1. The truth in religion

Comment #85388 by CHeard on November 5, 2007 at 5:05 pm

Steve99, is the following paragraph (from #125) complete? It seems to end in mid-sentence.

Ah, but you are missing another option. That laws of cause and effect have to hold when talking about the Universe and its origin even when considering purely natural phenomena. Below the Planck time, they just don't work any more, and according to some models of the origin of the Universe, causality as we understand it

Also, what bibliography would you (or anyone else reading this) suggest as a primer for a nonspecialist on early-universe cosmology, multiverse models, and the like? My recent (well, going on 10+ years now) science reeducation has been mainly in biology, not physics.

2. The truth in religion

Comment #85376 by CHeard on November 5, 2007 at 3:46 pm

Friends, it looks like one of my posts was lost during posting. Here it is ... I haven't bothered to edit it, so it's just as incoherent as when I first wrote it late at night.
-----
Veronique (81) wrote:

Chris – you are back. I never got an answer from you to my very basic question about religion. Is it possible that you can answer it now? I know you are busy and it has been several weeks since I asked.

You can see from my earlier post that I am still caught at that very basic point. I don't want theologically erudite expositions. I need an answer to my basic question. I will re-state it for you:

I am far less interested in the minutiae of theological argumentation on specifics, as I am in the basic argument for belief in an unseen, un-evidenced and hidden god. That premise is what halts me right at the beginning. I cannot get past it.

It's a basic question and I would like to see it addressed without prevarication and slippy, slidey, sideways obfuscation. Can you oblige, please?

Yes, I have been intending to get back to this for some time, but as you say, the "Leprechology" thread sort of dwindled out. In any event, I'll give it a shot now. I do ask your indulgence on a couple of matters. First, I will have to approach this autobiographically. I will have to tell you what makes sense to me, to approach this as explication rather than persuasion. Secondly, I feel I should make it clear that it's only quite recently that I've started to rigorously interrogate some of my core religious beliefs, rather than taking them as presuppositions. Some of my colleagues just seem to shake their heads and let the challenges of Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett, et al. roll off their backs like the proverbial water off a duck's back; to me, these challenges are more like a firehose in the face. In some ways, listening to Dennett's AAI '07 speech was like looking to a very unnerving mirror. I have not yet been persuaded that my theistic beliefs are wrong, but I'm somewhat less confident in their rightness than I was, say, five years ago.

Okay, with that long preamble, here goes.

To begin with, at this point in time, I still find something convincing about "regress" arguments, and actually the more so as I come to better understand current scientific thinking on the early universe. It seems to me—and please remember that I am an educated amateur, but very definitely a nonspecialist, when it comes to science, so if I get something grossly wrong, please correct me gently—that there are only three basic possible answers to the question of why our space-time universe exists at all: (1) it's just that way, it's just a brute fact; (2) it was generated by unintelligent, "natural" forces within a multiverse in which the creation of universes is happening all the time; or (3) it was generated by a creative intelligent agency, e.g., a minimally deist-style "God." It's my understanding—again, correct me if I'm wrong—that speculations about multiple universes are not held in very high esteem by leading astrophysicists and cosmologists, and I haven't done very much reading about those notions anyway, so I'll focus on (1) and (3). To me, (3) seems to work better than (1). I freely admit that my a priori Christian bias may be unduly influencing this judgment, although you will have to take my word for it that I've tried to adjust for that bias. Accepting (1) is unsatisfying to me because it entails that our space-time universe simply came into existence spontaneously, in effect, of its own accord. This affirmation does not actually explain the coming-into-existence of our universe at t=0; it merely accepts the fact. However, (3) offers an actual explanation of the coming-into-existence of our universe at t=0. I am well aware of Dawkins's objections to "regress-terminus" arguments in The God Delusion, but I don't think he quite gives such arguments their due. Objecting to a claim like (3) with a question like "Who designed the designer?" seems to me to push known principles of causality from within space-time to the outside of space-time. If there is, so to speak, any entity outside of space-time, there is no reason to think that said entity is subject to laws of cause and effect that would even be comprehensible to us, bounded as we are by our understanding of things from within space-time. In short, it seems more convincing to me to think that space-time has a "creator" who is outside of space-time itself than to take space-time merely as a brute fact. Put another way: postulating something outside the system as an explanation for the existence of the system makes more sense to me than postulating a self-generating system. I realize that all this talk of "satisfying" and "convincing" explanations makes the argument sound almost aesthetic, but I'm not sure we can get on any better footing unless we can find a way to observe space-time from outside of space-time (I don't think our technology will ever enable this) or we get vastly more information about the universe from t=0 to t=10^-43, I'm afraid we may be stuck with making judgments about what is "satisfying" and "convincing." Hopefully, agree or disagree, you find the foregoing relatively clear and free of obfuscation (intentional obfuscation, at any rate).

Should anyone happen to agree with that paragraph, it only gets us to a minimal sort of deism. I'm afraid I'll have to stop here for the night—there are some other things I need to do before crashing into bed, and it's already 10:45 PM here—but I'll try to come back and explain (again in autobiographical/descriptive rather than prescriptive mode) why I continue to affiliate myself with a specifically Christian tradition.

3. The truth in religion

Comment #85072 by CHeard on November 4, 2007 at 9:51 pm

Dear Quine,

here's a quick run-down of some of the evidence regarding the "canonicity" of the gospels. Please remember that the Christian church never had a single authority figure or group empowered to make such decisions for all Christians everywhere, not even the Council of Nicea (325). Instead, the "canonical process" was a distributed, ad hoc process of sorting through available writings and reaching a Christendom-wide consensus. No consensus was ever reached for the Old Testament, but a consensus was eventually reached for the New Testament. Also, please remember that Constantine's Edict of Milan is dated to 313.

It sounds like you know that the best early evidence is Codex Sinaiticus, which appears to be mid-4th-century and thus post-Constantine. Likewise, Athansius's 39th Festal Letter (for anyone who doesn't know: it was Athanasius's job to write a letter every year telling all the churches when to celebrate Easter) of 367 is the oldest document, apparently, to list exactly the 27 books that are now universally recognized as the Christian New Testament, but this too is post-Constantine and thus doesn't answer Quine's question.

Eusebius, famous as "the first church historian," was contemporaneous with Constantine, but his famous fourfold division of the works then contending for Christian attention almost certainly reflects conditions already obtaining before Constantine's involvement in church affairs. Eusebieus's Ecclesiastical History was apparently completed after the Edict of Milan but before the Council of Nicea. Eusebius is also useful because his categories are descriptive rather than prescriptive. Eusebius devised the following categories: (1) writings that are "recognized" by all Christians as scripture; (2) writings that are "disputed," being acclaimed scripture by some Christians but not others; (3) writings that are of "spurious" authenticity; and (4) "heretical" writings. The important thing for our purposes here is that Eusebius mentions "the holy quaternion of the Gospels" in the category "recognized"; that is, Eusebius claims that (before the Council of Nicea, and probably even before the Edict of Milan) all Christians everywhere (known to him, at any rate) accepted those four gospels as "scripture." He placed the gospels of Peter, Thomas, and Matthias in the "heretical" category, by the way, showing that in "orthodox" (read: majority) Christianity, that distinction had already taken place in pre-Constantinian Christian debate.

Eusebius is close enough to Constantine to be debatable, perhaps, but not Origen (185-253/254). Origen wrote that the church has four gospels, while heretics have many.

Tertullian (c. 160-220) wrote about the gospels in opposition to Marcion, who sought to limit Christian scripture to one gospel (a heavily edited version of Luke) plus some of Paul's letters. In Against Marcion 4.2, Tertullian wrote, "Of the apostles, therefore, John and Matthew first instill faith into us; whilst of apostolic men, Luke and Mark renew it afterwards." Recall that Tertullian is writing against Marcion, who wants to shrink the number of gospels to just one; against him, Tertullian writes of four.

There's also the Muratorian Canon—a fragment of text that lists books good to read aloud in church—which numbers the gospels as four, and lists them in the now-standard order. However, the date of the Muratorian fragment is disputed; many scholars date it to c. 200, while others put it closer to 400, post-Athanasius.

Irenaeus (c. 120-200) insisted that there were exactly four gospels, in his book Against Heresies. His reasoning was stupid: he said that there must be four gospels because there are four compass points and four winds, and cherubim have four faces. Nevertheless, he attests to the enumeration of the gospels as four, and specifically notes them as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

The earliest reference we have to the four gospels is in fragments from a guy named Papias. He is the one who gives us the traditional names of the gospel writers as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. He claimed that the Greek version of Matthew was a translation of a Hebrew (i.e,. Aramaic) original. Fragments of Papias's writings survive only in quotations in other writers, but we can date Papias to the first half of the 2nd century CE, c. 110-140 for his writing career. Ironically, Papias also said it was better to get the scoop from a preacher than from a book.

Of course, none of this guarantees the accuracy of anything in the gospels; that's a totally separate claim and a totally separate discussion. What these considerations show is that we can really have a fairly high degree of confidence that by 200 CE there was a pretty solid consensus in the "orthodox" (read: majority) church on the four canonical gospels. The "fourfold gospel" is a second-century phenomenon, not a fourth-century one.

4. The truth in religion

Comment #84912 by CHeard on November 4, 2007 at 7:22 am

Veronique (92)

The Gautama Buddha (circa: 563BCE to 483BCE) was different but not by much. His teachings were not committed to writing until about 400 years after his death (yes! he did die; how unusual).

Yeah, but he wouldn't stay dead until the Chinese authorities outlawed his reincarnation last month.

5. The truth in religion

Comment #84911 by CHeard on November 4, 2007 at 7:20 am

BAEOZ (78)

Thanks for the reply and clarifications. I still want to wrangle about one point, though.

I don't know who wrote your post, but I do know it wasn't the apostles. A bunch of illiterate Aramaic speakers wouldn't write down gospels in greek or your post in English (especially when they aren't around). That was my poorly attempted point.

Seems to me that your argument assumes facts not in evidence, namely, that Jesus's closest followers were illiterate. But that's just a gratuitous assumption. Second-century church tradition has it that "Matthew" was a tax collector and "Luke" was a physician—if so, good shot at both being literate in both Aramaic and Greek (whether the tradition is correct in attaching those names to the gospels is a different matter, and not at all certain, I cheerfully admit). According to the gospels, some of Jesus's apostles were not just "unlettered fishermen," but more like managers in a fishing business—again, a good shot at some degree of literacy. It's equally impossible to demonstrate the apostles' illiteracy as their literacy, at this remove, but it's by no means impossible, nor even really implausible, that a few of Jesus's twelve apostles may have been literate.

Of course, literacy doesn't guarantee accuracy, or inherently counteract gullibility. But I think precision never hurts when thinking about these things.

As for the "rewritings" and "adaptations," sorry if I wasn't quite clear. My point is that it's probably inaccurate to think in terms of a long sequence of rewritings and redactions for the gospels, on the model of the Hebrew biblical documents (which often do show evidence of such a history). It's not as if the immediate authors of the gospels wrote an account without reference to any prophecies, and then later writers inserted those. Rather, the original gospel writers put in the prophecies from the very beginning, and reinterpreted those prophecies with reference to Jesus, and reinterpreted Jesus in light of those prophecies. My point was that these "adaptations" happened in the originals; no "rewritings" required.

6. Are the 'New Atheists' avoiding the 'real arguments'?

Comment #84862 by CHeard on November 4, 2007 at 1:35 am

Dear phil rimmer (52), I've only just read the piece (having gotten so far behind on my so-called daily reading that there are 826 unread items in my RSS aggregator). I do think that Standing presents a strong rebuttal to the "argument" that Dawkins et al. attack straw people.

Yet I don't think he puts the problem entirely to rest. The problem, as I see it, is not so much attacking straw people, but rather the variety within, for example, Christendom (to stick with the religious traditions I know best). There are many Christians who, let's say, do not affirm the Nicene Creed (or only agree with parts of it), yet hold Jesus-centered religious convictions that, at least in their own minds, qualify them to be Christians.

In my judgment, one of the weaknesses of the arguments made by Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris (I cannot comment on Dennet, as all I know of his work is the AAI '07 speech, and I've only watched it once thus far) is that—like Christian fundamentalists, ironically—their arguments seem to presuppose that change within a religious tradition is illegitimate, and they seem just as willing as a Falwell or Robertson to tell Christians what they must believe in order to count as Christians. Certainly Standing does this in the piece to which we are all responding here.

It's 1:30 AM here and I fear that if I type any more at this sitting, I will start to become incoherent. I suppose that if I were to respond, what I would want to say is something like (that was for all the McGrath fans on the thread): the specifically Christian beliefs that Dawkins, Hitchens, et al. attack are actual beliefs held by at least some Christians; they are not inventing straw arguments to knock down. However, there is such variety within Christianity that some of the arguments are bound to "miss" any particular Christian thinker or Christian sub-tradition, and that's what gives rise, I think, to the "not my religion!" objection.

7. The truth in religion

Comment #84857 by CHeard on November 4, 2007 at 1:09 am

TheCelestialTeapot (13)

Something I have come to notice after months of reading similar articles to this one is that none of the religious ever bring up Dennett's book Breaking the Spell. I think the reason that it often goes unmentioned when the religous are making claims that "Dawkins and Hitchens don't understand theology" or that "this is not my religion" is because Dennett offers the argument that the religious are claiming that the other athiest books do not.

Another difference between The God Delusion, God Is Not Great, and The End of Faith on the one hand, and Breaking the Spell on the other, is that—last time I checked, at least—BTS isn't available in unabridged audio format on Audible.com. :-(

8. The truth in religion

Comment #84856 by CHeard on November 4, 2007 at 1:05 am

BAEOZ (74)

We don't know who wrote them. We know they were not written by anybody who knew Jesus (granting that he existed, which no historian worth his salt would grant). They were selected by Constantine. They were written and rewritten to make it look like Jesus was prophesized. But this is false.

My dear BAEOZ, you're overstating the case here. While it's true that we don't know with absolute certainty who wrote the four canonical gospels, we do possess very early traditions about their authorship. Just how reliable those traditions are is, of course, up for debate, and certainty is impossible—but then, do we really know with certainty that Julius Caesar wrote De Bello Gallico?

Moreover, it is logically incoherent to say "we don't know who wrote them" and "we know they weren't written by eyewitnesses," for if we don't know the first, we can't know the second. Traditionally, two of the gospel writers have been thought to be eyewitnesses ("Matthew" and "John"), though there's considerable uncertainty here; the questions about "Mark" are bigger; and if we take "Luke's" word for it in the first paragraph of his book, he certainly was not an eyewitness but interviewed some. In short, your statement doesn't allow for enough degrees of variance.

The line about Constantine is just flat wrong. The four canonical gospels had achieved that status well before Constantine. Usually I find your comments insightful or at least entertaining, but that particular sentence sounded like you were channeling the woefully underinformed Dan Brown.

As for the prophecies, it didn't take multiple rewritings. From the very beginning the gospel writers adapted older writings and the story of Jesus's life to mesh more nicely with one another.

9. The truth in religion

Comment #84853 by CHeard on November 4, 2007 at 12:55 am

Baron Ochs (49) wrote:

[Polkinghorne:] When it asserts that Jesus' call to love our neighbour referred only to relations between Jews (despite this claim being in clear contradiction to the point of the parable of the Good Samaritan)

This claim is not in "clear contradiction" to the Samaritan story as Polkinghorne well knows! Samaritans comprised I think ten of the twelve israelite tribes? The "Real Jews" were members of the tribe of Judah, from which the name comes. (And the final tribe of course is Levi who were not confined to a single local)

So The Samaritan stroy deals with Zenophobia that is nevertheless within the israelite loop, not the more deep divide between Jews and Gentiles.

BaronOchs, while there was certainly a very significant "family resemblance" between the religions of Judeans and Samaritans in Roman-era Palestine, there's no reliable way to trace any genealogical connection. In any event, there was a pretty significant divide between those two groups in that era, and referring to that divide as "within the Israelite loop" is an outsider's view, not an insider's view.

Regardless of the specific Judean-Samaritan schism, at any rate, the above really is one of Dawkins's weaker arguments (although, if I recall correctly—it having been several months since I read TGD—it was more of an aside than a major point). There are a number of stories in the gospels in which Jesus is said to have treated Gentiles as well as, or even better than, he treated his fellow Jews. Any painting of Jesus as xenophobic—which necessarily must rely on those same gospels for evidence—will end up holding no water.

(Of course, one cannot then say, "Therefore, Jesus was divine. QED." I wouldn't even attempt to make such a leap.)

10. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #82787 by CHeard on October 27, 2007 at 3:00 pm

Hey - I just wanted to apologize to those of you (Quine, gr8hands, Veronique, etc.) with whom I was conversing on this threat for dropping out of sight. I've been very busy offline and, also, I live in southern California and the last week I have been preoccupied with the fires & catching up after the fires. Hope we have more chances to converse on other threads.

11. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #79583 by CHeard on October 17, 2007 at 9:00 pm

Quine (1264)

Chris, be sure to add Ann Coulter to your post of things that make Atheists angry.

Another thing we have in common.

12. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #77859 by CHeard on October 11, 2007 at 12:04 am

Quine (1194), it's very hard to reconstruct oral traditions, as you probably know. I am reasonably certain that the stories in Genesis 1–11 were transmitted chiefly, if not exclusively, in oral form up until a point not earlier than the 8th century BCE, and maybe even later. Some of the stories may even have been composed starting in the 8th century or so. The critical/scholarly consensus in the early 20th century was that Genesis 1–11 was a composite of two different sources, the J source which critics dated to the 10th or 9th centuries BCE, and the P source which critics dated to the 6th or 5th centuries BCE. The trend nowadays is to push J later and P earlier. In my dissertation, I argued that the Abraham stories are a product of precisely the period you mentioned, the period of Persian rule over the small western province of Yehud (Ezra's milieu, if Ezra was a real person).

Thanks to everyone who has pointed to the Thomson video link and to various Dan Dennett videos/audios. I will check them out as I am able. Scheduling is the only deterrent. I am a bit bummed that none of Dennett's books seem to be available on Audible.com; my 40-minute commute is a great time to catch up on books that way.

Veronique (1144), I'm sorry that I haven't addressed your question yet. I'm not ignoring it or trying to dodge it; I'm just trying to find time to address it thoughtfully instead of slap-dash. I hope you can forgive the delay.

13. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #77280 by CHeard on October 9, 2007 at 12:03 am

Many thanks to those of you who responded to my question about "atheist anger." I have blogged my reactions to the lecture (http://www.heardworld.com/higgaion/?p=783).

I also see that revcort (1142) has weighed in on Genesis 6:1-4 as follows:

On at least one point, I'd say that the majority of biblical scholars disagree with his his take. It's the whole business of some "council of gods" and the phrase, "Let us make man in our image." I would say that the vast majority say this is simply a reference to the trinity- the triune nature of God. So, that would be, "Let us (that is, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) make man in our image."

It's true that some interpreters—mostly very conservative Christians—try to read the Trinity into the plural divine pronouns in Genesis 1 and 11, and Isaiah 6 (I can't think of any other such passages off the top of my tired head this evening). However, serious biblical scholars—I'm talking about Ph.D.s who earn their living studying and publishing on the Bible, who actually read the Bible in Hebrew and are conversant with a wide range of cognate literatures from the ancient Near East—barely take this interpretation into account, and do so more or less simply out of politeness to those who do advance the view.

I will say this- if that is a reference to multiple gods, then there's no sense in being a Christian. We're wasting our time. If I truly believed that, I could make a strong argument for becoming an atheist- whether I wanted to be angry about it or not. :D

While I have no desire to turn anyone into an atheist, I would actually prefer that outcome to somebody doing violence to the Bible's content in order to remain a Christian.

Psalm 82 (NRSV, with my bracketed annotations])

God [Elohim] has taken his place in the divine council [the assembly of El];
in the midst of the gods [elohim] he holds judgment:
"How long will you judge unjustly …"
I say, "You are gods [elohim],
children of the Most High [sons of Elyon], all of you;
nevertheless, you shall die like mortals,
and fall like any prince."

When you read Psalm 82 in Hebrew, there image is quite clear: Israel's God is one among other gods in an assembly over which El/Elyon presides, and in this psalm that God is upbraiding the other gods for their unjust ways. You just can't really interpret this any other way, except that an argument can be made for seeing El and Elyon as epithets of Israel's Elohim. There's just no way to get rid of the gods here. Nor in Psalm 29, "Ascribe to the Lord [Yahweh], O heavenly beings [sons of gods]." Nor in Genesis 6:1-4. And no, they're not "angels"—not in the Hebrew Bible. There's a totally different vocabulary for "angels" (mal'akim) and "gods" (bene [ha]elohim, bene elim). There's just no way to get around the fact that the ancient Israelites considered the heavens to be more heavily populated than we do. They certainly didn't think that made their religion senseless; if it had, we wouldn't have the Hebrew Bible.

And as for Adam and Eve,

not implying that Adam could become a god. This was a lie that the Serpent told Eve to deceive her into taking from the forbidden fruit to begin with. Adam didn't actually become a god. (though, this whole greek council of gods and goddesses is much more entertaining. great comedy there.

There you go again, rewriting the text to fit your theology. No, really. Take a close, careful look at the text.

Genesis 3:4-5 The serpent said to the woman, "You will not die [when you eat the 'forbidden fruit']; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

Genesis 3:22 Then the LORD God said, "See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever"—

So what lie, exactly, did the serpent tell?

14. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #77057 by CHeard on October 8, 2007 at 10:24 am

Why are you people so angry?

Okay, I say that tongue in cheek. But there's a speech being given tonight at my university, where the title is, "Why Are Atheists So Angry?" I actually have not seen much evidence that atheists are "so angry," nor do I even know how to make sense of the title without an "about …" attached. So, are you angry? If so, what about?

15. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #76942 by CHeard on October 7, 2007 at 10:48 pm

Aargh, another lost post! Very briefly:

Quine (1129) - I don't think Persian religion ever "personified" or "deified" good and evil as abstract concepts; even in Zoroastrianism, there's more to Ahura Mazda and Ahriman than that. As for a "hierarchy of Paradise," I don't even know what that phrase means. ;-p

Goldy (1130) - While I think that "cut and paste" makes the process sound a little too random, you've otherwise hit the nail on the head. There seems to have a been a "conservative" (in the "resistant-to-change" sense) sensibility in the transmission of religious traditions in ancient Israel—even when the old traditions didn't play nicely with newer concepts.

Veronique (1128) - I don't know anything about this Andy Thomson lecture. Where could I find it? Is it substantially different from Hitchens on the same topic?

oxytocin (1131) - I'm addicted to literary criticism. :-)

16. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #76728 by CHeard on October 6, 2007 at 11:51 pm

Quine (1055) asked about Genesis 6:1-4. I'm sorry to have taken so long to respond. I haven't exactly "gone to ground" or abandoned the discussion going on here, but I have been very busy offline. Anyway, Goldy (1056) provided an answer from some site that got some of it right and, well, mixed in some other stuff and seemed to try to treat it all as real history. Here's my take. Since Quine's comment is a long way down the thread now, I'll quote it:

I have had this question about Genesis Chapter 6 that you probably know very well. Here is how it starts from the recent Robert Alter translation:

And it happened as humankind began to multiply over the earth and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were comely, and they took themselves wives howsoever they chose. And the Lord said, "My breath shall not abide in the human forever, for he is but flesh. Let his days be a hundred and twenty years." The Nephilim were then on the earth, and afterward as well, the sons of God having come to bed with the daughters of man who bore them children: they are the heroes of yore, the men of renown.

Where did this last part come from? It seems completely unconnected to all the rest of the scriptures. We have no information about these "sons of God," no idea who were their mothers, why they found the daughters of man so comely, and why none of their descendants (God's grandchildren) were worth saving with Noah? This disconnectedness continues as all these were wiped out in The Flood.

First of all, in the Hebrew Bible, the phrase "sons of X" can be taken in a number of different ways, but here the sense is almost certainly naming members of a class or "species" (so to speak). For example, "the sons of the prophets" are not literally the prophets' male offspring, but are rank-and-file members of the prophetic guild. The phrase "sons of God" in Genesis 6:2 is probably better translated "sons of the gods" and refers to the rank-and-file members of the divine guild, so to speak. The best English translation would simply be "[some of] the gods." They don't really need mothers; if they had mothers, the mothers would be older goddesses, but West Semitic peoples don't seem to have worried too much about giving their gods (especially the nameless, faceless masses) precise genealogies.

It's not quite clear whether the narrator means to say that the Nephilim were the offspring of the mating of the gods with human women, or just that they were around at the same time. As for not saving these offspring from the flood, well, one of the big themes in Genesis 1-11 is the relationship between humanity and divinity. In Genesis 1, humanity is "created in the image of God." But in Genesis 3, humanity only gains godlike knowledge by eating from the magic tree, at which point the gods (apparently ruled or led by Israel's national god, Yahweh—note "The man has become like one of us"; the plural refers to the "divine council" or "assembly of the gods"—and if you doubt that the Israelites believed in such a thing, see Psalm 82) kick them out so they won't become immortal and really be gods/godlike. So in Gen 3 we have a story about humanity trying to bridge the divine/human divide, and getting slapped down for it. In Gen 6 we have a story about gods trying to bridge the divine/human divide, and getting slapped down for it (implicitly). The authors—or at least the redactors—are trying to make the point that humans are in some sense "godlike," but that humans shouldn't carry this comparison too far.

Curiously, though, there are Nephilim, or at least their descendants, around after the supposedly genocidal (species-a-cidal?) flood. See Numbers 13:33; the Israelite spies claim to have seen "the Nephilim" while scoping out Canaan, and the narrator says as an aside, "The Anakites come from the Nephilim." So at least one strand of tradition holds that the Nephilim, or at least their descendants, were still around after the flood. (And it will do no good for those who want the flood story to be history to claim that Noah was part Nephilim, because then everybody would be part Nephilim and the Israelite spies wouldn't have contrasted themselves with the descendants of that group).

Later traditions (e.g., in the books of Enoch and Jubilees) would expand the story and add great detail about how the gods—demoted in the Hellenistic period to "angel" status—came to earth and, in an adaptation of the Prometheus myth, taught humans how to make horrible things like weapons, magic spells, and cosmetics. These gods-become-angels from Jewish tradition later morphed into the "fallen angels" and "demons" of the Christian tradition; their leader became "the Devil."

As for why the gods found human women so comely—just look around you, man!

17. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #75797 by CHeard on October 3, 2007 at 4:39 pm

Bonzai (1020),

Although I am vaguely acquainted with Ehrman and his work, I have not read Misquoting Jesus. I'd like to, but just haven't found the time, and since my work is primarily in the Hebrew Bible, Erhman just hasn't risen to the top of the "to-read" list. Sorry, I cannot really comment intelligently on his book at this time. Loved his appearance on Colbert, though.

18. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #75490 by CHeard on October 2, 2007 at 7:48 pm

Hmmm. It looks like one of my recent posts has gone missing—perhaps I clicked "Preview" and then failed to click "Submit" after proofreading. Well, I won't try to reconstruct it, but I was going to agree with gr8hands against revcort that there's lots of changing going on across time in ancient Israelite religion, then Judaism, then Christianity. Even on the small scale, God (as a character in biblical narratives, whatever else God might or might not be) changes the divine mind with some frequency.

In fact, it's funny that the statement "God is not mortal, that he should change his mind" occurs in precisely two Tanakh/Old Testament passages, Numbers 23:19 and 1 Sam 15:29. In both cases, these words are spoken by a character (Balaam and Samuel) who should know better, because God has been flip-flopping in the immediate context! In fact, Samuel's statement, "God is not mortal, that he should change his mind [Hebrew nacham]" occurs just after God said to Samuel, "I have changed my mind [Hebrew nacham] about making Saul king …" Clearly these statements are portrayed ironically in their immediate literary contexts (unless the passages are just plain incoherent, but I give the authors more credit than that for literary artistry).

19. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #75488 by CHeard on October 2, 2007 at 7:41 pm

walk,

It's possible that I didn't make myself clear. I have no objection to anybody doing what the Jesus Project proposes to do. My point is simply that there isn't really much of a "project" there. My reference to wishful thinking isn't a reference to whatever conclusions the project might reach, but whether the organizers can actually get a 50-scholar project going at all. The announcement very much "jumped the gun," listing fellows who hadn't agreed to be part of the project—and some who had no business being on a "historical Jesus" project anyway. Anybody who wants to examine the scant evidence for Jesus's existence should certainly do so, as thoroughly as possible. But I don't think you should put together a list of scholars you plan to invite to your party and advertise it as if the project is already firmly underway.

20. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #75421 by CHeard on October 2, 2007 at 3:20 pm

walk (996)

I'm sure most here are aware of this, but the topic of the historical evidence for the existence of Jesus is about to be studied in depth by The Jesus Project. Info can be viewed here: http://www.jesus-project.com/intro.htm

The biblical scholars and theologians that are participating will meet twice a year for the next five years with the goal of trying to reach a "probable" conclusion. Should be interesting.

The Jesus Project is, at this point, a bunch of wishful thinking by the project organizers. The website describes what they want to do—not what any scholars have actually committed to doing. In fact, they posted the names and bios of a whole bunch of "fellows" of the project who had no idea what the project was or why they were listed as fellows. For more, see:

http://www.heardworld.com/higgaion/?p=708
http://www.heardworld.com/higgaion/?p=714
http://www.heardworld.com/higgaion/?p=726

21. Scientists Feel Miscast in Film on Life's Origin

Comment #74396 by CHeard on September 28, 2007 at 2:21 pm

Myryama (19)

Is it a coincidence that Ben Stein's initials are shorthand for something else? Maybe God is having a little joke at his expense...

Heh. The same holds for my academic field, "biblical studies." And in the US Library of Congress cataloging system, the call number on all books about the Bible starts with "BS …" Which means I have shelves full of BS in my office.

Matt7895 (30)

Maybe there's a legal action Richard can pursue in regards to this shameful documentary?

Probably not, as he almost certainly signed a release or waiver to allow his likeness and interview to be used in the film itself. I've had a similar experience myself, though I think not as egregious as what Richard, Eugenie, PZ etc. experienced (http://www.heardworld.com/higgaion/?p=744).

22. Teacher: I was fired, said Bible isn't literal

Comment #74394 by CHeard on September 28, 2007 at 2:12 pm

The Des Moines Register has a new unsigned editorial today about Bitterman's firing. Near the beginning, the editorial takes the school administration to task for keeping mum on its reasons for firing Bitterman. Then here are the last four paragraphs:

For faculty and students, institutions of higher education should be havens for free inquiry into the most controversial topics. It's outrageous if Bitterman's expression of his interpretation of a biblical passage figured in his dismissal.

Yet, neither should anyone in America - in a classroom or elsewhere - be belittled for their religious beliefs. Giving free rein to discussion doesn't mean condoning a lack of civility, or worse, harassment.

One thing, though, is crystal clear: This story sends a message to all college students in Iowa that if your instructor says something offensive, you can complain and maybe get the instructor fired.

That is a very dangerous message to send when it comes to higher education - a place where students should be exposed to new ideas and have their thoughts challenged.

The last two paragraphs are, I think, especially important.

23. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #74387 by CHeard on September 28, 2007 at 11:43 am

Russell Blackford (895)

Hmmm, one gets the gist of Hitchens' meaning but I'm not clear whether in those passages he means "canonical" where he writes "synoptic" or whether in one case he does actually mean "gnostic". Of course, it's not an error that's fatal to the book's overall argument or even to the main point he's making here.

It's only human to make a few slips like this, and they should normally be picked up in the editorial process.

I agree with everything Russell said here, except that I don't think a case can be made that "gnostic" could ever have stood in for "synoptic" in the quotation from Hitchens. It pretty much has to be "canonical" that should have stood where "synoptic" actually stands. Which is why I partially disagree with Dr Benway (894)

The quoties suggest this bit ought to be read tongue-in-cheek, with an attitude that bollocks is bollocks no matter how the hairs are split. Fair use of "synoptic" then, which has the general meaning of "presenting or taking the same point of view."

I don't think the quoties make any difference whatsoever to the point that pairing "synoptic" and "apocryphal" does not generate a meaningful contrast, and it makes no sense to say that anybody decided what should be considered "synoptic." "Canonical" and "apocryphal" status are conferred by churches, but whether or not two books are "synoptic" is a simple observational datum, a textual analogy to the simple observational datum of whether two genes are "homologous."

It seems clear that either (a) Hitchens has misunderstood the meaning of the word "synoptic," or (b) he inadvertently wrote "synoptic" instead of "canonical" and the error wasn't caught in proofreading, or (c) he actually wrote "canonical" and some editor changed it to "synoptic" and introduced an error where there wasn't one before. I haven't enough data to identify which of these is closest to actual events. In any case, I still agree with Russell that it's a minor gaffe and by no means a fatal flaw. I want to make sure I'm not misunderstood on this point: we religious folk don't get to ignore Hitchens's whole argument just because of a vocabulary slip-up, although a pattern of slip-ups might suggest a bit of carelessness.

Plus, I imagine if the error were pointed out to Hitchens, he would check the dictionary and respond with something like, "Oops. I'll be sure that gets corrected in the second edition." Compare and contrast with Behe in Dover …

24. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #74352 by CHeard on September 28, 2007 at 8:00 am

Goatsbane J (873)

As a teacher of whatever exactly it's called, at wherever it is that you teach it, are you knowledgeable of the sorts of theology teaching that go on at other universities? For example, in the UK? I might as well come clean. A friend of mine has just started at Durham (theology for entering the ministry). I'm just interested to know what she's in for. (Although why I should care, I don't know; she's very happy in her faith and clearly not interested in my pesky nay-saying.)

I call it "biblical studies" (not "theology"—because I'm perfectly happy describing what people thousands of years ago wrote and thought, but translating those statements into ontological claims about a real God is fraught with difficulty.

I'm afraid I don't know too much about what goes on in British theology instruction at the university level.

25. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #74351 by CHeard on September 28, 2007 at 7:57 am

gr8hands (890), thanks for the page numbers, which are of course missing from my audiobook version. :-) Again, I would just like to clarify that my only point in mentioning such minor gaffes is to say that, if for whatever reason one is only going to read one of TGD or gING, that TGD is in my estimation the better book.

26. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #74258 by CHeard on September 28, 2007 at 1:39 am

Russell Blackford (859)

It would be good to see the contemporary cyber-sensibility reflected in such a course. Maybe some Greg Egan stories or William Gibson's Pattern Recognition.

I'm afraid that my colleague who put together the syllabus might not be very familiar with the estimable Mr. Gibson's oeuvre.

On the topic of novels, though, I recently finished one called Eifelheim that was quite stimulating. It's written by Michael Flynn. The premise is that an alien spacecraft "crash lands" (for lack of a better term; the ship doesn't actually fly through space, but moves via folds in spacetime) in the Black Forest in 1348. In fits and starts, the aliens are befriended by one Father Dietrich (he's a Catholic priest, but basically a rationalist) and are gradually integrated into medieval German life with, as you might expect, interesting results. William of Occam even puts in a guest appearance before everybody dies of the Black Plague. I think Flynn did a fine job of imagining how a sophisticated medieval priest might react upon meeting a group of technologically advanced aliens.

27. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #74255 by CHeard on September 28, 2007 at 1:31 am

NormanDoering (857),

Oh, really? That sounds a bit like the stock criticism Dawkins was talking about in the leprechology article above. You assume your sources are more correct than Hitchens?

I'd bet my Ph.D. in biblical studies on it.

And revcort would assume that the "Answers in Genesis" web site is a more correct source on arguments about the age of the Earth than your average geologist.

But he's wrong–and he's not a geologist. Neither, for that matter, is Hitchens, but Hitchens at least listens to and learns from real scientists. I am a genuine biblical scholar, the real deal, and when somebody plays in my sandbox I am in fact capable of picking up on the occasional stray error.

Why be vague. What are these errors?

Ack, i knew somebody would ask that. I'm now about 3/4 through the audiobook version, so it's hard to go back and look things up. I can't give you page numbers. One example is pretty fresh on my mind. At one point Hitchens says (he narrates his own book, and here too Richard does a better job) that a church council decided which gospels would be considered "synoptic" and which ones would be left out of the Bible. That's simply incorrect. "Synoptic" is a term coined in nineteenth-century biblical scholarship to distinguish the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke from the gospel of John. The former three are quite similar in structure, having the same basic storyline and a lot of precise verbal overlap (as well as some very striking differences, don't get me wrong) suggesting a "family tree" relationship between them. Hence the term "synoptic," derived from Greek terms for "seen together." The gospel of John is quite different from the other three, and hence is not labeled "synoptic." For some reason, scholars found it easier to say "the synoptic gospels" than "the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke." The "synoptic problem" is the question of the interrelationship between the three "synoptics"—who copied from whom, who changed what, etc. Nobody "decided" on which gospels would be "synoptic" and which ones wouldn't; these three happened to be extremely similar in certain interesting respects, and therefore scholars invented a label for that similarity.

I've noticed at least three or four other gaffes like this in the first 13 chapters of God Is Not Great. I don't remember that many basic factual mistakes in TGD or, for that matter, The End of Faith.

On the other hand, some individual posts (I won't name names, but you can guess) around here present more errors about the Bible than the whole of Hitchens' book, so everything's relative. My major point was that if you're only going to read one of The God Delusion or God Is Not Great, I'd personally recommend the former. And I wouldn't say differently on ChristopherHitchens.net either. ;-)

28. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #74249 by CHeard on September 28, 2007 at 1:14 am

Hobbit,

Here are some quick answers to your questions. I'll try to keep it brief because I'm short on time tonight.

Why only exerts from "Origins of Species"?

Because The Origin of Species is a longish book, and we're asking them to read selected chapters of Miller's Finding Darwin's God the same day. Assigning selected chapters is a decision driven entirely by time constraints. For Darwin, we're using a volume in the Penguin Classics series that goes under the title <On Natural Selection; it's actually excerpts from The Origin of Species.

What is the preface given to the students before they are sent of to read these texts?

Very little. We sometimes suggest questions the students might want to keep in mind while reading, but mostly we turn them loose to read. We do, in fact, encourage them to "read each of them with an open mind" and "come to their own conclusions"—that is the whole point of the course.

After they have all read these books (you should do the same), have them write out what they liked and disliked about each text, what they agreed with and disagreed with in each text and why?

Our course is very writing-intensive. No later than two hours before each class, students must post (in our school's Blackboard 7.2 course management system) one paragraph identifying a significant issue in the text that they find worthy of our discussion. In the actual seminar, we have a relatively unstructured discussion that takes its cue (when things are going well) from student interests. We encourage analysis and evaluation of each text—including the biblical ones, although as I stated before, because of their upbringing many of our students find it hard to give themselves permission to disagree with the biblical writers.

After they have heard all the arguments for and against god, ask them to provide evidence for both his existence and non existence. Then ask them to provide evidence for and against evolution, that the age of the earth is 6010 years and the age of the universe. In order to do this, the will need to engage in independent research.

There is merit in all of these suggestions, though there is also only a limited amount of time and energy we can expect for a single course. The age of the earth did come up this week, mostly because several of my students wanted Noah's flood to be a historical event in real space-time. Anyway, the short answer is that there are more "big questions" than creationism, including matters of love, friendship, politics, justice, race relations, etc. that we also want to address. (FYI, if anyone cares, among the profs there are no YECs; all of us would have to be considered "theistic evolutionists" of one stripe or another; at least one would buy some version of "front loading").

What is the expectation from the students after they have been through the reading material?

That they demonstrate that they have read carefully, understood the author's arguments, and can think critically about at least some dimension of those arguments. Lots of writing in this class.

What happens if one of them writes an excellent essay entitled "I now believe god and the bible is a load of old bollocks and here's why"?

As long as they included the "here's why" part, and otherwise met the standards for what would be considered a good essay (clearly written with few to no grammatical or spelling errors, etc.), there's no reason (in my section, anyway) why such a paper couldn't get as good a grade as any other.

Okay, so I failed to keep it brief.
/me shrugs

29. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #74223 by CHeard on September 27, 2007 at 7:19 pm

Hobbit (844)

Here's a challenge for you. Instruct your students to read at least 2 or 3 of the following books: The God Delusion; God is not Great; Letters to a Christian Nation; anything by Bertrand Russell; On Origin of Species; A Brief History of Nearly Everything, the Koran, the book of Mormon and at least one other holy book from a non Abrahamic faith.

If I may jump in here: having read The God Delusion and currently being about halfway through God Is Not Great, I would recommend the former over the latter. In my estimation, Hitchens is the better English stylist, but overall, The God Delusion is the better book, and Hitchens makes several elementary errors when talking about the Bible (and I do mean just objectively false statements, never mind religious convictions or lack of same). If you have the time, I would also recommend Sam Harris's The End of Faith over the same author's Letter to a Christian Nation. The argument is about the same, and The End of Faith develops it more fully.

At the risk of sounding self-congratulatory, here's a brief overview of the reading list for the "Faith & Reason" (a.k.a. "Do Christians Have Brains?") seminar that I'm teaching this semester (along with eight other profs, including a biologist, an English prof, two political scientists, a physicist, a librarian/literature scholar, and historian/legal scholar Ed Larson):

- Plato, Apology of Socrates and The Symposium
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The American Scholar"
- Simone Weil, "On the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God"
- Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics
- Genesis 1–22
- Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling
- The gospels of Mark and John
- Thomas Aquinas on politics and ethics (selections from various works)
- Ed Larson & somebody Winship, "transcript" of the US Constitutional Convention, reconstructed from James Madison's notes
- Martin Luther King, "Letter from the Birmingham Jail"
- Darwin, excerpts from Origin of Species
- Ken Miller, Finding Darwin's God (with a plenary lecture by Miller!)
- Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation
- Pope Benedict XVI, Crisis of Culture
- five short stories by Flannery O'Connor

At our last meeting we were reading Genesis, and next week is Kierkegaard, to give you an idea of our pacing. Most of our students self-identify as conservative/evangelical Christians (though I have one self-identified Hindu in my section), and it's a bit of a challenge to get the students to open their minds to the possibility and acceptability—much less the necessity—of subjecting the Bible to critical scrutiny, but we're working on it. Admittedly the reading list is a bit slanted toward Christian writers, but then, you'd expect that at a self-described Christian university. Anyway, my point is that, in at least eight classes at a Christian university, something in the direction of the exploration that Hobbit described is indeed being offered to the students.

30. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #73969 by CHeard on September 27, 2007 at 12:27 am

Hobbit (760)

It seems I got my wish of watching Revcort expain to Cheard why his brand of bullshit was more right than the other brand of bullshit!

Mine smells better.

By the way, are you sure you're a hobbit, and not a microcephalic homo sapiens? ;-)

31. Teacher: I was fired, said Bible isn't literal

Comment #73939 by CHeard on September 26, 2007 at 4:41 pm

For any interested parties, I just posted an update on the Bitterman firing to my blog (http://www.heardworld.com/higgaion/?p=771).

The latest from the Des Moines Register has students claiming their complaint was about Bitterman's abrasive style. Who knows, they may have some legitimate complaints. If a professor's conduct is reducing students to tears, he really may be going overboard on the acerbicness (is that a word?) scale. But a couple of things stand out as really odd.

1. Students complained about Bitterman suggesting they should question their religious beliefs. Questioning beliefs in college? How dare he suggest such a thing! (I wish Stephen Colbert's "The Word" segment from last May, "Heated Debate," were still available on Comedy Central.)

2. One student claims that a lawyer told her it was illegal for Bitterman to "be derogatory toward me for being a Christian." When did that happen? I'm a Christian myself, but I agree with Richard, Sam Harris, et al. that religious belief should have to take its knocks in the public square just like any other sort of claim. And in the USA, as far as I know (I'm not a lawyer), no law protects religious people from being insulted, only from having a religion (or the absence of religion) forced on them by the government.

This story just keeps getting weirder.

32. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #73692 by CHeard on September 25, 2007 at 9:39 pm

Um, didn't NASA find Joshua's missing day a few years back? ;-)

/me ducks

Seriously, it takes a long time for good biblical scholarship to percolate even through the academy, much less out into the pastors' studies and into the pews. But for those of you who are genuinely interested in this story, I would draw your attention to Baruch Margalit, "The Day the Sun Did Not Stand Still: A New Look at Joshua X 8–15," Vetus Testamentum 42.4 (1992): 466–491. (Vetus Testamentum is one of the top five journals for academic Hebrew Bible studies.) In this article, Margalit re-examines many issues in the interpretation of Judges 10. In fact, the part about the sun and moon is really just a small piece of the puzzle. However, Margalit's linguistic argument is, I think, highly significant. In English, verse 13 is usually translated something like, "And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies. Is this not written in the Book of Jashar? The sun stopped in mid-heaven, and did not hurry to set for about a whole day." However, the word translated "stand still" in v. 12 or "stood still" in v. 13 is damam, for which a better English equivalent is "be silent, be mute." The word translated "stopped" in v. 13 is 'amad, "to stand," which can also mean "to cease [doing something]." The phrase "did not hurry to set" is more literally "did not hurry to come." All of that just to say that the Hebrew is not as unambiguous as the English translations in your local bookshop make it out to be. "And the sun was mute, and the moon ceased [doing something] … The sun stood/ceased in mid-heaven, and did not hurry to set for about a whole day" is conceivably a very different type of story.

With that as background, you can perhaps see that there is much room for a different understanding of what the text actually says. The popular interpretation is that the text describes God stopping the sun in mid-heaven so as to give Joshua and the Israelites extra daylight so they could slaughter more of their enemies. This interpretation was supported by the highly influential scholar Martin Noth—you might not know that name, but in biblical studies he's one of the heavy-hitting German scholars of the early 20th century, and many of Noth's ideas and models have become the "conventional wisdom" of current scholarship.

But Margalit disagrees:

[Noth's] position, to say the least, is difficult to defend. The only time of day when the sun can be considered to be "over Gibeon" and the moon in the Valley of Ayyalon some 25–30 km. nearly due west, is very early in the morning; certainly not at midday, as presumed in vs. 13b. Yet even midday is too early if Joshua's aim in arresting the sun's movement was to provide additional hours of sunlight for his forces to complete their victory over the enemy, as presupposed in vs. 13a ('d yqm gwy 'ybyw). At midday, and with the enemy in flight, Joshua could hardly have been thinking of sunset.

At this point Margalit adduces a nearly identical phrase in Habakkuk 3:11; the explanation is short but a bit hard to follow if you don't know your Hebrew Bible (in Hebrew) pretty well, so I'll skip to the payoff:

The combined Hebrew and Greek evidence thus leaves no doubt that Hab. iii 11 is speaking not of the arrested movement of either the sun or the moon, but rather of the interrupted incandescence of both … the original signification of Josh. x 12–13 involves "daytime darkness" …

In short, Margalit argues—on the basis of word usage and stock literary themes—that the text isn't describing a lengthening of the day or daylight hours at all, but rather a preternatural darkness that signals the presence of Yahweh, the divine warrior.

Margalit is still saying that the text reports a miracle, though I can't tell whether Margalit actually thinks that's historical, or is just trying to represent the text's own claim. Later in the article he says:

It therefore stands to reason that in its original form, the flight of the panic-stricken Canaanites was narratively explained; and if so, no better motive can be found than a clear-blue sunlit sky suddenly turning dark as night; in effect, the converse of the motive in Ex. xiv. Though one should never attempt to "explain" such matters in purely naturalistic terms—how hard the tradition labours to dispel such reductionist notions from the reader's mind—one may nevertheless state with confidence that this motif is the imaginative response to, and literary development of, the relatively rare complete solar-eclipse whose psychological effect on peoples ancient and modern is well known.

Margalit's explanation has not won the day, but it is very interesting and, I think, very well argued and worth consideration.

33. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #73663 by CHeard on September 25, 2007 at 7:07 pm

revcort (662)

By the way, the link to CHeard's blog isn't working for some reason.

It looks like there's an anomalous slash-dot in the A tag. Let's try it this way:

http://higgaion.heardworld.com

34. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #73630 by CHeard on September 25, 2007 at 3:41 pm

hungarianelephant (638): Oh dear, it seems that one of my posts got lost in a server somewhere. My own blog—unabashedly Christian and theological—is at http://higgaion.heardworld.com. Revcort has already found his way there and begun to comment in earnest.

35. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #73629 by CHeard on September 25, 2007 at 3:38 pm

revcort (656), can you spell "missing the point"?

You seem to have failed to grasp the irony of the Luther analogy. My point was not that my understanding of inspiration agrees with Luther's. My point is that Johann Eck prosecuted Luther for heresy on the basis that Luther would not conform his teachings, which he derived from his study of scripture, to the authoritative pronouncements of the church. You're doing the same thing: throwing up the names of figures from church history as "authorities" and insisting that those who don't toe thin doctrinal line are heretics—even if those "heretics" are trying to give the most honest and forthright account they can of what they read in the scriptures.

And you seem to think that my quotations from Philo, Origen, and Augustine are somehow intended as salvos in a "war of authorities." Again you miss the point, which was, to be precise:

And I am not asking anyone to accept what Philo, or Origen, or Augustine said on authority. But these quotations should establish that your (revcort's) claim that "all of Christendom" is arrayed against me is, quite simply, false.

Yet you decided to try to escalate a "war of authorities."

I need to get to soccer practice, but let's take one quick look at one of your quotations.

So firmly did the Reformers believe that the Scriptures originated from God that they felt no embarrassment not merely in affirming their infallibility but even in speaking of them as having been dictated by God. Thus Whitaker, for example, alluding to the supposition of Erasmus that the reading "Jeremiah" instead of "Zechariah" in Matt 27:9 was due to a slip of the memory on the Evangelist's part, says; "It does not become us to be so easy and indulgent as to concede that such a lapse could be incident to the sacred writers. They wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, as Peter tells us, 2 Pet i.21. And all scripture is inspired of God, as Paul expressly writes, 2 Tim iii.16. Whereas, therefore, no one may say that any infirmity could befall the Holy Spirit, it follows that the sacred writers could not be deceived, or err, in any respect. Here, then, it becomes us to be so scrupulous as not to allow that any such slip can be found in scripture. For, whatever Erasmus may think, it is a solid answer which Augustine gives to Jerome: 'If any, even the smallest, lie be admitted in the scriptures, the whole authority of scripture is presently invalidated and destroyed' [Ep. XXVIII, to Jerome]. That form which the prophets use so often, 'Thus saith the Lord,' is to be attributed also to the apostles and evangelists. For the Holy Spirit dictated to them whatever things they wrote."

You attribute this quotation to John Calvin, but you are wrong. This was not written by John Calvin. This was written by Philip Hughes and published in 1961 (http://www.bible-researcher.com/hughes1.html), hundreds of years after Calvin's death. And the long quotation that begins with "It does not become us" is not from Calvin, but from William Whitaker.

In any event, let's just examine one issue. (I may come back for more later, but I've got to go teach some defense.) Take the first line, "So firmly did the Reformers believe that the Scriptures originated from God that they felt no embarrassment not merely in affirming their infallibility, but even in speaking of them as having been dictated by God." But in 1 Corinthians 7:25, the apostle Paul writes, "Now concerning virgins, I have no command of the Lord, but I give my opinion as one who by the Lord's mercy is trustworthy." So … who should I believe? The apostle Paul, or the Reformers? They clearly are not saying the same thing.

Oh, and just out of curiosity, how would you explain the fact that Matthew 27:9 inaccurately attributes to Jeremiah a prophecy that is actually found in the book of Zechariah, if not for simple human error? If the Bible is "inspired" in the sense of "dictated" (that now seems to be your position, á là the Reformers quotation above), what happened here? If we can't attribute the error to the human author, "Matthew," then to whom can we ascribe the error?

36. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #73610 by CHeard on September 25, 2007 at 1:19 pm

Not that I'm swimming in leisure time, but I think I should address revcort's latest (640), at least briefly. (Yeah, like I can be brief.)

revcort:Alas, your fight is not with me. Your fight is with all of Christendom. You are at odds with all of the Reformers and with all of the early church writers. This is your trouble. Peter, Paul, and John disagree strongly with you. Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Wesley, John Wycliffe, Ulrich Zwingli, John Wycliffe, and all Puritan writers, including Jonathan Edwards, strongly disagree with you. As a matter of fact, I don't know of anyone not considered a heretic who has such a loose interpretation of the word "inspired" as you have.

I will note, first of all, that aside from Peter, Paul (who explicitly said, in one instance, that he was writing his own opinion and not "the Lord's"), and John, your "all of Christendom" is composed entirely of Protestants.

Moreover, your invocation of Martin Luther is, well, funny—and I mean both "funny ha-ha" and "funny strange." You seem to be trying to align your own stance on "inspiration" with that of Martin Luther. Yet it was Martin Luther who was the prime mover in shrinking the Christian Old Testament—after approximately 1,200 years of acceptance by all Christians—by removing the books of Tobit, Judith, Baruch, 1–2 Maccabees, the Wisdom of Ben Sirach, and the Wisdom of Solomon, as well as portions of the books of Esther and Daniel. He would have done the same with the New Testament books of James and Revelation, if he could have gotten away with it, to judge by some of his tirades against those documents.

And that's not the only Lutheran irony here. You've tossed out the word "heretic," apparently forgetting that Martin Luther himself was branded a heretic by Pope Leo III (Exsurge Domine, 1520) and was hauled before the Diet of Worms (1521) to answer heresy charges. When Johann Eck demanded that Luther repudiate the teachings he had previously published, Luther famously said:

Martin Luther, before the Diet of Worms: Unless I am convinced by proofs from Scriptures or by plain and clear reasons and arguments, I can and will not retract, for it is neither safe nor wise to do anything against conscience. Here I stand, I can do no other. God help me. Amen.

In our conversation about the origins (pluralized on purpose) of the Jewish and Christian scriptures, I have consistently supported my understanding with "proofs from Scriptures or by plain and clear reasons and arguments." You, revcort, started with an argument basically in the form "the Bible is inspired because it says it is inspired," and when shown that the biblical writers themselves testify to a process different than the one you posit, you respond by moving the goalposts and making a vague argument from authority. In other words, I have shown by explicit scriptural statements, reasoning, and argumentation that your model of "inspiration" does not agree with what the biblical writers actually say about their own writing activity and what may reasonably inferred from the texts themselves, and you try to bring down an accusation of heresy based on conformity to church doctrine. Which of us, pray tell, is really standing more in the mold of Martin Luther, and which more in the mold of his accuser, Johann Eck?

Now on to other matters.

revcort: Now, let me show you more specifically how casting doubt over certain parts of the Bible can lead to an entirely new religion altogether.

It bears repeating: even if the claim "believing S leads to consequence C" is true, and even if C is undesirable, its is not perforce true that S is false. (This is an important fact to remember when reading Hitchens, also, by the way; the claim "religion poisons everything," if true, does not logically entail "there is no deity.") You seem to have missed this simple point altogether, although it is the third time that I have tried to explain it.

I simply do not have time to go through your diatribe point-by-point, and from the tone of the comment, I doubt you are interested in a serious exegetical and historical conversation about the various texts you mentioned. Therefore, to save myself time and aggravation, I will limit myself to only the first one you mentioned, the creation story. Consider the following quotation regarding the creation story in Genesis 1:

It is quite foolish to think that the world was created in six days or in a space of time at all. Why? Because every period of time is a series of days and nights, and these can only be made such by the movement of the sun as it goes over and under the earth …

Who do you suppose wrote those words? Richard Dawkins? No. P.Z. Myers? No. Eugene Scott? No. Some other "godless atheist"? No. These words were written by Philo Judaeus (lifetime c. 20 BCE–40 CE, writing in Legum Allegoria, I.ii), arguably the greatest pre-rabbinic Jewish commentator on scripture, and in fact, arguably the greatest Jewish philosopher ever. Philo was no modern scientist, to be sure, but he did not think that Genesis 1 recorded events "as they happened," but rather presented creation (he was a theist, a pious, Torah-observant first-century Jew—you know, like Jesus, but a little older and in a different part of the Roman Empire) according to a mathematical scheme ("When Moses says, 'He finished his work on the sixth day,' we must understand him to be adducing not a quantity of days, but a perfect number, namely six, since it is the first that is equal to the sum of its own fractions 1/2, 1/3, and 1/6, and is produced by the multiplication of two unequal factors, 2 x 3; and see, the numbers 2 and 3 have left behind the incorporeal character that belongs to 1, 2 being an image of matter, and being parted and divided as that is, while 3 is the image of a solid body, for the solid is patient of a threefold division," Legum Allegoria I.ii). Do you suppose that Philo, a pre-Christian, Torah-observant Jew is at this moment writhing in the agony of hellfire because he interpreted Genesis 1 non-historically, yes, even allegorically?

Consider second this snarky take not just on Genesis 1, but Genesis 2 as well:

What man of intelligence, I ask, will consider it a reasonable statement that the first and the second and the third day, in which there are said to be both morning and evening, existed without sun and moon and stars, while the first day was even without a heaven? And who could be so silly as to believe that God, after the manner of a farmer, "planted trees in a paradise eastward in Eden," and set therein a "tree of life," that is, a visible and palpable tree of wood, of such a sort that anyone who ate of this tree with bodily teeth would gain life; and again that anyone who ate of another tree would get a knowledge of "good and evil"?

Who do you suppose wrote that one? Christoper Hitchens? No. Bill Maher? No. Penn Gilette? No. (Listed in decreasing order of lucidity.) You're surely onto me by now. This one is from Origen (lifetime c. 183–253 CE, writing in On First Principles, IV.iii.1). The great Jerome—you know, the one responsible for translating the Bible into Latin—called Origen "the greatest teacher of the Church since the apostles," in his preface to his Latin translation of Origen's Greek Homilies on Ezekiel (later, Jerome grew disenchanted with Origen, but Origen's influence as an interpreter of scripture was extremely powerful in the third and fourth centuries CE). Now Origen was no modern scientist; he never heard of evolution, and he believed that stars were living creatures (no, really; see On First Principles, I.vii.3). But he was also one of the greatest Bible teachers of his generation, and he did not think that Genesis 1 and 2 presented literal truth.

Just one more quotation, if you please. Stop me if you've heard this one.

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he hold to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.

Yes, you've guessed it: St. Augustine (lifetime c. 354–430, writing in De Genesi ad litteram libri duodecim.

I could go on, but don't make me hit you with the (former) Pope (RIP). And I am not asking anyone to accept what Philo, or Origen, or Augustine said on authority. But these quotations should establish that your (revcort's) claim that "all of Christendom" is arrayed against me is, quite simply, false.

I am saying that the events are accounts of actual events, and the teachings are presented as fact and are intended to be followed by those who call themselves Christians.

How, exactly, does one "follow" an "event" (other than by the banal fact of living later in time)? How, exactly, did you determine that every event narrated in the Bible is an account of an actual event? Would you apply that to this one?

The trees once went out to anoint a king over themselves. So they said to the olive tree, "Reign over us." The olive tree answered them, "Shall I stop producing my rich oil by which gods and mortals are honored, and go to sway over the trees?" Then the trees said to the fig tree, "You come and reign over us." But the fig tree answered them, "Shall I stop producing my sweetness and my delicious fruit, and go to sway over the trees?" Then the trees said to the vine, "You come and reign over us." But the vine said to them, "Shall I stop producing my wine that cheers gods and mortals, and go to sway over the trees?" So all the trees said to the bramble, "You come and reign over us." And the bramble said to the trees, "If in good faith you are anointing me king over you, then come and take refuge in my shade; but if not, let fire come out of the bramble and devour the cedars of Lebanon." (Judges 9:8–15)

Or how about this one?

[A certain man] sowed good seed in his field; but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, "Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from? He answered, "An enemy has done this." The slaves said to him, "Do you want us to go and gather them?" But he replied, "No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, 'Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.'" (Matthew 13:24–30)

Are these "accounts of actual events"? I presume you will say that the first one is not—or perhaps you believe in talking trees as well as talking donkeys. Well, you'd be right to say that the first story is not an "account of actual events"; it is a fable or parable, a story within a story (and that's very clear in the context). The second narrative is quite realistic, but it's not an "account of actual events" either; it, too, is a parable, this one told by Jesus. (And please note, revcort, that Jesus uses a fictional story to talk about your beloved hell of fire.)

Let's do a little thought experiment here. We have incontrovertible proof—quoted above—that the biblical writers included fictional stories (fables, parables) in their texts. If the gospel writers are portraying Jesus accurately, he taught using fictional stories (parables). Now if God is "sovereign," and if the Bible is the "word of God," then who on earth are you to tell God that "he" can't put fiction into his book? If it was okay (with you!) for Jotham or Jesus to teach in fables and parables, then where do you get off telling God that the only mode by which "he" may communicate with humanity through "his book" is by straightforward historical narrative? Suppose, for a moment—this is a thought experiment, so go with the parameters for the sake of argument—that God thought it would be great to teach some important lesson through a fictional story about a guy getting swallowed by a fish (and cows repenting in sackcloth and ashes, Jonah), or through a fictional drama about a guy who suffers terrible bereavement (Job) or through a fictional story about a Moabite expatriate who is welcomed into Judah (Ruth). Who are you to tell God that's not an acceptable option? Now, as you know, I don't think that the first part of this paragraph presents a responsible interpretation of the claim to "inspiration." But you do, revcort. So, seriously, if the Bible is "God's book," who are you to tell "him" how to write it? Don't you see what you are doing? You have created (or, more likely, inherited) an a priori conceptual construct that tells you what the Bible must be, and you are riding roughshod over the actual text in order to make it fit.

Oh, and would you kindly stop threatening people with hell? I am not afraid of hell, and I think that fear of hell is a lousy reason to be a Christian. Being a Christian out of fear of hell is, to be blunt, rank selfishness. At its best, Christianity is not about saving one's own eternal butt from hellfire. At its best, Christianity is about self-sacrificial love for other people. Yes, quite often, Christianity has fallen far, far, far, ever so far short of its best—but that shouldn't stop us Christians from striving to instantiate the best.

37. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #73538 by CHeard on September 25, 2007 at 8:00 am

revcort (630)

Can you make kool-aid?

Somebody please tell me that revcort isn't seriously recommend that I should commit (and encourage mass) suicide. Please.

I don't have time right now to comment on revcort's other, um, statements. I have to go teach some ministerial wannabes how to use Iron Age Hebrew adjectives. (Seriously.) Back later.

38. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #73398 by CHeard on September 25, 2007 at 12:47 am

Veronique (626), I have seen these before and I think Carlin is a comic genius. I love his performance as a priest in Dogma. Of course, if someone wanted to seriously advance Carlin's points as criticisms of my religion, I'd have issues to discuss. But as a matter of sheer levity, I laugh at Carlin's jokes as hard as anybody else.

39. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #73375 by CHeard on September 24, 2007 at 10:20 pm

Goldy, I do see what you mean (624). Reconstructing the genealogies of morality memes can be difficult, especially when we're reaching far into the past. I would at least entertain the possibility that functionally identical morality memes—the "Golden Rule" meme, for example—could develop quite independently. (An analogy from biology could be the development of bat wings and bird wings, for example.)

40. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #73347 by CHeard on September 24, 2007 at 8:06 pm

Goldy (622)

Back ot reality, I understand what you said there, CH (hope you don't mind being referred to thus) about how you got your core values. As good a reason as any and open to further research and finding. I had these values described to me as Christian throughout my childhood - made me look harder and find it was not really so. Indeed, pagan roots started showing more strongly and further research (as much as a kid can do in pre-internet days) showed culture was more important. One of the things that made me realise I was athiest in outlook and that I enjoyed history :-)

CH is fine; those are my initials (which I share with an atheistic journalist whose book I just started reading today). The "C" is for "Chris" or "Christopher" (take your pick; another thing I share with said journalist). As I tell my students, you can call me anything you want, as long as I know you mean me. :-)

On the matter of values, instead of saying that the values I hold dear are "not really" Christian values because they can be found elsewhere, independently and earlier, I would rather say that those values are genuinely Christian, but—as many here well know—not uniquely Christian. I hope that distinction makes sense without a long-winded description, because, well, Monday Night Football is on right now, and then there's Heroes (whose writers misunderstand evolution as badly as any YEC, but it's still a fun show).

41. Teacher: I was fired, said Bible isn't literal

Comment #73282 by CHeard on September 24, 2007 at 4:25 pm

If Bitterman's account of his treatment, as reported in the Register, is correct, then the school's administration has acted reprehensibly. But so is the treatment of Phil Mitchell at the University of Colorado at Boulder, if the AAUP Report on his case (http://collegefreedom.blogspot