son of Man", nor did he dictate any belief be accorded him. All such references were fraudulent later additions.
Given all of this, if the Shroud is proven to be historically valid, all I’d be prepared to admit is that a man actually lived at the time indicated and this may well have been Yeshua.

But he wasn’t a special divine creation!

Q. Your blog on the next stock market crash (March 19) really has me worried with my 401k and all. From my reading, it seems like almost a 63% chance we will have a major correction and maybe as much as 90%. Couple of questions: 1) How long would it take to make up losses if there was a big crash or correction? And 2) What other places can a person put his money to get anything?- Regis M., Seattle, WA

A. The math for recouping major losses after stock market corrections is pretty straightforward. For example, a stock – or mutual fund- that drops in share price from, say $20 to $10 has suffered a 50% loss. But for that $10 stock or fund share price to return to $20 it must gain 100%, or double. This may take not just two or three years, but more than TWENTY! In some cases it may NEVER return!


Many cheerleaders, as well as innocent lay folk, do not know that if a share of anything goes down by 20%, it requires an advance of 25% to get back just to the breakeven point. If the value of a share drops 40 percent (as has occurred with some recent mutual fund hits since 1999), you need a 66.7 % advance to break even. If the share drops 50% - as already noted- a 100% gain must be registered to return to ‘break-even’ (i.e. you’re not losing more than what you already paid).

Let’s assume then that this current bubble bursts in October, and there are 50% losses across the board, ‘blood in the streets’ as it were. Let’s say in the wake, with the arrival of austerity budgets and consumer retrenchment, the new increases are more on the order of 1%- 1.5% a year. (More realistic returns as predicted for example, by William Wolman and Anne Colamosca in their book The Great 401k Hoax, 2002)

Then you could be looking at about a thirty year time horizon to just get to the break event point. But in that thirty years inflation will likely have risen at least 2% per year, so in many ways you are in even worse shape and more so- because you’re likely at an older age when employers cease being interested.

The best advice one can give, then, is simply not to chase yield. If you are looking for a safe investment, always be wary of anything promising more than 4-5% in our current Fed cheap money environment.

My personal wake up call appeared in The Wall Street Journal, from Nov. 27, 2003, page D1,

'A Harsh Truth: Most of Your Investments Won't Make Money- Even in the Long Term'.

 
The piece showed that when stock or mutual fund investors actually include fees, commissions, taxes, expenses etc. they essentially don’t “make” any money at all. They’d be better off just staying with totally safe investments. The piece showed that when stock or mutual fund investors actually include fees, commissions, taxes, expenses etc. they essentially don’t “make” any money at all. They’d be better off just staying with totally safe investments.


People need to know the basic Wall Street pyramid game has never changed in over 70 years and is elementary to grasp. Pundits, wags and paid whores hype the various stocks, funds or instigate a "buzz" about them - to get suckers to buy in.

The increasing buy in inflates the price-to -earnings ratio (P-E ratio) and produces a bubble of high profits. The "Big boys" (large, institutional investors) get tipped 1-2 days in advance and cash out, leaving the little guys to sink. If they're lucky they may earn a few bucks. Not much.

The thievery works eventually because most manjacks are conditioned to "buy and hold" rather than fold when the share price dives below a certain threshold. (Which ought to be the tip off). Thus, there are always ample marks left at the end game to be properly fleeced. Amazingly, they're always ready to play the game again, and pile their newly saved up money in.


Q. I found your blogs on exegesis and the Shroud so powerful and convincing that they have me thinking of becoming an atheist or at least agnostic. Meanwhile, out of curiosity, I checked your fundie brother’s blog (through the portal you gave in the Amazing Race blog) and see he’s bitching about ‘NBs’ having the chronology of the resurrection events all wrong. Is there any more you can add to what you already showed to bolsters arguments for the Fundies getting it wrong?- Carol, Los Angeles, CA

 

1. There is a lot more that can be added, but we can always be sure of one thing: People (fundies) like my bro will always worm their way out and find more rationalizations, excuses and nonsense. For example, any proper Materialist or physicalist could ask why reports of supernatural beings vanishing, talking and materializing out of thin air, along with long-dead corpses coming back to life, and people levitating should be given serious consideration at all. At face value, this is the stuff of psychosis and in any other setting the propounders would be locked up and the key thrown away!

In this light it’s really funny that traditionalist Christians (including Protestants and Catholics) seem to have no trouble applying healthy skepticism to the miracles of Islam, or to the claims of Eckists, like my sister-in –law. But if they do that they have an obligation to scrutinize their own supernatural stories.. Why should Christians treat their own outrageous claims any differently? This is one of the things I detest almost as much as nationalism, the religious exceptionalism!

But again, we go back to the numerous contradictions in quadriform gospel accounts which the rational person is obligated to see as the first indicator that they don’t add up. Let’s list some:

Who was at the tomb when the women arrived?

• Matthew: One angel (28:2-7)

• Mark: One young man (16:5)

• Luke: Two men (24:4)


Where were the "messengers" situated?


• Matthew: Angel sitting on the stone (28:2)

• Mark: Young man sitting inside, on the right (16:5)

• Luke: Two men standing inside (24:4)

• John: Two angels sitting on each end of the bed (20:12)


• John: Two angels (20:12)

When Mary returned from the tomb, did she know Jesus had been resurrected?

• Matthew: Yes (28:7-8)
• Mark: Yes (16:10,11)

• Luke: Yes (24:6-9,23)

• John: No (20:2)

 

When did Mary first see Jesus?

    • Matthew: Before she returned to the disciples (28:9)

• Mark: Before she returned to the disciples (16:9,10)

• John: After she returned to the disciples (20:2,14)

 

Could Jesus be touched after the resurrection?

  • Matthew: Yes (28:9)

• John: No (20:17), Yes (20:27)

 

After the women, to whom did Jesus first appear?

    • Matthew: Eleven disciples (28:16)

• Mark: Two disciples in the country, later to eleven (16:12,14)

• Luke: Two disciples in Emmaus, later to eleven (24:13,36)

• John: Ten disciples (Judas and Thomas were absent) (20:19, 24)

• Paul: First to Cephas (Peter), then to the twelve. (Twelve? Judas was dead). (I Corinthians

 

Where did Jesus first appear to the disciples?

  • Matthew: On a mountain in Galilee (60-100 miles away) (28:16-17)

• Mark: To two in the country, to eleven "as they sat at meat" (16:12,14)

• Luke: In Emmaus (about seven miles away) at evening, to the rest in a room in Jerusalem later that night. (24:31, 36)

• John: In a room, at evening (20:19)

 

Did Jesus stay on earth for a while?

  • Mark: No (16:19) Compare 16:14 with John 20:19 to show that this was all done on Sunday

• Luke: No (24:50-52) It all happened on Sunday

• John: Yes, at least eight days (20:26, 21:1-22)

• Acts: Yes, at least forty days (1:3)

 

Where did the ascension take place?

  • Matthew: No ascension. Book ends on mountain in Galilee

• Mark: In or near Jerusalem, after supper (16:19)

• Luke: In Bethany, very close to Jerusalem, after supper (24:50-51)

• John: No ascension

• Paul: No ascension

• Acts: Ascended from Mount of Olives (1:9-12)

There are so many contradictions, that in the end NONE of the claims can be trusted. SO they amount to exactly what Rev. Thos. Bokenkotter has said they are: PR efforts to try to convert unbelievers.

Oh, the fundies will always try to rationalize a way out, but the problem is that this only works for irrational, ignorant or stupid people - who refuse to consult the sources themselves! Far from trying to "take anyone's faith away" we skeptics are trying to show that these ancient books written by semi-literate nomads, are the last place one ought to invest faith!

The Easter Story – And Why The Need for Exegesis is Greater Than Ever

As 15 million odd Americans remain glued to their tubes for Mark Burnett’s ‘The Bible’ one wonders if any of them are exercising even rudimentary critical thinking skills. Or, are they apt to buy into everything shown as the absolute truth? Well, especially as we’re now into Easter weekend, it’s a good time to be more critical and maybe parse that narrative of the death and resurrection with a colder, more critical eye!


One of the first passages they might question is Matthew 28:2, which takes up the story after the crucifixion and after two women arrived at the tomb:


"And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it."


The story relates that the stone was rolled away after the women arrived, in their presence. However, Mark's Gospel says it happened before the women arrived:

"And they said among themselves, Who shall roll away the stone from the door of the sepulchre? And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away: for it was very great."

Meanwhile, Luke writes:

"And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre."

Can't these guys agree on anything? But wait!  Maybe we can arrive at a supermajority for truth! John concurs with Luke: No earthquake, no rolling stone. It is a three-to-one vote: Matthew loses. Else the other three are wrong.  Never mind fundies’ insistence of biblical inerrancy, logic rules! An event cannot happen both before and after the key subjects arrived.

Now, some bible defenders may assert that Matthew 28:2 was intended to be understood in the past perfect, showing what had happened before the women arrived. But the entire passage is in the aorist or past tense, and it reads, in context, like a simple chronological account. Matthew 28:2 begins, "And, behold," not "For, behold."


If tenses of assorted verses can be so easily shuffled around, and believers can be so gullible as to rationalize them all, then what is to keep them from putting the flood before the ark, or the crucifixion before the nativity? Heck, they can do anything they want!


Consider an additional  problem: the fact that in Matthew the first post-resurrection appearance of Jesus to the disciples happened on a mountain in Galilee and not in Jerusalem as most Christians believe. Note the prediction by the angel sitting on the newly moved rock:


"And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him."

Assuming the angel was delivering the message of God this had to have been of supreme importance. Jesus had even predicted this himself sixty hours earlier, during the Last Supper (cf. Matthew 26:32). Later, according to(Matthew 28:16-17:

"Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And when they saw him, they worshipped him: but some doubted."

Reading this at face value, and in context (something many fundies often avoid, i.e. they insist on "interpreting" a troublesome passage when at other times they demand it be taken literally), it’s clear that Matthew intends this to have been the first appearance. Otherwise, if Jesus had been seen before this time, why did some doubt?

Then also, we find that Mark agrees with Matthew's account of the angel's Galilee message, but delivers a different account of the first appearance. Meanwhile, Luke and John give different angelic messages and then radically contradict Matthew. Luke relates the first appearance is on the road to Emmaus and then in a room in Jerusalem. John, however, says it happened later than evening in a room, minus Thomas. These angel messages, locations, and travels during the day are impossible to reconcile. But who’s looking, or asking? Clearly not most fundies!

Such contradictions don’t prove that the resurrection didn’t happen, but they do throw considerable doubt on the reliability of the supposed witnesses. Some of them were wrong. Maybe they were all wrong. And let us not forget Thomas Paine’s famous words (in The Age of Reason ):

"I lay it down as a position which cannot be controverted. First, that the agreement of all the parts of a story does not prove that story to be true, because the parts may agree and the whole may be false; secondly, that the disagreement of the parts of a story proves the whole cannot be true."



All of which points up the need for judicious use of  biblical exegesis to scrutinize ancient words as opposed to blindly accepting them. (Or worse, accepting cartoon TV accounts- especially on how 'Satan' looks!)


An ongoing problem that consistently emerges is that many who purport to have mastered exegesis have often omitted textual analysis as part of it, which also requires familiarity with one or more languages, in particular Latin, and Greek. Thus, a person versed and educated in these languages will be able to at least parse the Latin Vulgate form of early biblical texts, and also make forays into the Greek Septuagint. By using such language skills to examine then compare earlier and earlier texts, one is then in a position to identify errors and obvious mistranslations without having to have the original texts as reference. Hence, one can deduce errors have been made and also have been propagated on the basis of simple deduction, once inconsistencies are exposed.


As an illustrative example: Half the oldest manuscript witness texts, including a Bodmer papyrus, the Vaticanus and Beza’s Codex omit the sentence in Luke 23: 34 which purportedly contains the "last" words of Jesus. This level of uncertainty in the textual tradition means the interpretation of the passage was a subject of serious debate. Put briefly: half the witnesses insisted Jesus begged God’s forgiveness for “them” – the other half pretended to know nothing of the “Eloi, eloi lama sabacthani” prayer. What gives? How can the divergences be reconciled? The conclusion of textual analysts is that the passage is probably bogus and a later addition. Why say so? Because the earliest Greek witness papyrus (called P 75 - which dates back to 200 AD) has no such content. However, the prayer can be found in Codex Sinaiticus and a large range of mss. produced in the Middle Ages. Again, the comparison of earlier mss. with much later ones (in the Middle Ages) shows prima facie evidence for alteration of text in the later epoch. We don't need any Divine Being to inform us of this, we arrive at it using simple logical inference, i.e. deduction!

Another example is the verse from Matthew 25:46:“And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal". This verse (which I've commented on before)  is critical because it's the only one in the whole good book that has the two words "everlasting" and "punishment" in the same sentence. Thus, the entire concept or claim of "everlasting punishment" rests on the validity of this single verse. But is it valid? Not when one applies the Greek translation (from the Greek Septuagint), emerging as:"kolasin aionion” or punishment for an aeon. Now as anyone even without Greek language skills knows, an aeon never has been nor will it ever mean "eternal". Thus, one can legitimately conclude that later scribes and copyists deliberately inserted their own version to bend the scriptures to their own agenda


What is the optimum way to take the Bible’s assorted books, and especially the Gospels? Catholic Scriptural Historian, the Rev. Thomas Bokenkotter, in his monograph,  A Concise History of the Catholic Church put it thusly (page 17):


"The Gospels were not meant to be a historical or biographical account of Jesus. They were written to convert unbelievers to faith in Jesus as the Messiah, or God.”

In other words, they were intended as a propaganda pressure ploy! Further, what we have from Rev. Bokenkotter is a de facto admission that no historical support exists for any of the accounts in the New Testament. Indeed, if they "were not meant to be historical" (or accurate), then we cannot be sure if any are! Quite possibly, none of the accounts should be taken seriously. This is also a good reason to interject once more that interested readers ought to avail themselves of the easily accesible online course, Introduction to New Testament History and Literature by Prof. Dale B. Martin of Yale University. (Roughly on a par with my 'Introduction to the New Testament' course taken at Loyola in 1964-65. ) The compilation of course sessions, all on video, can be accessed via this link:

http://oyc.yale.edu/religious-studies/rlst-152

And the one I recommend most for those short on time is No.13, dealing with the "Historical Jesus" (link below):


http://oyc.yale.edu/religious-studies/rlst-152/lecture-13


Textual criticism and analysis not only exposes the inadequacies in distinct texts of the NT, but through the whole bible via the propagation of errors concept. Consider: from the earliest OT scribblings (12 th century BC) to the final establishment of the NT corpus at the Council of Trent (16th century) more than 28 centuries elapsed! That is, twenty- eight centuries for copyist errors to propagate through millennia and not be caught and for enormous mistranslations to emerge because of said errors. Even worse, the Trent corpus was not even the final word or revision, the good Book was then bastardized compliments of Henry VIII of England who enjoined the fabrication of the King James Bible which is even less trustworthy than any of the Catholic versions! Trustworthiness itself was often determined by consensus in the earliest writings and codices. Most present day fundamentalists aren’t even remotely aware that the content they are claiming today as “literal or inerrant words” were in fact originally “passed by committee” !


While it is natural for fundamentalist critics to gloss over all this, as they claim some "inerrant original text inspired by God" still exists, the bottom line is that the ball is still in their court, and with it the burden of proof. So far, they've produced or proven no pure original text and have only, for some reason, placed all their faith in the King James version as the authentic descendent of that original. Which is pure poppycock. We know, for example, it was transcribed from an entire corrupted 12th century mistranslated text substituted for the Latin Vulgate (by Erasmus) then reconstructed and issued long after the mismatch could be easily tracked. Subsequent exegetical experts were able to do this by comparing the language in the original mss. but even a novice can ascertain the monumental deficiencies just by ferreting out all the glaring contradictions, many of which are not minor by any means! (Though objecting fundies often claim they are).


As an example, consider just the question (at the core of most orthodox Christian doctrine): 'Will everyone get saved?'  Simple, eh? One would certainly think any extant, "divinely inspired" and "inerrant" Bible would uniformly get its answers right (no contradiction), but the KJV fails on all counts! One finds (on excavating the relevant answers from the gospels and other sources) that a 'YES!' answer is located in: John 12:32; Rom. 5:18, 11:32; 1Col 15:22; Col 1:20; 1Tim 2:4,6; 1John 2:2, but the 'NAY!' also exists and is found in Matt. 7:13-14; Luke 13:23-24.


My point here? IF the KJV (or any other version of the Bible) was truly an authentic carryover version of the "original original word of God" there'd be no ambiguity whatever. Nor can the argument be made that faulty "humans" were responsible, since if that happens then the de facto admission is made that the Bible is a human invention. Surely, if the divine word was so critical, then an inspired work ought to have ensured no disparity or deviations in such a critical message! As for the resort to "hermeneutics" to try to explain it away, this is a non-starter.

Recall that hermeneutics asks what the writer (in that vernacular) actually meant in the idiom of his day (NOT our day!) and what losses in meaning that idiom encountered as it was transcribed to other languages in succession. Thus the primary objective of exegesis is interpreting what the passage in the original language meant in terms of its OWN CONTEXT not simply putting it into the new one. THIS is why so many biblical literalists foul up and end up in a ditch.

As I noted in an earlier blog, the process for the literalist is basically 1:1 onto:

[Text x] -> [Text x]


Thus, [text x] undergoes no modification from what their eyes detect or parse in the passage.


In fact, there are three primary phases of the hermeneutics process so that at least three stages have to be covered, so:


[text x] -> [1] ->[2] –[3] -> [Text Z]


Even this is oversimplified, since technically each step also needs to be checked and parsed from one language to the other. For example, what did the author mean in Aramaic? What did he mean when this was transferred to GREEK? What did he mean when this Greek was transferred to Latin? What did he mean when the Latin went to English? Then step [2] – repeating the same sequence. When we did exegesis at Loyola we used columns for the four main languages and parsed each passage for EACH step before arriving at the final meaning. (As anyone who's ever studied foreign languages knows- and I've studied Latin, Russian, German and Spanish- it is essentially impossible to get a perfect translation from one to another!)


What we acknowledge in doing this procedure is the fact that we have NO ORIGINALS of any scriptures, only error-ridden copies (as the evidence I presented earlier shows). But, if we can take the passages through the above sequence, then let the light of the historical research shine upon the effort, we can at least approach the truth. We are not so naïve as to claim or expect we HAVE the truth, since hermeneutics itself – its very use- is a tacit admission one can’t take passages literally.


The many logia in the Gospels would, if they could convincingly be shown derived from a single personality or source, be strong evidence that a historical Jesus existed. But such is not the case. In tandem textual analysis and historical research (see the Yale lecture)discloses we are left with an artifact created or invented by eager followers.

People need to remember this, especially those currently going ga-ga over Burnett’s puerile ‘Bible’ retelling on the (pseudo-) History Channel!