If you ask the major Christian denominations in the United States (or most Christians for that matter) “Who wrote the Bible?”, the answer you hear will likely be something similar to this: “The Bible is a collection of written documents that were authored by men under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Ultimately it was God, by way of the Holy Spirit, who wrote the Bible through human authors who brought their own unique backgrounds to the texts.” What they say may vary slightly from that, and from each other, but the gist is pretty much the same: The Holy Spirit (God) inspired the authors to write what they wrote. The main scripture they use to support this is 2 Peter 1:21 which says:
“for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God (NASB).”
In other words, the Bible itself is prophecy, and all prophecy comes from the Holy Spirit. Therefore, all of the theology, doctrines, and commanded actions within the scriptures are in fact commanded by God through the Holy Spirit. This is why you hear people talk about the “inspired” and “infallible” word of God. The only problem with this view is that the Bible actually does a pretty good job of showing that this is neither inspired nor infallible. We’ll just focus on the inspired part for now though, because once we see that it’s obviously not inspired, the infallible thing kind of takes care of itself.
The Holy Spirit is the third “person” in the trinity, and as the third person in this paradoxical monotheism, he shares attributes with the other two persons – the Father and the Son. One such attribute that is shared is that God does not change.
“For I, the LORD, do not change (Malachi 3:6, NASB).”
The reason it’s important that God does not change should be obvious. Who wants to serve a finicky and fickle God who’s always changing his mind, his nature, and his character, right? The only problem with the idea that the God of the Bible does not change, is that it presents a huge problem for the idea that the Holy Spirit authored the texts.
In the book of Matthew, Jesus breaks down how you’ll know the false prophets from the good ones,
“Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit (Matthew 7:15-17, NASB).
It is also important to note that fundamentalists will claim that every word in the Bible (in the original languages) is inspired by God through the Holy Spirit. Some people knock this of course, but I think it makes sense. If an all-powerful god wrote a book about the most important concepts for human beings to know about, he would use his super powers to protect that book and keep the whole thing inspired and free from error. If you can’t believe it all, then why believe any of it? The task of sorting out the truth from the fiction would be nearly impossible. Besides, we know the claim that every word in the Bible is inspired is accurate because the Bible tells us so:
“All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16 NASB).”
Now, it is claimed that all scripture is inspired by God (The Holy Spirit), and that God does not change. This means the Holy Spirit is the same in the New Testament as he was in the Old when he was hovering over the waters in Genesis, and when he was speaking to the Old Testament authors — his prophets. While this view may be accurate from a Biblical perspective, it presents a huge problem for inspiration, and therefore the infallibility of scripture. Why is this you ask? It is all a matter of fruit.
Remember all that stuff Jesus said about good fruit and bad fruit, and good trees and bad trees? This happens to be very important when we are looking at the fruit of the Holy Spirit as listed in Galatians chapter 5. The fruit that the Holy Spirit is supposed to bring out in the lives of God’s servants is as follows: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-Control. This is supposed to be the natural result of the Holy Spirit working in the lives of human beings, and tells us about the supposed character and nature of God the Holy Spirit. Because the fruit of the Holy Spirit is going to be the same in the Old and New Testaments (because God does not change), there is no way possible that huge chunks of the Old Testament, and portions of the New Testament, could possibly have been inspired by the Holy Spirit. The reason for this is that the things commanded and written down as scripture are the absolute opposite of the fruit we are told the Holy Spirit bears out in the lives of those he works in.
What do we see when we look at an Old Testament character like Moses for example? Here we have a prophet who approaches the people and says something to the effect of, “God told me to tell you that you need to kill those people.” Moses (and others) commands this on more than one occasion, so take your pick as to the event you want to plug it into. Where does a prophecy commanding the killing of men, women, children, the elderly, babies, and animals fall into: LOVE, JOY, PEACE, PATIENCE, KINDNESS, GOODNESS, FAITHFULNESS, GENTLENESS, or SELF-CONTROL? These supposed prophecies from the Holy Spirit directly contradict the fruit we are told the Holy Spirit is supposed to bear in the lives of human beings. How about the command to kill the women who had slept with a man, but to take the virgins back as spoils of war (i.e. rape – Num. 31:16-18)? Where does this fall into: LOVE, JOY, PEACE, PATIENCE, KINDNESS, GOODNESS, FAITHFULNESS, GENTLENESS, or SELF-CONTROL? It doesn’t. How about slavery? How about how much you can beat your slave? None of it does.
So what does this say for the reliability of the Christian Bible? It has no reliability. It is a collection of written works from various human authors over a long span of time. There is absolutely no evidence to show that the Bible is divinely inspired, and in fact the evidence shows exactly the opposite — that it is a work of earthy, human, fallible origins.
While I support much of what you have written
about the Bible the conclusion you draw is an oversimplification which devalues the best of the ideas that emerge from the Bible. Certainly as the writers of the Bible started to record what they were seeing the collection of writings were error ridden and reflected the tribal setting from where the distorted teachings about revenge and tribal security got mixed up with the emerging ideas of love and forgiveness. However we dont chuck out science because it has uncertain beginnings and in the Bible teachings you can encounter the development of fine ideas – some of which (like forgiveness of enemies) are still unrealised ideals. Many of these ideas are extremely helpful and since the ideas of God have moved a considerable distance from the initial mean minded judgemental spirit I dont think there is a good case for dismissing the lot.
http://billpeddie.wordpress.com
Thanks for stopping by Bill. I’m not saying there isn’t wisdom locked away in areas of the Bible; what I’m saying is there is no evidence or reason to believe it is a divinely inspired book. I’m not going into as much detail in the argument as I could have due to the format. People don’t usually read mile long blog posts, so I tried to keep things as concise as I could while still getting the idea across.
I have written my own extended version of the same topic on my site – entitled Bible literalism: The Shaping of God You might like to check it out.
http://billpeddie.wordpress.com
Eric, the argument you propose, if I’m understanding it correctly, presumes that God, as revealed in the Bible, has changed from the times of the OT dates to the NT dates, and therefore, because He has changed, then He is inconsistent with what He says about Himself, and is therefore not trustworthy. Thus, all that was written about Him was man-made, and not of God. I think your argument is flawed, because you miss some glaring observations.
For the sake of this argument (since your point only is that the Bible is not God’s word…after all, something else could be His word, just not the Bible), let’s assume the prophets heard correctly from God…for if they didn’t, then they were delusional.
Nevertheless, let’s assume some god exists, and let’s assume the prophets truly heard from some god (since your argument here is NOT that a God DOES NOT exist, but only that the Bible isn’t His word). That being the case, your point about the fruits of the Spirit not being existent in the OT is faulty.
We see God’s LOVE in sharing His creation with mankind;
we see God’s JOY(pleasure?) in creation itself; we see God’s PEACE in sparing humanity through Noah’s family in the flood;
we see God’s PATIENCE in dealing with the unfaithful Israelites as they wanderings;
we see God’s KINDNESS is rescuing the Israelites from captivity more than once;
we see God’s GOODNESS in His sending warnings through the prophets;
we see God’s FAITHFULNESS to His people by keeping His word (to Abraham) not to wipe them out;
we see God’s GENTLENESS in His dealings with Hagar;
we see God’s SELF-CONTROL in not destroying all of humanity when they (we) have deserved it time and again.
The God of the OT, you suggest, is significantly different from the God of the NT. This argument suggests God was not “mean” in the NT, but only a fluffy love-bunny.
However, we see God’s wrath, vengeance, anger, judgement, and hatred for sin in the New Testament in several places, the Cross being the most note-worthy.
It was there that He barbarically crushed Jesus Christ, the undeserving One, in mankind’s place, the deserving. If God is portrayed (in a skeptics eyes) as being unfair and cruel in the Old Testament, one surely cannot deny He’s quite cruel, barbaric, and unfair in His dealings with Jesus Christ on the Cross.
Not only was God’s wrath evident on the Cross, but it was present when Jesus castigated the crooked money-changers in the temple; if was evident when He pronounced judgement on those who professed to be sheep but who were actually wolves; His righteous anger is center-stage in Revelation (whether it was written with the past or the future in mind).
You may wish to rethink your claims, but I digress.
Thanks for stopping by Mike. I’m not actually making a distinction between OT/NT actions. There are problems in the NT as well, it’s just that the OT issues are a little more glaring and I wanted to keep the post fairly concise. The argument isn’t so much that god has changed (obviously I don’t think that’s the case being I don’t think there is a god), but that if said unchanging god existed, and that god said, “This is the fruit I will bear out in the lives of those who believe in me, and you will know the ones I’m not working in from their bad fruit,” then we should be able to recognize as Jesus said, “No tree bears both good and bad fruit.” This glaring contradiction, which I think strikes hardest at the root of true Biblical origins, in addition to the other numerous contradictory elements, shows that the Bible cannot be trusted to be of divine origin. If it is of divine authorship, the deity in question is a horrible communicator.
Why do we have to assume the prophets were not delusional, and that they were in fact hearing from a god? Why do they have to be delusional? There are plenty of other motives the prophets could have been operating in like, prestige, personal gain, etc. Remember when Saul was concerned with taking a gift of silver to the prophet Samuel for his guidance? I think to take the position of “they were right” or “they were delusional” is a bit of a false dichotomy. There are a number of different possibilities and motivations.
Why is the default assumption that gods exist? And even if they did, why is the default position that they would actually want to communicate with humans? Why make assumptions for things in which we have no evidence to support?
Concerning the fruit of the spirit, I’m not arguing that we don’t see any evidence of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, or self-control in the Old Testament, so my position isn’t faulty because I never claimed that to be the case. Think about this… If I had 10 kids and I treated 3 of them as model parent, but I beat and murdered the other 7 – does that mean my actions of treating the 3 well makes me a “good parent?” Or, reverse it… I treat the 7 like a model parent and beat and murder only 3. Does this make me an example of a “good parent?” This I’d say is an example of a tree bearing “good and bad fruit,” which is really just a rotten tree. Cherry picking what one considers good aspects of the OT, and ignoring the others is akin to turning a blind eye to me murdering my other kids, while focusing on the rosier side of things with the ones I didn’t kill.
As for the OT/NT god thing, again, I’m not saying there is really a difference, I think the examples are just more glaring and obvious in the OT. I don’t disagree with any of your statements there, and if I gave the impression that the OT was the only issue, that was not my intent. Again, I was trying to keep things short. People don’t tend to read gigantic blog posts.
Just because you don’t like and understand what the bible says love is, doesn’t make it ‘unreliable’ – what an ignorant argument! There’s no basis for love, peace, goodness, etc. apart from the word of god. As if truth depended on your ability to understand or communicate it – god help us all… haha
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reliable
The wrong way to understand God’s immutability is to say he is immobile, and doesn’t move, and by that definition God is essentially dead and has no potential. A biblical way to understand God’s immutability is constancy, rather than immobility. For example, his plan for the world has always been the same from the beginning, and his ordering of events have always had the same order to him. Like a book, where the words on the pages do not change, yet the story has a timeline. This is the basis of biblical theology and progressive revelation. Man only knows about God what has been revealed to him, and this revelation is God’s word… namely Jesus. The word is the speech of God, and the proclamation of his knowledge. This is the basis of every metanarrative, such as love. Because there is a common concept of love by man, its because God has made known this principle in various degrees, and in fullness in the person of Jesus Christ. The resurrection being the center of this testimony to the word of God, and jesus is the most influential individual in the history of the world. This is testified too by those who witnessed him in the flesh, as the NT records, and those who had a partial revelation of his coming. Prophecy is not all the word is, but rather, it is God revealing his unchangable plan before it has been revealed to us. God is an unchangable entity, and sees the future and the past and the future, as we view a book, meditating on all of it, and giving it life, just like a reader gives a book life when he meditates on that story.
The word of god is testified too by the impact on all people of the world, including individuals, archeology, science, the course of world events, and most clearly today in the living witness of the universal church, constituting 2billion members. If anything, evidence of the impact of the word of god, and most specifically of jesus is undeniable. Denying the word of god, is worse than denying the holocaust.
Also, the bible was not written on golden plates like mormonism or in a private revelation like mohammad, but it is was done before all people and plain sight.
Apart from God’s word, there is no basis for concepts like love, or peace, etc.
Wow, that’s amazing how you used a string of logical fallacies to refute an argument you didn’t even bother to address.
(Dude, in humility, I confess that I started typing, and kept going, I am not going to put the effort into making a response to a blog post into a concerted essay, it will just be buried on a server. I am truncating the response, without polishing or editing it.)
I concur with skepticism in so much serves a valuable function, there is no lack of bullshit in the world, one needs a mechanism of thought to reject it. Critical thinking is valuable as a sort of immune system for the intellect. But, like an immune system, it can be overactive and exceed its utility by attacking what is beneficial.
I know you are aware of the Biblical concept of hardening ones heart. You have been given the spoiler warning on the practice, that hardening your heart to the Lord is bad news.
The Holy Spirit was not poured out on all men until the Pentecost, the examples you provide to contradict the expression of the fruit of the Spirit occurred a long time before this. If you concur that the Lord is the Shepherd of his people as it is written, then you must concur that a component of a shepherds duties is to defend the sheep. If being a shepherd demands killing wolves, then that is that.
What are the portions from the New Testament that contradict that the Bible could have been written by the Holy Spirit. You neglect to mention something contradictory to the fruit of the Spirit from after the Pentecost. If you don’t do this, the argument doesn’t stand.
With regard to the killing. The nature of the Holy Spirit in killing is peculiar. It is not really celebrated, except that in slaying enemies, people are preserved.
You know the Lord is biased toward his own people. You know that the Lord is sovereign, (even though you don’t believe, you know this is a premise within the Bible)He can do what he pleases with the things he makes. If He were not sovereign, if He were not most high, his bias would be unjust. You have read that all things work together for those who love the Lord. You have read that in the first generation after Adam, Cain killed Able. (Even if you own disbelief now, you comprehend the framework of biblical reference). You have read that mankind was so wicked that Noah was instructed to build the Ark and the flood killed all but those aboard.The wicked do not care who they kill, it is true that they do not always kill, but when they do, they would just as soon kill the Lord’s people.
The Lord lets his sun shine on the evil and the good, even though he is not obliged to. If there is a conflict between those the Lord has made his own, and those who are given over to false beliefs, as in the Old Testament, what is wrong with the Lord favoring Israel? It was through Israel that the Messiah was given to mankind, even to the descendants of those who were hostile to Israel.
You know that it is written that not even a sparrow falls to the ground without the Father. The Lord is sovereign over all mans deaths, natural or by warfare. Even atheists don’t argue that the mortality rate is 100%. The enemy of God who dies by an Israelite sword is just as dead as one who dies of natural causes. These people who were enemies of God would have been happy to kill the Lord’s people by warfare, so with the conflict established, isn’t it better that they should die, rather than snuff out the people through whom the Messiah came?
You may contend that it was unjust to commit total warfare, killing men, women and children. Admittedly, this is extreme. But, if you want to argue for those people to live, you have to argue that what they believed should continue. By committing total warfare, the entirety of their ideologies were wiped out as well, and the prospect of lingering conflict was eliminated. These groups of people committed infanticide, killing their own offspring, the only Jews that killed their own children were those who were apostate, and sacrificed their children to the heathen gods. (there was also the guy who sacrificed his daughter, because he swore to the Lord that he would, this was that mans error, it is argued that by sacrifice, his daughter was made to remain a virgin, and his line did not continue). Total war is horrible and extreme, the depravity that it put an end to was also horrible and extreme.
Nations are established by warfare, even when the Bible is not a fixture in peoples minds, as with non-judeo/christian groups. The base authority of all governments is the right to exert violence. So why should you pick on Israel when every other nation on Earth in the present and in History is established through violence. The lack of violence is only there when the existing authority does not consider it tactful to use violence.
You know that it would be ridiculous to exert wrath upon a people for violating commandments that were unpublished.You know that the Law was given to the Jews, who the Lord made for himself, beginning when he called Abraham away from his father. You know that the Law defines sin, so that people would recognize that they are sinners. The Israelites were given the commandments, it was literally laid down in stone. They offered sacrifices that foreshadow the sacrifice which was the Messiah.
Even if you are skeptic of Christianity, would you have preferred that the course of history favored some of the insane things that were pushed out of the way by Judaism and Christianity? I do not deny that Christianity and Judaism have their blemishes on record, the inquisitions, witch trials, and that sort of thing.
The Bible has played an indelible role in steering humanity toward the good. The Bible condones things now regarded as atrocious, but for those things to be truly atrocious, we assume that we are right. I don’t know that humanity is far sighted enough to see that what we regard as correct right now will prove to be correct over the long haul. Slavery existed, and we are discussed to recall it, but we have cheap labor now, where no slave owner is liable for those working for him. About the command to kill adulterous women, If you read the news, or listen to the blues, you know that a man doesn’t need a command from God to kill his wife if he catches her with another man. Jesus did a fine job of articulating his response to this. About taking virgins as the spoils of war, I thought rape was more of a hit and run thing, these guys were having their descendants through these women. I know it isn’t romantic at all, but these men became liable for the virgins they stole for their wives. A man invests a lot in his wife, emotionally and otherwise. Rape happens a lot in war, but you don’t see many guys being husbands to the women they drag away.
God’s law is perfect, but people are imperfect, would it be appropriate for God to compromise in delivering the Law? It is not appropriate for God to advocate something less than the best, even if humanity can’t swing it. God offers a means of reconciliation with Himself by grace through faith.
By the time Moses told anyone to kill, He had already demonstrated that he was worth listening to.
T – Thanks for taking the time to post a response.
I’m going to have to disagree with you that religion (Christianity in this instance) is necessarily beneficial. From a psychological standpoint alone it is extremely damaging. First you have the issue of convincing people they are dead and wicked unless they believe this one way. Once a person is convinced of that way of thinking, it is then projected upon everyone else who doesn’t believe the way they do. This causes division and in some cases an outright hatred for people who do not fall into their way of thinking, beliefs, or lifestyle choices. Believers are many times tormented by thoughts and fears for their loved ones having to endure an eternity in conscious pain and torment, making the time they have on earth (the only time they have) a depressing struggle trying to convince others of non-existent place of torture they need to avoid, which causes strains, and divides and alienates family and friends. For my perspective on this issue see here. I agree that skepticism can be overactive (conspiracy theorists would fall into this category), but this is typically the case when despite REAL evidence, people continue on in an unjustified rejection of reality. For an example of non-evidence, see the comment “W” left on this same post.
As far as hardening of ones heart, can you think of a better better psychological tool to inject into a religion or way of thinking to “protect” it from criticism from the inside as well as the outside? “I don’t believe the way you do.” Other person: “That’s because you’ve hardened your heart.” “I’m having doubts about our beliefs.” Other person: “That’s because you’re hardening your heart, and you know how dangerous that is.” This type of process shuts people down from thinking critically, and is an emotional appeal to inject fear into a person instead of fostering an environment of rational dialogue. This type of thinking always puts the blame and problem upon the person who is outside of the accepted group think of the community. Tools similar to this are used by cults everywhere, and it is dangerous.
Concerning Joel’s prophecy of the outpouring of the spirit that happened on the day of Pentecost in the book of Acts, this actually strengthens my argument. Joel’s prophecy did not change the way the Holy Spirit’s character, his nature, or the fruit he would bear. Joel simply said that what was only available to a select few, would be available to all. It would be like if I had a pitcher of lemonade that I was only giving to one or two people at a party, but then I poured some for everyone. They would all have the same lemonade.
As far as the killing of wolves goes, sure the SHEPHERD could kill wolves all he wants. If someone came to you and said, “God told me – to tell you – that you need to kill those people over there and take their stuff,” would you do it? There is a difference between an omnipotent being “smiting” people, and a supposed spokesperson for an omnipotent being telling people that they need to do the killing.
A good new testament example would be Paul sending the slave Onesimus back to his slave master Philemon. People try to argue how this was progress by having Paul asking him to accept him not only as a slave, but as a brother in Christ, when if this is really an Omnipotent God writing a book through human authors, he could wiped out slavery with a few words. Instead we get “progress.” Of course OT law in dealing with slaves was still in practice, so he still could have beat him for taking off once he got back, but we don’t get “the rest of the story” as Paul Harvey would say. Other examples concerning slavery also exist in the NT such as Ephesians 6:5 and 1 Timothy 6:1-2. All of these examples are post-Pentecost, but again, being-post Pentecost really does not make a difference in the argument, as the only thing changing is that the Holy Spirit is supposedly made available to all.
I would disagree with your statement that killing is not celebrated in the Bible. David gets pretty excited about killing babies in Psalm 137: “Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is the one who repays you according to what you have done to us. Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.”
At this point you move into a defense of Yahweh’s apparent xenophobic and racist nature. Don’t you think it makes a little more sense that this attitude is a creation and product of the xenophobic nature of human beings that was then projected onto their deity? I have read a lot of things, but it doesn’t make them true. Here we begin to dip our toes into the waters of circular reasoning… You: “God is real and he is good.” Me: “How do you know?” You: “Because the Bible says he is real and good.” Me: “How do you know you can trust the Bible.” You: “Because God says you can.” This type of circular reasoning drives me batty, and I’m not going to waste time with it. Concerning Noah’s Ark however, we know that the story as described in the Bible is not possible. Check out this short and humorous video for some bullet points on why. Your little bit at the end about the wicked killing is a completely baseless claim.
Rather than address the next few areas point by point, I’ll simply offer an alternative… The god of the Bible could have avoided Israel ever having to kill and invade other nations by simply making the desert they supposedly wandered in for 40 years (a claim to which there is zero archaeological evidence to support) a lush land that flowed with milk and honey. Was turning a desert into a land that flowed with milk and honey beyond the capability of this omnipotent being? Your assertion that the other nations were just waiting to kill Israel and so they had to strike first seems oddly familiar. Perhaps Canaan had weapons of mass destruction. Your claim that infants had to be killed so they wouldn’t grow up and kill infants is sad. Do you not realize how poor that argument is? Kill babies… so they don’t grow up to kill babies. Come on.
As far as warring nations goes, I’m not picking on Israel. The excuse of “everyone else is doing it” does not bolster your position.
You make assertions that people must accept the Bible as an established divine authority. My argument, which is well supported, is that we should not accept it as divinely inspired and authoritative for the reasons stated (among many others). Other than the position of “We should accept the Bible because the Bible says we should,” you have not provided proof or evidence as to why this should be the case.
Okay, I just hit your rape rebuttal here, and it’s probably a good thing I didn’t read it first, or I would not have likely even bothered to respond. You said: “I thought rape was more of a hit and run thing, these guys were having their descendants through these women. I know it isn’t romantic at all, but these men became liable for the virgins they stole for their wives.” How about a different perspective… Let’s say you found yourself locked up in prison, and you needed protection from the other prisoners. Your cellmate who is rather large has been protecting you, but he now says that you owe him. Against your will, he penetrates your mouth and anus with his genitals repeatedly until he ejaculates (I apologize for the graphic nature, but I’m trying to make a point). This doesn’t happen once, because that would be rape according to you, but it happens repeatedly, night after night. He continues to sexually assault you, but he’s liable for you, so he keeps you safe and invests himself in your well being. Are you telling me that this person who looks out for your well being and invests himself in you (in more ways than one) is not raping you? I can’t believe you would even put forth that kind of an argument — it’s sickening. Put yourself in the shoes of the young women who would have watched their fathers, mothers, older sisters, and younger brothers be brutally murdered, before they got to be fortunate enough to “have descendants” for the person who murdered their family. You don’t see a problem with this line of thinking?
I toned this last bit down quite a lot, as my initial response was originally much more harsh. I’m going to have to call it good for now.
Yeah, I still can’t believe Brad left Jennifer for Angelina either. But it seems to work for them. I totally loved Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
Hey man! I appreciate that you’ve taken the time to put your thoughts in writing. We’ve hashed these types of things out over multiple cups of coffee already, so I’ll try to keep this short.
First, an observation: It seems to me that your argument depends upon a fundamentalist construct for understanding Scripture. One which most people who do believe that “the Bible is the word of God” don’t hold to. Your reason for saying such a construct “makes sense”… doesn’t (to me at least… maybe you could help me out?). It seems you (along with the fundamentalist) are wishing for a type of revelation other than the type the God of the Bible gives. A magical one. One where divinely-dictated words is barely enough… you almost wonder why this magical god hadn’t just written the book himself in order to leave out the error-ridden human element. You then use your skeptical paradigm to search the text for a god who cannot be misunderstood or doubted. Good luck with that.
My main concern: Does the God of the Bible present himself this way? (And if not, aren’t you arguing against something other than the Bible? A particular way of approaching the Bible perhaps, but not the Bible itself). I’m intrigued with your line of reasoning (looking for the fruit of the Spirit in troublesome passages of the OT), but I don’t think you are allowing the Bible to speak on its own terms. You aren’t allowing it to tell the sort of story that it is intended to tell.
A word on fruit. “T” brought up a good point which I don’t think you took very seriously… that of Pentecost. It’s not a question of whether God changed his character, plan or purpose between the testaments. It’s this: Does the Bible present the Spirit as producing fruit in people in the OT in the same way we see post-Pentecost? You argument depends on this, and I don’t see a Biblical reason to expect it. Your critique about lack of fruit in the OT hinges on a flat reading of the Story. Pentecost is one of those parts in the Story that changed everything. When the Spirit was poured out on the people of God in a way not seen before that. It’s a turning point. Like the Fall or the Exodus. Or the Incarnation or Resurrection. As our friend “W” hinted at… God being unchanging doesn’t mean that God doesn’t move. Or do things. He’s unchanging… not static.
The whole point of Galatians is that we are no longer under law but under grace. And people who are under grace should be characterized by the fruit of the Spirit because “against such things there is no law.” Paul is communicating that the unchanging God is doing a new thing in and among the people of God, and it is by the Spirit not by the letter. That’s where the spiritual fruit thing comes in. It is new and exciting and different from what had come before. Now on this point, I do think your friend Mike is on to something… that you do in fact see hints of the fruit in the OT. This isn’t “cherry picking” any more than is your picking up on the violent strand (which is not at the center of the OT narrative). I think those examples to be a foreshadowing of what’s to come fully through Christ by the Spirit.
Regarding Jesus’ warning against false prophets, we need to ask ourselves: Who is Jesus warning? Why? Who were the false prophets and why were they dangerous? And then, what kind of fruit is he talking about? You insert the fruit of the Spirit here as if it were a clear referent (it isn’t). And than you treat the fruit as a discernment-standard by which to judge OT history. That’s several interpretive jumps that take you a long way from what any of your cited texts attempt to communicate.
I’ll follow you on this point: Killing is never a fruit of the Spirit. No form of oppression or violence is a fruit of the Spirit. I’m not “comfortable” with those sorts of things any more than you. They’re unsettling. We might wonder why God didn’t just get to the straight to the good stuff (like the fruit) earlier in the story and skip all the messy stuff. But at best this critique is against the sequence of events. You might even like where the story goes, but all you are proving to me is that you don’t like the terrain it travels through. It was a messy, perverse, violent world. To use the Biblical language, it was (and is) a “fallen” world.
The Bible presents us with a God who is incarnational. Who “empties himself” in the person of Jesus. If God is unchanging (another key part of your argument), he has always been incarnational. He’s always been getting down and dirty with humanity. With messy, perverse, violent humanity. He is not “up there” distanced from our self-inflicted mess. He’s always been more interested revealing himself and redeeming humankind than he has been in making sure that we always understood completely. That doesn’t make him a “poor communicator.” It means that he has always been communicating with humans starting where they were at, not from where they should be. Give him another listen some time. You’ll see what I’m talking about.
I wonder how accurate your view of fundamentalism as “One which most people who do believe that ‘the Bible is the word of God’ don’t hold to” really is. I tend to have a different perspective than you on fundamentalism, probably from living down south for a number of years. Sometimes people are surprised to learn that Christian Fundamentalism isn’t something that Comedy Central made up, and a person’s geographical area may color their perception of how widespread the view is. While it’s hard to get an accurate view of just how many people take a fundamentalist approach, 51% of people in the United States (a majority) hold to the Genesis account of man being created by god in his present form. While it’s difficult to judge their other views on the Bible, I would say it is fairly safe to assume that the majority of that 51% would hold to what we would consider a “fundamentalist” view of scripture. So while we don’t have an exact number, I’d say it’s certainly more than a few, and a whole lot closer to a lot. This construct makes sense because we are told that “all scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, etc. etc.” How can you know whether or not you are reproofing or correcting someone correctly if you have to try to figure out which parts are the “human error-ridden element?” God and Jesus are “magic” in the Bible, so why would people not expect a “magic” revelation? I think the answer is that there is no revelation at all, and the problems and issues (this particular argument only being one of them) are evidence of that.
As for your concern of: “Does the God of the Bible present himself this way?” and “You aren’t allowing it to tell the sort of story that it is intended to tell,” I would have to ask you what criteria you are using to make this determination. This was one of my big problems with W’s response. Rather than address the argument, he wanted to address the way I was looking at things. The only problem with this is that if you don’t view the Bible from an authoritative, fundamentalist perspective, then the judgement about how it should be interpreted is derived not from the Bible, but from human opinion. Because we have the level of confusion concerning religion as a whole, not to mention all the disagreement within Christianity in general; if the Bible was indeed inspired by a deity, like I said, he’s a very poor communicator.
Concerning Pentecost you asked, “Does the Bible present the Spirit as producing fruit in people in the OT in the same way we see post-Pentecost?” Yes. I see little difference between the miracle claims of the OT and NT, they just seem more frequent in the NT as a result of the Holy Spirit being available to more people. I would disagree that the Spirit was poured out in a way not seen before. We actually witnessed a similar occurrence in the OT when the Spirit was poured out on the 70 elders, though I don’t believe these special events like the fall, exodus, incarnation, or resurrection actually occurred. I also don’t think my assessment is based on a flat reading of the text. Using my “good dad” analogy, if I treated 7 of my kids great, but beat and murdered 3, would your assessment of me being a bad father be due to a flat reading of my character? I also don’t think anywhere in my assessment that I accused the god of the Bible of being immovable, but just like you said, unchanging.
I’ve already mentioned that we see characteristics of “the fruit of the Spirit” in the Old Testament, so there’s no need to re-hash that. The problem is that if we’re talking about an unchanging (not immovable – though I think this is almost a semantics game) god who tells what his unchanging fruit is, if we see something contrary to that fruit then it is either a) not of that god, b) that god is sending mixed messages, or c) it’s all BS. It’s not an issue of cherry picking bad verses on my part, or a non-central strand of the OT. We’re talking about an unchanging deity claiming certain characteristics and yet violating those characteristics.
If you say that I’m connecting the fruit of the Spirit inaccurately with what Jesus is saying, then what is the fruit that Jesus is talking about? If it isn’t listed in scripture, then it is one more area of confusion for human beings to argue about, and is simply a matter of human opinion rather than divine revelation.
So if killing, violence, and oppression are never a fruit of the Spirit, then why is it so hard to recognize large chunks of the Old Testament, and portions of the New, as not being inspired by the Spirit despite the claim that they are? Even Jesus’ dealing with the Samaritan woman is a good example. Is not calling her a dog due to her ethnic origins a form of oppression? Sure, he eventually heals (casts the demon out in this case) the daughter, but it’s a bit like spitting on someone and then expecting to be thought of as good because you gave them a towel to dry off with.
How about another angle to my response: Who do you hope to convince? The fundi won’t read your blog (because they don’t tend to listen to competing worldviews). And I (and the other Christian commenters who appear to be interested in what you have to say), aren’t convinced by your arguments (in part) because we don’t find the fundamentalist construct of inspiration compelling. You’d almost have to convince me to first become a fundi in order to convert me to atheism via this type of reasoning. Just sayin’.
Reading the Bible in a non-fundamentalist way (for me, as a Christian who takes inspiration seriously), means reading it contextually, with a mind towards placing each text properly where it belongs in terms of genre and overall narrative. My argument is that the fundamentalist neglects this. For the fundi, the Bible is flat. It becomes the definitive source-book for everything from science to history to theology, etc. But of course, primarily, it is seen as rule book: This is what you should and should not do and these are the consequences if you don’t play by the rules. You know, “BIBLE = Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth.” To which I counter, “Just because the Bible is inspired by God, does not mean that literalism is in any way a natural way to approach the text.” Yes there is interpretation involved. But everyone is interpreting data all the time. This includes the fundamentalist and it includes you. My beef with fundamentalism is that shortchanges the Bible by making it a magical book, and is therefore lazy in its attempts to grapple with what the Bible has to say to us today. A proper understanding inspiration means something different entirely from “magic.” More on that some other time maybe.
I’m not familiar with the stats you cited on fundis (closest I could find from a quick search was from 21 years ago, and the 51% was a specific age bracket), though I’d dispute whether believing that Adam and Eve were literal people created directly by God makes one a fundamentalist (not getting into theories of Creation here, but one could easily believe that AND some form of evolution; certainly without owning any form of a fundamentalist construct of Scripture). Regardless, the fundamentalism of American Christianity is more of a cultural phenomenon specific to our time and place than a representative of what the church holds to worldwide or historically. There is no reason to take for granted that it is a faithful representative of what it means to take the Bible seriously. An easy foil for atheistic argumentation? Yes. Truly faithful to the God revealed in the Bible? No.
You say:
“The problem is that if we’re talking about an unchanging…god who tells what his unchanging fruit is, if we see something contrary to that fruit then it is either a) not of that god, or b) that god is sending mixed messages, or c) it’s all BS.”
As you’d gather from my first comment, I’d add a fourth option: d) God was sending a progressive message bit by bit as humanity was ready for it. God entered into and revealed himself to a broken world. One that was filled with violence and brutality and injustice on a scale that I have a hard time comprehending. Just because God gets his hands dirty in the process of redemption doesn’t mean that he delights in violence. Whatever you make of the troublesome passages in the OT, the trajectory is towards redeeming humankind from those things. That’s why the overall narrative of the Bible matters in a conversation like this. We’re not trying to sidestep your argument; we’re trying to get to a core issue.
“Then what fruit is Jesus talking about?” Short answer: I don’t know. Slightly longer answer: In order to understand the sayings of Jesus we should at least try to get into the world he spoke to. The original listeners wouldn’t have heard of the fruit of the Spirit outlined by Paul. Galatians wouldn’t be written for a couple decades. I don’t see there to be anything wrong with judging modern “prophets” by the fruit of the Spirit via linking the two passages. That might even be a pretty practical application. No one wants to listen to a prophet who is a total dick. But making that practical connection and believing that the spiritual fruits to be originally intended as a definitive biblical prophet-judging criteria are two different things.
This still comes back to why you think the Bible teaches that the Spirit has always been producing this fruit in God’s people. My understanding of Galatians (outlined earlier) leads me to think that something new was going on. That’s a contextual reading in line with the flow of the Bible. Yes, there are instances of people being filled with the Spirit and prophesying in the OT. But Pentecost wasn’t just about making the Spirit available to all, whereas before only a select few had the Spirit. The OT does speak the Spirit coming on people, but it was generally for a specific task such as prophesy. Were the 70 elders filled with the Spirit on later occasions? Were they “continually filled with the Spirit” in the way NT believers were instructed to be? I don’t think so. I think the Spirit would rest for that purpose, and then the Spirit would leave. There may be exceptions to that, but they would be just that… exceptions. There’s a difference between being a Spirit inspired prophet in the OT and a Spirit filled believer in the NT. You could even call Balaam a prophet because God spoke through him (I presume, by the Spirit). But was the Spirit indwelling him and producing fruit? Of course not.
That’s all I got for now. Time to play with the little one.
Ben
I certainly wouldn’t be looking to convince anybody with one argument, so this is simply one issue out of many. However, fundamentalists as a whole are a greater threat to society then those in the moderate camp. I don’t expect any of them to necessarily read my blog, but the potential for those who often debate with the fundamentalists reading my blog is pretty good. Hopefully they can come out a little more ready for a good discussion. That being said, I’m willing to convince anyone I can, but I have no illusions that this is a process that will happen with one or two blog posts.
You said, “A proper understanding inspiration means something different entirely from “magic.” Again this goes back to what I said about W’s argument as well. Don’t you think it is a tad bit arrogant to say that you posses the proper understanding of what real inspiration looks like? Is it because you feel that you “take inspiration seriously” that you feel you have a better grasp on the Bible than someone that you would consider to not take inspiration as seriously? The problem is that everyone out there thinks their interpretation is the right one, which if any of it were true, I would put back on the deity for not having a clue as to how to get a message across.
The poll numbers I got from this article here. Like I said, they weren’t meant to be definitive, just something to put things in a rough perspective. Most of the numbers I’ve heard tossed around are about the same. I would say that fundamentalism is as old as Christianity itself, and what we see in the US is just a slightly tamer version of what we’ve seen in the past. They’re not burning people at the stake (not in the US anyhow), but I have a sneaking suspicion that a fair number of them wouldn’t be opposed to roasting atheists such as myself. I wouldn’t be so quick to call it an easy foil, but you of course are entitled to your opinion.
The whole “progressive revelation” thing really makes no sense to me at all. It seems that if a deity is going to tell people to chop the tip of their dick off, sacrifice animals and have a barbeque so god can smell the meat cook, invade foreign lands and kill men, women, children, and infants, then something tells me he could have progressed things a whole lot quicker. I fully understand the core and the trajectory, and I know that you know this. I just think it’s all bull. There is no reason to trust claimed “revelation” of a person or group of people without sufficient evidence. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
I want to make a correction real quick that I think you may have misunderstood — you said, “This still comes back to why you think the Bible teaches that the Spirit has always been producing this fruit in God’s people.” I want to make a clear distinction between Israel as a whole in the OT, and Moses as a prophet. I’m not saying the Spirit has always been producing fruit in Israel, but Moses (a man who supposedly spoke to god face to face as one speaks to another man) should surely have been producing much better fruit than he was. The only thing that sets Moses apart from other genocidal leaders of nations is that he’s in the Bible, and he is revered instead of questioned or despised. If god supposedly put a lying spirit in the mouths of the prophets in 2 Chronicles 18, what reason would there be to trust a prophet at all? You’d never know if you’re getting the lying or non-lying spirit. Of course, my view is that prophets no more speak for a god than John Edwards speaks for people’s dead relatives.
I always enjoy our discussions whether online, or over coffee. I like getting your perspective on this stuff, even though I may not agree with you.
Since most everything else has been chatted up in multiple ways, I think your only point I’ll respond to is the point of my view of inspiration & arrogance.
I’m not really interested in trying to have a better grasp of the Bible compared to other people, or in placing judgments on folks who approach Scripture in an overly simplistic way (though it certainly comes out that way sometimes). It is precisely because we as humans so easily get it wrong that paying attention to things like background / context / genre / meta-narrative is so important when approaching inspiration. In doing so, I’m acknowledging that since the books weren’t written directly to me, it’d probably be a good idea to figure out what God was saying to the original recipients to get at what He is saying today. It isn’t that hard or mysterious. As New Testament professor Paul Eddy says, “My job is to teach students what a child would know if they were living in the first century.” The Bible isn’t for the academics & scholars only. It is for everyone everywhere. Having to work a bit to understand context doesn’t make it non-inspired (or make God a poor communicator). It just means that the inspiration happened in a specific time and place. A different one from ours.
Approaching it this way puts the reader in a posture of humble submission and intellectual curiosity (the farthest thing from arrogance). It is also a straightforward (and non-magical) way of approaching inspiration that most followers of Jesus would agree with, even though they apply it differently.
The Bible is a divinely inspired book (you haven’t “proven” to me that it isn’t)… but the point isn’t to submit to the book. It’s to submit to the person behind the book. I’m cool with getting it wrong with regards to little details in the book as long as I’m submitting to the person.
Grace and Peace
Ben
Good response. I would say due to the fact that we do get things wrong so often (because we’re human) is why the communication from a deity would need to be that much better. Why communicate with the largest population of human beings on the planet, with languages and context that was specific to a small group that has long since died out?
We’re obviously going to disagree with claims of inspiration for the Bible. I would say that the burden of proof for all other claims typically is upon the person making the claim. Whether its Bigfoot is real, aliens abducted me, sugar pills cure disease, etc., the one making the claim is the one who is required to supply the proof. I could also easily turn it around and say that you haven’t proven that all other religious texts aren’t divinely inspired. Is the burden of proof upon you to prove that they aren’t inspired, or upon the person making the claim to prove that they are?
I’ll bite. (Really, I intended to be done with my last response)
On burden of proof..
Frankly, your lumping of Christian faith with belief in aliens and Bigfoot is (from where I sit) childish and offensive. I know that it is popular to make those kinds of comparisons in atheist/skeptic circles. But I expect more out of you. Your arguments would be stronger, and you’d be more likely to get a serious hearing, if you stayed away from those types of statements. There is a big category difference between popular mythology and, say, philosophy or theology. And, by the way, your post (and subsequent defenses of it) is thoroughly riddled with claims that are theological and philosophical. Claims which are unprovable by your own standards.
The subject of your blog post is to prove the non-inspiration of the Christian scriptures (as your title indicates). The content of your post attempts to be both logical and Biblical (by “biblical” – you see yourself as debunking the Bible on the authority of the biblical texts). Christians who comment can very easily point out holes in your line of reasoning, and in your use of the Scripture.
You are the one making a claim, which puts a large amount of this “burden of proof” on you. Your claim is one of certainty – that the Bible is not inspired. This is as much of a metaphysical claim as is mine that the Bible is inspired. You are also the one who chose the method of argumentation – which is Bible-based. That’s why I attempted to critique your use of the Bible – that yours is not a fair or contextual reading of the texts in question. Proving to you that it is inspired wasn’t my goal in commenting (nor would this by the proper forum for it).
Feel free to try again with a different line of reasoning, but I suspect a new post would be a better place for it.
I actually wasn’t lumping the Christian faith in with those examples. That’s why I didn’t throw in the virgin birth, resurrection, etc into the mix. I can see how you would have taken it that way though, but it was not my intention. I was only trying to draw attention with those extreme examples to point out if someone made claims of that nature they would be expected to bare the burden of proof, not the person who thought their claims might be suspect. I was trying to bring things back around to extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but it was not my intention to be a dick.
I don’t believe in bigfoot, but the yeti is real.