Reply to the Nonsense of “Atheists Have No Worldview”

Atheism Isn't a Worldview

atheist philosophy

atheist worldview

Atheists Have No Worldview

irrational presuppositions

2021-02-12T11:10:38-04:00

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Gospel of Luke Bashing Examined & Found Wanting

Last updated on: February 12, 2021 at 11:10 am By Dave Armstrong

“The Gospel According to Saint Luke” was written by atheist Vexen Crabtree in 2016. I will examine his “anti-biblical” arguments to see if they can withstand criticism. Vexen’s words will be in blue.

*****

It might be that the character of Luke was based on an old Roman pagan story about the healing God, Lykos, from Greek culture, and hence why the text was given the name Luke.

Right-o! I can relate to this, I guess. My name is David, which is based on a King (David), from Hebrew culture. Therefore, I’m not who I am, since I am merely given a title from a mythical Hercules- or Odysseus-like hero who supposedly lived 3,000 years ago.

Out of Mark, 54% is quoted in Luke, and there are a hundred or so versus that, along with Matthew, he took from the source known as ‘Q’. It is surprising that a first-hand eyewitness of Jesus would need to copy so much of other people’s text about Jesus.

Of course, St. Luke never claimed to be an eyewitness of Jesus, so this “point” is completely moot. Luke makes it clear at the beginning of his Gospel that he was not an eyewitness:

Luke 1:1-2 (RSV) Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things which have been accomplished among us, [2] just as they were delivered to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word,

He didn’t claim to see the risen Jesus, either (see Acts 1:2-3).

Luke contradicts the rest of the Bible on quite a few points of theology and gets many elements of Jesus’ life simply wrong (for example, the Roman-decreed census that never actually happened). For these reasons Luke is best not considered trustworthy.

The one who is untrustworthy is Mr. Crabtree (after the ridiculous contention above): projection if there ever was a case. Luke’s trustworthiness has been confirmed again and again by archaeology, and he was an excellent and accurate historian. See:

Archaeology and the Historical Reliability of the New Testament (Peter S. Williams)

Archaeology and the New Testament (Patrick Zukeran)

Archeology Helps to Confirm the Historicity of the Bible (Sheri Bell)

A Brief Sample of Archaeology Corroborating the Claims of the New Testament (J. Warner Wallace)

The Bible and Archaeology: The Book of Acts—The Church Begins (Mario Seiglie)

Archaeology and the New Testament (Kyle Butt)

Luke also made up the detail of the Romans instigating a census and sending people to the home towns of remote ancestors. This was not Roman policy, and although a local census did occur under Governor Quirinius it happened in 6CE, many years after Herod’s death.

For the question of the census, see:

The Census, Jesus’ Birth in Bethlehem, & History: Reply to Atheist John W. Loftus’ Irrational Criticisms of the Biblical Accounts [2-3-11]

Reply to Atheist Jonathan MS Pearce: Herod’s Death & Alleged “Contradictions” (with Jimmy Akin) [7-25-17]

1. Moral Issues

Luke 11:27-28 is dismissive of the value of motherhood, contradicting Exodus 20:1-2 and Deut. 5:1-23 which says to honour thy father and mother as part of the 10 Commandments.

Luke 11:27-28 As he said this, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that you sucked!” [28] But he said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”

The claim is nonsense, once the passage is properly understood (which atheists never seem to have the time to even try to do). I wrote an entire article about this passage:

Did Jesus Deny That Mary Was “Blessed” (Lk 11:27-28)? [11-19-19]

I have dealt with this (rather irritating) “Jesus was mean / disrespectful / indifferent to Mary” theme in two other articles also:

Jesus’ Interactions with Mary in Relation to Marian Veneration [10-29-08]

“Who is My Mother?”: Beginning of “Familial Church” [8-26-19]

See also: Jesus’ Use of the Term “Woman” [for Mary. Was it Disrespectful?] (by Jimmy Akin)

One easy way to show that Jesus’ [and/or Luke’s] intent was not at all to be “dismissive of the value of motherhood” is to look at some of the translations of the passage that bring out the meaning in a more accurate way:

NKJV But He said, “More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”

Phillips But Jesus replied, “Yes, but a far greater blessing to hear the word of God and obey it.”

Living Bible He replied, “Yes, but even more blessed are all who hear the Word of God and put it into practice.”

CEV Jesus replied, “That’s true, but the people who are really blessed are the ones who hear and obey God’s message!”

Williams But He said, “Yes, but better still, blessed are those who listen to God’s message and practice it!”

Jerusalem Bible But he replied, “Still happier those who hear the word of God and keep it!”

It’s not a matter of “either/or” or of pitting the blessedness of His mother Mary against something else. He agrees with the point and goes on to make it wider in application, to include others as well (typical biblical and Hebraic “both/and” thinking).

Luke 12:47-48 says something about it being right to punish and beat slaves.

Luke 12:47-48 And that servant who knew his master’s will, but did not make ready or act according to his will, shall receive a severe beating.[48] But he who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, shall receive a light beating. Every one to whom much is given, of him will much be required; and of him to whom men commit much they will demand the more.

The Bible also talks about lovingly correcting children through spankings, etc.:

Proverbs 13:24 He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.

Proverbs 22:15 Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him.

Proverbs 23:13-14 Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you beat him with a rod, he will not die. If you beat him with the rod you will save his life from Sheol.

Proverbs 29:15, 17 The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother. . . . Discipline your son, and he will give you rest; he will give delight to your heart.

That’s an entire issue unto itself (that would take far too long to address in this “101 atheist objections” context). I have dealt with it twice (one / two). The issue of slavery and the Bible is even more complex and multi-faceted. I’ve addressed that twice at length, too (one / two).

Luke 12:51-53 says Jesus has not come to bring peace but a sword, and has come to divide families, backed up by Luke 18:29 where Jesus says that those who have left relatives behind for Christ’s sake will find great rewards in their current life and in the afterlife. So much for family life.

This is another groundless objection, based on ignorance of Hebrew metaphor and exaggeration (hyperbole) to make a point. See:

Dr. David Madison vs. Jesus #1: Hating One’s Family? [8-1-19]

Madison vs. Jesus #4: Jesus Causes a Bad Marriage? [8-5-19]

Madison vs. Jesus #5: Cultlike Forsaking of Family? [8-5-19]

David Madison vs. the Gospel of Mark #9: Chapter 10 (Christian Biblical Ignorance / Jesus vs. Marriage & Family? / Divinity of Jesus) [8-20-19]

Seidensticker Folly #50: Mary Thought Jesus Was Crazy? (And Does the Gospel of Mark Radically Differ from the Other Gospels in the “Family vs. Following Jesus” Aspect?) [9-8-20]

2. Contradictions and Mistakes

The Gospel of Luke amasses quite a series of theological contradictions and historical mistakes

So he falsely claims . . .

For example, Luke argues against the virgin birth of Matthew 1:22-23 and goes to inane length to prove that Jesus is descended biologically from the male line of David (Luke 3:23-38).

It doesn’t follow that he is denying the virgin birth here. Joseph was Jesus’ legal father in terms of Jewish law, whether He was His biological father or not. See:

Reply to Atheist Jonathan MS Pearce: “Contradictory” Genealogies of Christ? [7-27-17]

He manages to contradict himself as a result of stating that Mary conceived Jesus whilst a virgin – although historians note that the oldest versions of Luke did not include the statements of virgin birth as now found in Luke 2:33 and Luke 2:48 (although some Bibles have now restored the original version in their translations).

There is no contradiction in these passages. It’s just yet more atheist hyper-skepticism based on groundless, evidence-free foregone conclusions and ultra-bias.

All of Luke’s insertions about singing angels, barns and mangers are not mentioned in Matthew’s version of the story and it is hard to see how others would not mention them if they happened. Luke simply didn’t know his facts when it came to Jesus’ birth.

No one is obliged to include every detail. It’s a very weak (indeed logically fallacious) argument to assert that “earlier text a doesn’t include details provided by later source b, regarding the same [larger] story x; therefore, details unique to x must be rejected as fictitious.” Anyone can see that this is manifestly false, with just a few moments of consideration.

But in any event, the Gospel of Mark didn’t intend to include the story of the Nativity. He starts with John the Baptist Jesus’ baptism. Nor does the Gospel of John have the story. Matthew doesn’t claim to include the story of the shepherds. So a claim of “insertion” into an existing story is bogus, because it’s “apple and oranges” in terms of most elements of the two accounts, that are unique to each Gospel.

Mr. Crabtree is in no position to judge who knew the “facts” regarding Jesus’ birth (or who is supposedly making up fake “facts”). It’s arbitrary and irrational analysis. These things are verified and corroborated by archaeology and historiography. So, for example, Jonathan MS Pearce, a prominent online anti-theist atheist, who also likes to tear down the Bible, made the absurd statement recently (on 12-18-20):

This also coheres with Rene Salm’s thesis in The Myth of Nazareth: The Invented Town of Jesus that Nazareth did not exist at the time of Jesus, according to archaeological analysis, and not until at least 70 CE.

I immediately shot down this rather ridiculous and outrageous claim with archaeology, noting the article: “New archaeological evidence from Nazareth reveals religious and political environment in era of Jesus” (David Keys, Independent, 4-17-20). It stated:

[T]he archaeological investigation revealed that in Nazareth itself, in the middle of the first century AD, anti-Roman rebels created a sizeable network of underground hiding places and tunnels underneath the town – big enough to shelter at least 100 people. . . .

The new archaeological investigation – the largest ever carried out into Roman period Nazareth – has revealed that Jesus’s hometown is likely to have been considerably bigger than previously thought. It probably had a population of up to 1,000 (rather than just being a small-to-medium sized village of 100-500, as previously thought).

“Our new investigation has transformed archaeological knowledge of Roman Nazareth,” said Dr Dark, who has just published the results of his research in a new book Roman-Period and Byzantine Nazareth and its Hinterland. . . .

The newly emerging picture of Roman-period Nazareth as a place of substantial religiosity does, however, resonate not only with the emergence of its most famous son, Jesus, but also with the fact that, in the mid-first or second century, it was chosen as the official residence of one of the high priests of the by-then-destroyed Temple in Jerusalem, when all 24 of those Jewish religious leaders were driven into exile in Galilee.

This is actually doing science, rather than sitting in armchairs and making historically and archaeologically clueless remarks, as these anti-theist atheist polemicists do (figuring no one will have patience enough to bother challenging them). See also: “Did First-Century Nazareth Exist?” (Bryan Windle, Bible Archaeology Report, 8-9-18; cf. several related articles from a Google search). Did it exist before Jesus’ time? It looks like it did:

The Franciscan priest Bellarmino Bagatti, “Director of Christian Archaeology”, carried out extensive excavation of this “Venerated Area” from 1955 to 1965. Fr. Bagatti uncovered pottery dating from the Middle Bronze Age (2200 to 1500 BC) and ceramics, silos and grinding mills from the Iron Age (1500 to 586 BC) which indicated substantial settlement in the Nazareth basin at that time. (Wikipedia, “Nazareth”)

That’s science. That is how claims in the Bible are objectively verified by something outside of themselves. Atheists make a ridiculous claim such as that Nazareth didn’t exist in Jesus’ time. Actual verifiable, objective science (archaeology) shoots in down in this instance, and in hundreds of other biblical particulars.

Luke is one of those authors that wrote that the end of the world – judgment day – was to occur in the lifetimes of those alive when Jesus was alive (Luke 9:26-27), but was clearly wrong.

I had dealt with this issue three times:

Debate with an Agnostic on the Meaning of “Last Days” and Whether the Author of Hebrews Was a False Prophet (9-13-06)

“The Last Days”: Meaning in Hebrew, Biblical Thought [12-5-08]

Dr. David Madison vs. Jesus #3: Nature & Time of 2nd Coming [8-3-19]

Then I was made aware of an online copy of a master’s thesis on this topic by a friend of mine, David Palm, entitled “The Signs of His Coming”: for Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois (1993). He wrote it as an evangelical Protestant, later became a Catholic, and recently noted that he would change nothing in it. I summarized his arguments in this paper:

Seidensticker Folly #58: Jesus Erred on Time of 2nd Coming? (with David Palm) [10-7-20]

At the start of the journey to Golgotha to be crucified, Luke has the Romans grab a bypasser (Simon of Cyrene) and make him carry the cross instead of Jesus, whereas in John’s account Jesus carries it all the way (Luke 23:26 versus John 19:17).

John 19:17 never says that Jesus carried the cross all the way. It says, rather, “he went out, bearing his own cross.” This doesn’t preclude Simon of Cyrene; it simply says that Jesus was bearing the cross when “he went out.” It would be like someone saying when they saw me leave my house, “Dave went out from his house on his bike.” Does that explain everything that may have happened afterwards? No, of course not. I could get a flat tire (in which case I would no longer be “on [my] bike”). I could get hit by lightning. I could have a heart attack. I could get mangled by a bear that jumped out of the woods. I could give away my bike and decide to walk back. It could start pouring and I call my wife to come pick me up in the car. A thousand things might happened that are not covered by “Dave went out from his house on his bike.” The only mystery here is why Mr. Crabtree can’t figure these patently obvious things out on his own.

And what was inscribed on the cross that Simon carried?

All four accounts say that it said “king of the Jews”. Matthew and John add “Jesus.” John adds “. . . of Nazareth.” It’s all quite consistent with the secondary details that four storytellers might get differently from each other.

Of the four gospels, Luke’s account is the only one that has the message inscribed in Latin, Greek and Hebrew (Luke 23:38).

Not true. John 19:20 states that “it was written in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek.” The other two simply don’t mention that, which is no contradiction. I get so tired of explaining simple elements of logic to anti-theist atheists that I could spit . . .

Whilst hanging on the cross, the gospels record that the two other criminals being crucified both mocked Jesus. But Luke only has one criminal insult Jesus (the one on the left), and the other becomes a follower, and speaks not in the insulting and vulgar manner reported in the other gospels, but instead he speaks in a theologically accurate, respectful and elegant manner. The words of Luke’s right-hand criminal are clearly not spoken by the two criminals reported in the other two synoptic gospels: someone (or two people) are making up conversations.

Mark has: “Those who were crucified with him also reviled him” (15:32). Matthew has “And the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way” (27:44). Why Luke has one of them mocking and the other rebuking him could be explained simply by a change of heart of the one criminal. Approaching death has a remarkable way of concentrating a mind and making one more acutely aware of one’s own sins. So this man may have repented and decided to make it right by eventually rebuking the other criminal for what he himself was also doing wrongly not long before.

Matthew and Mark would still be correct: both men indeed mocked Jesus (in this proposed scenario). If one later repented and stopped, that’s not in contradiction with Matthew and Mark. Luke would have to say something like: “the one criminal never mocked Jesus.” But lo and behold, he never does that, and so this is bogus “biblical contradiction” #9,625.

And what of the most important words of all, that any friend would remember forever? Jesus’ last words according to Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34, were to quote Psalm 22, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?‘. But in Luke 23:46, his last words were completely different: ‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit‘. Luke might have heard that Jesus quoted scripture upon his death, but instead of Psalm 22:1 has him quote Psalm 31:5. Luke doesn’t tell us that he’s unsure which verse was quoted – he states it as a fact, just as the Mark and Matthew state their accounts as fact, even though it is clear that some of them simply didn’t know the truth.

Matthew doesn’t state in 27:46 that these were the last words of Jesus. In fact, he informs us in 27:50: “And Jesus cried again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.” This proves that Matthew didn’t regard what he recorded in 27:46 as Jesus’ last words. What He “cried again with a loud voice” were His last words. Matthew simply doesn’t record them.

In Mark 15:37 it’s exactly the same: “And Jesus uttered a loud cry, and breathed his last.”

Luke provides the content what this uttered cry in a loud voice was: “Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last.” The three accounts are completely harmonious with each other.

Jesus dies. Mark 15:39 and Matthew 27:54 both have the centurions say (in different ways) that “truly this man was the son of god“. Luke 23:47 has it differently: “truly this man was innocent“, with no mention at all of Jesus’ divinity.

He said both things. Why is that so inconceivable to the atheists who sit up all night and make up these asinine lists of pseudo-“contradictions”?

Also, in Roman culture the death of a god-man such as Mithras and others was accompanied by miraculous periods of worldwide darkness. Historian Dr Richard Carrier points out that “it was common lore of the time that the sun would be eclipsed at the death of a great king“. Mark:15:33 and Matthew 27:45 both repeat that this happened for Jesus too but Luke makes it a natural darkness by saying it is an eclipse (Luke 23:45). Unfortunately, in doing so, instead of perpetuating pagan stories, he instead contradicts reality: there could be no eclipse at the time of a full moon, and, star gazers who carefully recorded eclipses at that time did not record one.

Luke 23:45 states: “the sun’s light failed.” That’s not necessarily an eclipse. The sun’s light could also fail in midday by dark clouds covering the sky (either in preparation of a big rainstorm or not). It can get very dark in ways other than eclipses. Or God (being omnipotent) could also cause supernatural darkness, if He chose to do so. In any event, the three Synoptic Gospels don’t contradict.

***

Photo credit: Saint Luke, by James Tissot (1836-1902) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

***

David Madison vs. the Gospel of Mark #10: Chapter 11 (Two Donkeys? / Fig Tree / Moneychangers) [8-20-19]

Gospel of Luke Bashing

2026-06-05T23:57:49-04:00

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Gospel of Matthew Bashing Refuted Point-by-Point

Last updated on: June 5, 2026 at 11:57 pm By Dave Armstrong

“The Gospel According to Saint Matthew” was written by atheist Vexen Crabtree in 2016. I will examine his “anti-biblical” arguments to see if they can withstand criticism. Vexen’s words will be in blue.

*****

The Gospel of Matthew is a later copy of the Gospel of Mark, using 92% of its text.

It’s grossly inaccurate to call Matthew simply a “copy” of Mark. Sure, it draws heavily from Mark, as almost all Christians would agree (though likely not it only), but it’s a different book. Probably the majority of biblical scholars today hold to the “two source hypothesis”: that is, the view that both Matthew and Luke independently drew from both Mark and “Q”: a lost collection of Jesus’ sayings. Mr. Crabtree recognizes this in writing, later: “historians are sure that a common source document was used for all of them. They call it ‘Q’ after the German word for ‘source’ “.

One Introduction to the New Testament summarizes the Synoptic situation:

[W]hat makes the synoptic problem particularly knotty is the fact that, alongside such exact agreements, there are so many puzzling differences. . . .

Each evangelist . . . omits material found in the other two, each contains unique incidents, and some of the events that are found in one or both of the others are put in a different order. (by D. A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo, and Leon Morris, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1992, pp. 26-27)

Nor are the three Synoptic Gospels to be seen as merely redundant testimony. Each provides its own slant, together providing a kind of stereoscopic depth that would otherwise be almost entirely missing. (Ibid., p. 84)

The same source refers to the “combination of exact agreement and wide divergence that characterizes the first three gospels” (p. 27). In any event, this reference book explains that the “wholesale takeover, without acknowledgment, of someone else’s literary work, with or without changes, was a common practice in the ancient world, and no opprobrium was connected with it” (p. 73).

Of course, anti-theist atheists routinely throw out the accusation of “dishonesty” and “lying” and fiction-creation by the biblical writers, but they show no real basis for such hostile conclusions, and almost invariably don’t understand key aspects of the culture of the time (such as this one about the practices of ancient writers utilizing existing materials).

It is anonymous and it wasn’t until about 150 CE that the author “Matthew” was assigned.

Carson et al stated that “we have no evidence that these gospels ever circulated without an appropriate designation . . .” (p. 66). And they add:

[T]he argument that Matthew was understood to be the author of the first gospel long before Papias wrote his difficult words affirming such a connection seems very strong, even if not unassailable. (Ibid., p. 67)

Atheists simply throw out these dates because by then the books were widely known by certain titles. It doesn’t follow, however, that they were not before. They may have been, and more recent scholarship has trended in the direction of earlier use of titles than was previously supposed by the beloved omniscient “higher critics”.

Matthew [was] not written by an eye-witness of Jesus. We know this because it is a copy of Mark. No eye witness of such an important person would have needed, or wanted, to simply copy someone-else’s memories about him.

Well, we deny the premise that Matthew was only “plagiarism of Mark with a few details added.” That just doesn’t fly, upon close analysis. As to eye-witness testimony, J. Warner Wallace observed:

I’m sometimes surprised skeptics resist the claim (at least) that the gospels are written as eyewitness accounts. We can argue about whether or not the gospels are pure fiction, or whether or not they are accurate. But the idea that the gospels can be read as eyewitness accounts is rather unremarkable to me. The gospels record events from the perspective of writers who either saw the events themselves or had access to those who did. The author of John’s gospel describes a meeting between Jesus and his disciples. This meeting appears to include the author and he makes the following claim:

“This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and wrote these things, and we know that his testimony is true.” (John 21:24)

It certainly appears that the author considers himself to be both a participant in the narrative and a reporter (eyewitness) of the event. That seems rather unremarkable to me. Even if the author is someone other than John, the claim (at the very least) that the author is an eyewitness seems plain. In addition, the author of Luke’s gospel describes himself as a historian who had access to the eyewitnesses:

“Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word…” [Lk 1:1-2]

Even if the author of Luke was not himself an eyewitness, it does appear that he believed he was recording true history as delivered to him from eyewitnesses. Once again, this seems unremarkable. (“Can the Gospels be Defended as Eyewitness Accounts?”, Cold-Case Christianity, 1-26-15)

It is written in Greek and not in the native tongues of anyone who met and followed Jesus,

What difference does it make what language it was written in? As a Jew in Palestine in the first century, Matthew would have spoken Aramaic. As a tax collector, he would also have known Greek and Hebrew. It’s said that his style of Greek (less elegant than the Gentile Luke’s) is as if it has a strong Aramaic “accent.”

and it was written too late to reasonably be the memóires of an eye-witness.

It’s not too late at all insofar as it is a personal account, and/or well within range to consult many who were eyewitnesses or earwitnesses to the events. Oral traditions were much stronger in those times and information was routinely preserved in this manner with remarkable accuracy. Encyclopaedia Britannica (“Oral tradition”) explains this notion (very foreign to modern persons in developed and highly literate societies):

In the 1930s, for example, two American scholars, Milman Parry and Albert Lord, conducted extensive fieldwork on oral tradition in the former Yugoslavia. They recorded more than 1,500 orally performed epic poems in an effort to determine how stories that often reached thousands of lines in length could be recalled and performed by individuals who could neither read nor write. What they found was that these poets employed a highly systematic form of expression, a special oral language of formulaic phrases, typical scenes, and story patterns that enabled their mnemonic and artistic activities. With this information in hand, Parry and Lord were able to draw a meaningful analogy to the ancient Greek Iliad and Odyssey, which derived from oral tradition and obey many of the same rules of composition. The mystery of the archaic Homeric poems—simply put, “Who was Homer and what relation did he have to the surviving texts?”—was solved by modern comparative investigation. Whoever Homer was, whether a legend or an actual individual, the poems attributed to him ultimately derive from an ancient and long-standing oral tradition.

Other familiar works with deep roots in oral tradition include the Judeo-Christian Bible, the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh, and the medieval English Beowulf. The famous “begats” genealogy of the Bible’s book of Genesis and corresponding elements found in the four Gospels of the New Testament provide examples of how flexible oral-traditional systems can produce different but related products over many generations. Similarly, what survives in the fragmentary record of Gilgamesh is evidence of a broadly distributed tale in the ancient Middle East, one that passed easily from culture to culture and language to language before being inscribed on tablets. Beowulf, whose unique manuscript dates to the 10th century CE, circulated in oral tradition for centuries before Irish missionaries introduced the new technology of inked letters on parchment.

Bottom line? Even Mr. Crabtree holds that Matthew was written between 70-100 AD. That’s “nothing” in terms of an oral tradition being preserved with minute accuracy. No problem at all. And it’s early enough to be either from a direct witness (Matthew) or reported by same.

Matthew specifically set out to correct many mistakes in Mark’s gospel, especially regarding comments on Jewish customs and practices.

Well, that was Mr. Crabtree’s goal: to show this. I think I systematically dismantled his case in my previous two papers along these lines:

Pearce’s Potshots #15: Gospel of Matthew vs. Gospel of Mark? [2-7-21]

Groundless Gospel of Mark Bashing Systematically Refuted (vs. Vexen Crabtree) [2-9-21]

In many cases he found a text, and because he did not know Jesus, felt free to invent details in order to make the Old Testament text he was reading appear as a prophecy.

Mr. Crabtree acts as if what Matthew did (i.e., what he actually did; not atheist caricatures of it) is unethical or dishonest. It wasn’t. On this question, see:

“Matthew’s Use of the Old Testament: A Preliminary Analysis” (Lee Campbell Ph.D., Xenos Christian Fellowship)

“New Testament use of the Old Testament” (Theopedia)

2.1. There Was No Virgin Birth

The Prophecy of the Virgin Birth appears in Matthew 1:22-23. Matthew wrote this seventy years after Jesus Christ was born (35-40 years after he died). Up until that point no other text mentions Jesus’ virgin birth. He quotes Isaiah 7:14 which was written 700 years before Jesus was born – thus claiming it was a sign, a prediction of the messiah’s virgin birth.

Yes, it was.

But there is a serious problem. Matthew states that, due to prophecy, it is true that Jesus was a male line descendant of King David, and presents a genealogy at the beginning of his gospel tracing Jesus’ lineage through Joseph. Matthew, apparently, like Luke and Paul and the rest of the early Christians, did not believe in a virgin birth. There are two theories that explain how this contradiction occurred. (1) A Septuagint mistranslation of the word “virgin” instead of “young woman” caused the discrepancy. The original prophecy is not that someone called Immanuel will be born of a virgin, but merely that someone called Immanuel will be born. In the original context of the story, this makes a lot of sense. (2) Matthew, writing for a Roman gentile audience in Greek, included popular myths surrounding sons of gods, who in Roman mythology were frequently said to be born of virgins. In either case, it is clear that Matthew’s prophecy of a virgin birth was a mistake, and modern Bible’s actually include a footnote in Matthew pointing out that the virgin birth is a Septuagint mistranslation. . . .

It is only a later Greek mistranslation that makes Matthew say “called Immanuel, born of a virgin”, rather than “of a young woman”.

I’ve addressed these matters at great length:

Reply to Atheist Jonathan MS Pearce: “Mistranslation” of “Virgin”? (Isaiah 7:14) (with Glenn Miller) [7-26-17]

Dual Fulfillment of Prophecy & the Virgin Birth (vs. JMS Pearce) [12-18-20]

Other Christians and Previous Christians Did Not Believe in the Virgin Birth

50ce : The writer(s) of the gospel of Q were unaware of the virgin birth.
64ce : Paul died without writing of the virgin birth.
70ce : The writer of the Gospel of Mark does not mention it.

Not mentioning something is not the same as a denial. This should be self-evident to anyone. It’s a simple matter of logic. The Gospel of John and all of Paul’s epistles in the Bible never mention camels, either. Does it follow that both men denied their existence?

But a case can be made that Paul did allude to it. J. Warner Wallace contended:

Galatians 4:4-5 But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.

Paul says that Jesus was “born of a woman” and not “born of a virgin”. Critics have argued that this is proof that Paul was unaware of the virgin conception. But this is not necessarily the case. Many scholars have observed that the expression, “born of a woman, born under the Law” implies that Jesus had no earthly father because Paul curiously chose to omit any mention of Joseph in this passage. It was part of the Hebrew culture and tradition to cite the father alone when describing any genealogy, yet Paul ignored Joseph and cited Mary alone, as if to indicate that Joseph was not Jesus’ father. (“Why Didn’t Paul Mention the Virgin Conception?”, Cold-Case Christianity, 12-14-18)

2.2. The Guiding Star

One of Matthew’s plotlines is the three visitors from the East who visit the newborn Jesus. They say that a star came up in the East, however no other people in the story appear to notice this. It must have been a relatively unnoticeable event, a fairly faint star, only noticed by people who study the stars. The three visitors are called “Star Readers” in Matthew 2:1. However no other astrologers across the world at that time document this phenomenon. It appears Matthew made it up.

It so happens that I did a great deal of study on the star of Bethlehem last December:

Star of Bethlehem, Astronomy, Wise Men, & Josephus (Amazing Astronomically Verified Data in Relation to the Journey of the Wise Men & Jesus’ Birth & Infancy) [12-14-20]

Star of Bethlehem: Refuting Silly Atheist Objections [12-26-20]

Star of Bethlehem: More Silly Atheist “Objections” [12-29-20]

2.3. Matthew 21:1-7 – The Prophecy of the 2 Donkeys

Mark wrote that Jesus rode triumphantly into Jerusalem on a donkey. Luke and John both stuck to this. Matthew was in the habit of “correcting” Mark’s errors and on this point of Jesus’ riding into Jerusalem, Matthew felt he should have been riding on two donkeys at the same time.

On all three times Matthew mentions this part (Matthew 21:1-7) he says the same thing, so it was not a transcription error. Why does Matthew alter the text in such a bizarre way? It seems he misread Zechariah 9:9: “mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey”. We have already seen from Matthew’s misinterpretation of the difference between the Hebrew word “Almah” and “Betulah” that he has a poor understanding of Hebrew. This passage also was misunderstood by Matthew.

“In Hebrew an emphasis is expressed by the doubling of a word or a phrase, like “and David’s enemies were dead, and yes, very dead,” so the original phrase does not mean two animals at all (as is also clearly shown by Jewish comments on the passage).”

Once again Matthew changed the meaning of the text to reflect what he thought it should say in order to make a prophecy come true, a conscious act of fraud in order to make the text fits his own personal opinion of the facts.

This is hogwash, I have dealt with this charge already:

2.4. Matthew 2:16-18 – King Herod: The Killing of Every Male Baby

Chapter two of Matthew tells us of King Herod’s anger at the three wise men and then of the killing of every child. Surely, the slaughter of every male child (Matthew 2:16-18) in Bethlehem, Ramah, and the surrounding area would have got mentioned in many places, such as Josephus’ detailed accounts of the times, in fact it would likely cause the downfall of such an immoral, monstrous leader who issued such orders!

Catholic apologist Trent Horn offers a superb rebuttal of this standard playbook accusation from atheists:

Such an act of cruelty perfectly corresponds with Herod’s paranoid and merciless character, which bolsters the argument for its historicity. Josephus records that Herod was quick to execute anyone he perceived to threaten his rule, including his wife and children (Antiquities 15.7.5–6 and 16.11.7). Two Jewish scholars have made the case that Herod suffered from “Paranoid Personality Disorder,” and Caesar Augustus even said that it was safer to be Herod’s pig than his son.

In addition, first-century Bethlehem was a small village that would have included, at most, a dozen males under the age of two. Josephus, if he even knew about the massacre, probably did not think an isolated event like the killings at Bethlehem needed to be recorded, especially since infanticide in the Roman Empire was not a moral abomination as it is in our modern Western world.

[prominent archaeologist William F. Albright estimated the population of Bethlehem at the time of Jesus’ birth to be about 300 people]

Herod’s massacre would also not have been the first historical event Josephus failed to record.

We know from Suetonius and from the book of Acts that the Emperor Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome in A.D. 49, but neither Josephus nor the second century Roman historian Tacitus record this event (Acts 18). Josephus also failed to record Pontius Pilate’s decision to install blasphemous golden shields in Jerusalem, which drove the Jews to petition the emperor for their removal. The Alexandrian philosopher Philo was the only person to record this event.

Sometimes historians choose not to record an event, and their reasons cannot always be determined. In the nineteenth century Pope Leo XIII noted the double standard in critics for whom “a profane book or ancient document is accepted without hesitation, whilst the Scripture, if they only find in it a suspicion of error, is set down with the slightest possible discussion as quite untrustworthy” (Providentissimus Deus, 20).

We should call out this double standard when critics demand that every event recorded in Scripture, including the massacre of the Holy Innocents, be corroborated in other non-biblical accounts before they can be considered to be historical. (“Is the Massacre of the Holy Innocents Historical?”, Catholic Answers, 12-26-19)

Many other myths, including more ancient Roman ones, had an event where all the male children were killed, and the famous Romulus and Remus story is (once again) a good, famous example. The story of Moses also contains a period of time when all Jewish male children are being killed by the King of the time, when Moses escapes in a basket pushed down a river by his mother. The princess who picked him out of the water called him Moses, which means “picked out”. . . .

Matthew appears to have included, as part of Jesus’ history, the same story that accompanies many other myths in history. That of the darkening of the sun when an important person dies. . . .

Graves continues to partially list major myths of the time that included such a darkening of the sun: The ancient pagan demigod Senerus, the Indian God Chrishna, the Egyptian Osiris, Prometheus, Romulus, even Caesar and Alexander the Great.

If we removed from Matthew all the stories about Jesus that were to be found to be part of Roman popular culture about sons-of-gods, then, we find that there is very little left! Some people theorize that all stories about Jesus are copies of other stories because Jesus himself never existed!

So what! How would this “logic” work? Let’s see: “if ever in history an event, x, occurred [Christians and Jews think the story of Moses is historical], which included in it sub-event y, then it follows that y can never ever happen again, since it already happened!” Huh? This would be scornfully laughed out of any course on logic anytime, anywhere.

By this logic, because President Lincoln was shot and killed by a pistol, it follows that Presidents Garfield and McKinley could not have been. Makes sense, huh? But Mr. Crabtree is actually being even more ridiculous than that. He is also arguing, “if in non-historical mythology, an event, x is described, which included in it sub-event y, then it follows that y can never ever happen in real life.”

Therefore, by his “reasoning” because the wicked witch was burned to death in her own oven, in the German fairy tale Hansel and Gretel, no one could ever actually be burned to death in an oven. The existence of the fairy tale / myth precludes the possibility of it ever occurring in real life.

Anti-theist atheists engage in this sort of logical ludicrosity time and again: apparently never stopping to think that it is perfectly absurd. Or if they know it’s logically absurd, they use it anyway if they perceive that it “works” in order to further their goal of painting Christianity and the Bible as worthy only of loathing and mockery.

2.5. The End of the World is Imminent

Jesus in the Christian Bible proclaimed many times that the world was about to end: judgement was about to come and he specifically said that this would happen in the same generation that he first appeared in. Obviously, there has been a delay. St Paul taught the same message, preaching the urgent admission of sins, because of the imminent end. The rest of the New Testament, especially the Book of Revelations, provides many more cryptic clues about when this will occur. This is what has spurred the endless stream of historical proclamations by studious Christians that the end is near. Matthew 24:27-44 is a lengthy commentary on when the Son of Man comes to end the world, but various hints and comments are scattered throughout the rest of New Testament. Some of the relevant comments in Matthew are:

The imminent end of the world will be obvious to all (Matthew 24:27). Jesus quotes Isaiah 13:10, 34:4, saying that the sun will go out and the stars will fall from the sky (Matthew 24:29, copied from Mark 13:20-26). The Son of Man will arrive in the clouds with great power and trumpets (24:30-31 copied from Mark 13:27). There will be signs just before the end although no-one knows in advance at what hour the end-times will come (Matthew 24:32-39, copied from Mark 13:28-33). The end of the world starts with the rapture, when approximately one in two men and one in two women will be raptured and taken into heaven, suddenly, by God (Matthew 24:40-41).
It is imminent: Jesus warns clearly that “this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. This world will pass away…” (Matthew 16:28, 24:34-35, Mark 9:1, 13:30 and Luke 9:26-27). In Matthew 10:23 Jesus warns his disciples to preach very rapidly in town after town, fleeing at the first sign of persecution, because they will not have enough time to go through all the towns of Israel before the end of the world occurs. In 1 Corinthians 7:27-31 St Paul says that time is so short, people should no longer bother getting married, mourn or bother with possessions: “Those who have wives should live as if they had none; … those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away”. Matthew 8:22 dismisses niceties of funeral arrangements “let the dead bury their own dead” because followers must join Jesus immediately, before it is too late!

I had dealt with this issue three times:

Debate with an Agnostic on the Meaning of “Last Days” and Whether the Author of Hebrews Was a False Prophet (9-13-06)

“The Last Days”: Meaning in Hebrew, Biblical Thought [12-5-08]

Dr. David Madison vs. Jesus #3: Nature & Time of 2nd Coming [8-3-19]

Seidensticker Folly #58: Jesus Erred on Time of 2nd Coming? (with David Palm) [10-7-20]

Matthew contributed some very unlikely events to the Biblical account of the crucifixion and resurrection.

Whether an event is “unlikely” or not is irrelevant to whether it actually happened. Lots of “strange” things have happened throughout history.

For example, the Guards on the Tomb,

How is that “very unlikely”? Atheists have bandied about the story of the supposed stolen body of Jesus, in order to explain away the resurrection, for centuries. If they can “reason” like that, then it follows that the people of the time could have as well. The very prevalence of this skeptical motif renders it likely and plausible.

the empty Tomb,

Yeah, it’s very unlikely. But it didn’t mean it didn’t happen.

the Angel,

In the Bible there are such things as angels! We understand that atheists disbelieve in them. Again, mere disbelief is not proof of the non-existence of angels, anymore than it is for God’s existence.

the Earthquake

Now there is scientific evidence that an earthquake did indeed occur around the time of the crucifixion of Jesus. See:

The Christ Quake (documentary)

Crucifixion Quake (documentary)

and the 3 hours darkness at Jesus’ death

If this wasn’t a natural event (a lunar eclipse or a storm with very dark cloud cover, which can happen), then it could have been a supernatural darkness. If God exists and if indeed He is omnipotent, then this is entirely possible.

are all very likely to be wrong.

On what basis? Bald assertion is neither argument nor evidence.

Matthew exaggerates elements when copying Mark to the point of making it up, for example the young-boy who at Jesus’ tomb becomes a radiant angel who scares off the guards (Matthew 28).

Angels are often called men in Scripture. But there could easily have been more than one angel involved. The Gospels taken together, show that this is the case. Deliberate lying or deception is not a plausible or provable hypothesis.

These side-stories, although not essential to the idea of the resurrection, reinforce the feeling that Matthew was writing anything he could to make Jesus out to have existed, whether such things were true or not.

Mr. Crabtree has not cast serious doubt on these things; not by these arguments. That Jesus exists is the consensus of virtually all serious scholars. See: Seidensticker Folly #4: Jesus Never Existed, Huh? [8-14-18].

Mr. Crabtree then cites atheist Richard Carrier at length. His words will be in green:

Doesn’t the fact that the tomb was guarded make escape unlikely, even if Jesus survived?

Not if Jesus was resurrected, and if He was God (as Christians believe). A mere stone would then be irrelevant as to His “escape.”

Although one gospel accuses the Jews of making up the theft story, it is only that same gospel, after all, which mentions a guard on the tomb, and the authors have the same motive to make that up as the Jews would have had to make up the theft story: by inventing guards on the tomb the authors create a rhetorical means of putting the theft story into question, especially for the majority of converts who did not live in Palestine.

I already answered this above:

Atheists have bandied about the story of the supposed stolen body of Jesus, in order to explain away the resurrection, for centuries. If they can “reason” like that, then it follows that the people of the time could have as well. The very prevalence of this skeptical motif renders it likely and plausible.

I think atheists and the Jewish opponents of Jesus making such a story up is at least as plausible as the Gospel writers doing so.

An additional reason to reject Matthew’s story is that it contradicts all other accounts and is illogical: if the tomb was sealed until the angel came and moved the stone before the women and the guards, how did Jesus leave the tomb undetected? Did he teleport? For he wasn’t in the tomb: it was already empty. Even if he want to imagine that he did teleport, all the other Gospels record that the stone had already been moved when the women arrived (Mark 16:4, Luke 24:2, John 20:1). Thus, Matthew’s account is contradicted three times, even by an earlier source (Mark), and does not make a lot of sense. That is further ground for rejecting it: for Matthew alone must have the angel open the tomb when the women are present in order to silence the guards that he alone has put there.

I just got through writing an exhaustive two-part refutation of numerous anti-resurrection claims:

Pearce’s Potshots #13: Resurrection “Contradictions” (?) [2-2-21]

Pearce’s Potshots #14: Resurrection “Contradictions” #2 [2-4-21]

And I had done some before, too:

Silly Atheist Arguments vs. the Resurrection & Miracles [2002]

Dialogue w Atheist on Post-Resurrection “Contradictions” [1-26-11]

Seidensticker Folly #18: Resurrection “Contradictions”? [9-17-18]

Jesus’ Resurrection: Scholarly Defenses of its Historicity [4-12-20]

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Photo credit: The evangelist Matthew and the angel (1661), by Rembrandt (1606-1669) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

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2021-02-10T12:00:16-04:00

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Why Do I Defend the Bible Against Atheist Attacks?

Last updated on: February 10, 2021 at 12:00 pm By Dave Armstrong

The Purposes and Goals of Contra-Atheist Christian Apologetics

“Sporkfighter” is a friendly and fair-minded atheist who asked me some good questions underneath my article, Groundless Gospel of Mark Bashing Systematically Refuted (2-9-21). Here are my replies, with a short second round as well. It became an excellent opportunity to explain the wider goals and motivations of apologetics. His words will be in blue.

*****

Question: Who are you writing for?

1) Christians: for their existing faith to be strengthened by seeing the weakness of opposing arguments and the strength of our own.

2) For Christians who are wavering in their faith (who would be adversely affected by the material I refute) and perhaps considering leaving it and/or becoming an atheist: to be strengthened by seeing the weakness of opposing arguments.

3) For those wondering about the doctrines of biblical inspiration and infallibility.

4) For fair-minded, honest atheists: to show that these atrocious arguments are embarrassing for atheists to put out: and ought to be rebuked from within their own community.

5) For the atheist who actually thinks these are unanswerable arguments.

6) For the atheist who might be on the fence and is considering forsaking atheism.

7) For atheists or anyone else who think that Christian theology is held only by gullible, infantile ignoramuses, who hate science and reason.

8) For anyone who thinks that Christianity is fundamentally irrational and opposed to reasonable explanation or defense.

9) For the sake of truth itself (i.e., what I, to the best of my ability, have come to believe is truth).

10) For the sake of open and honest discussion between opposing viewpoints: believing that dialogue is a means to obtain truth.

Are you writing to give Catholics support for their beliefs?

Inasmuch as Catholics are in the category of Christians, yes. But I’m also offering support for things where Protestants , Orthodox, and Catholics are in full agreement. I don’t argue about Catholic distinctives when defending Christianity against atheist attacks (I don’t consider it appropriate or prudent): unless they hit upon a specifically Catholic belief. Nothing in my reply here or in others like it should cause the slightest pause for any traditional, conservative (trinitarian / Nicene Creed) Christian. In fact, I could have written this when I was an evangelical Protestant (1977-1990).

Are you writing to convince non-Catholic Christians that Catholicism it one-true or the most-true path to salvation through Jesus?

No; per my previous reply. I do that in many other papers, but in this context it’s inappropriate. The word “Catholic” appears once in the entire article, and it is simply in referring to a “Catholic apologist” who made a general Christian apologetic point: precisely as I am doing here. So why do you keep bringing up Catholicism, as if it were relevant to my paper? It’s odd.

Are you writing to convince non-Christian theists that Christianity generally and Catholicism specifically is the path to the true God?

In a way, the first thing (in an indirect / roundabout sense), but it’s not my direct goal. The latter is addressed in hundreds of other papers of mine.

Are you writing to non-believers, trying to convince them that there is a God, that the Pope in Rome is his representative and the Catholic Church His…marketing arm?

See my previous two replies.

If it’s the first, okay. If it’s the second, okay. If it’s the third, I don’t see how your approach beginning and ending in the Bible can end up convincing anyone by never addressing their own traditions and their own reasons for believing.

It’s a specific argument; not the whole ball of wax. The question at hand is”: “Is Mark trustworthy as a document?, or is it so full of contradictions that the author has no credibility and no one (as a result) could possibly believe it was inspired by God.” I “defeat the defeaters, as Alvin Plantinga often says. It’s not defending the entire Bible (let alone all of Christianity or more specifically, Catholicism). It’s simply showing that these particular objections fall flat and achieve nothing whatsoever to tear down the Gospel of Mark.

If it’s the fourth, the best you’ll ever get a Bible full of events that could have happened without external evidence that they did happen.

Again, this is a “reactive” enterprise. I am showing how these objections fail. You’re way ahead of the game and have to realize the intent of any particular apologetics project. I’m happy to clarify.

I’m in the fourth group, and I just shake my head at the effort you go through to show the Bible can’t be proven false.

It’s not claiming the entire Bible can’t be proven false (though I do believe that). It’s showing how these arguments against Mark are a bunch of hot air and are irrational. It’s meant to give folks pause who are mightily impressed by these ludicrous pseudo-“arguments.” Then there are hundreds of other possible arguments and objections to address (most of which I have dealt with, in my 3180 articles on my blog, and 50 books). The argument for Christianity and the Bible is a cumulative one, consisting of scores and scores of individual arguments, adding up to the conclusion that Christianity is true and atheism false.

Does it really matter if you can explain why apparently differing details in the four Gospels don’t leave the Bible hopelessly internally contradictory?

Yes, but it’s just one piece in a large puzzle. Does it really matter to you that your fellow atheists make such terrible arguments? Are you able to admit that any in this piece are in fact, disproven by my replies? You haven’t said one word about my actual arguments. Instead, it’s all “meta-analysis.”

At best, you have a fantastic tale that “could have happened” with no evidence that it did happen.

People are convinced by an accumulation of considerations, which they feel all point in one direction: the truth of Mark or the Bible or of Christianity. If I make them curious here and persuade them of anything, then they will be game for future attempts at persuasion: all the way up to a possible conversion to Christianity or Catholicism specifically, or to a serious doubting of atheism, or a strengthening of a weak or wavering Christian faith. It’s all good. It’s what I was put on this earth to do (what we call a “calling” or “vocation”).

If you want to convince people outside your tradition, first, why, and second, you need evidence from outside your tradition.

Exactly! I am using reason as that common ground that both sides accept. I never say, “accept x, y, or z simply because Christians / the pope / Christian tradition says so.” I say, “accept it because it appears by virtue of reason to be true,” or “it may be true, given the weakness of opposing arguments” or “it appears to be more plausible than atheist alternatives.”

If you want to convince people inside your tradition, why? They’re already convinced.

It’s strengthening their existing faith, and providing support in reason for their faith, so it can be held more boldly and confidently, and more efficiently and successfully shared with others. Christians are under attack from all directions. There is a need for certain folks in our community to help support the faithful through efforts like this and many others of a different nature (such as social service or prayer, etc.).

If you find the academic challenge interesting, that would be the answer that makes the most sense to me.

I do enjoy that as well. But I find these atheist “objections” so weak, I would hardly even classify them as “academic.” They purport to be academic or semi-academic. Most of them would be laughed off of the stage of any truly academic setting. I’m not an academic or scholar. But I do claim to engage in semi-academic / “thinking man’s” lay apologetic endeavors. And I have held my own in dialogue with many scholars.

Excellent and comprehensive reply. I’m still looking for evidence that any supernatural realm of any kind exists before I wrestle with the details. Picking apart Christianity as a way to support my position would be pointless, because there’s always another tradition or faith to knock down, and another, and another.

Glad you like it. I would say that it sure looks like — according to cutting-edge science — an immaterial “spirit” of some sort, something wildly different from what we have up till now understood as “matter”, exists (to the tune of 95% of the entire universe). Most atheists have been telling us for centuries that it didn’t. You may have seen my recent paper on this: Seidensticker Folly #71: Spirit-God “Magic”; 68% Dark Energy Isn’t?

In other words, even science is leading us rapidly into new realms of “spirit” or “whatintheworldisthis?” stuff. Perhaps that is your gateway into the “supernatural realm of any kind.”

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Photo credit: geralt (2-1-21) [Pixabay / Pixabay License]

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Catholic Apologetics

Apologetics

biblical skepticism

Christian apologetics

Christian-atheist debate

purpose of apologetics

2026-06-05T23:57:49-04:00

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Groundless Gospel of Mark Bashing Systematically Refuted

Last updated on: June 5, 2026 at 11:57 pm By Dave Armstrong

I just finished yesterday an exhaustive (over 8,000-word) point-by-point refutation of a wholesale attack on the Gospel of Mark, written by atheist Steven Carr: Pearce’s Potshots #15: Gospel of Matthew vs. Gospel of Mark?. That piece was actually part of a longer diatribe, entitled The Gospel According to Saint Mark: written by another atheist: Vexen Crabtree in 2006. Now I will examine his piece, too, to see if it is any more worthy of belief than Carr’s relentlessly erroneous analysis. Vexen’s words will be in blue.

*****

This anonymous gospel was the first to be written, around 80 CE, by an unknown Roman convert to Christianity.

Many early Christian writers state that Mark (or John Mark) is the author. The most important “witness” is Papias, a bishop of Hierapolis in Asia Minor (Turkey) until about 130 AD. His statement is recorded in in Eusebius’ History of the Church, written in 325:

Papias gives also in his own work other accounts of the words of the Lord on the authority of Aristion who was mentioned above, and traditions as handed down by the presbyter John; to which we refer those who are fond of learning. But now we must add to the words of his which we have already quoted the tradition which he gives in regard to Mark, the author of the Gospel.

“This also the presbyter 960 said: Mark, having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately, though not in order, whatsoever he remembered of the things said or done by Christ. 961 For he neither heard the Lord nor followed him, but afterward, as I said, he followed Peter, who adapted his teaching to the needs of his hearers, but with no intention of giving a connected account of the Lord’s discourses, 962 so that Mark committed no error while he thus wrote some things as he remembered them. For he was careful of one thing, not to omit any of the things which he had heard, and not to state any of them falsely.” These things are related by Papias concerning Mark. (Book III, 39:15)

The “presbyter John” referred to may be the apostle John himself. If so, the identification of Mark as the author goes back (via oral transmission) to the first Christians. Other early witnesses to Mark’s authorship include Irenaeus (c. 130-c. 202), Clement of Alexandria (150-c. 215), Tertullian (c. 155-c. 240), and Origen (c. 184-c. 253). No one can be found in the early Church who dissents from this opinion of authorship.

That this Mark referred to by these early Christians is also the same as “(John) Mark” (mentioned in Acts 12:12, 25; 13:5, 13; 15:37; Col 4:10; Philem 24; 2 Tim 4:11; 1 Pet 5:13) is almost certain.

The author of Mark was not an eyewitnesses of Jesus, and wasn’t friends with any of the disciples nor any other witnesses who could have easily corrected many of his mistakes.

Papias states otherwise: that he drew from Peter, and we have no compelling reason to doubt his report.

The evidence is that (1) the author uses a lot of existing stories (both Hebrew and Greek) and wrote them into the text with Jesus as the centre of the story, instead of the original characters.

A common theme in atheist biblical skepticism is to simply assert these sorts of wild claims, while not presenting any evidence why anyone should accept them. Joe Blow atheist asserting x, y, z skeptical claims about supposed Gospel “fictions and fairy tales” — provided by no evidence whatsoever — has exactly no plausibility or ability to persuade any fair-minded, objective thinking person. Why should we believe them (even before getting into the question of the unreliability of “hostile witnesses”)? But the early Christian tradition is agreed that the author was Mark and that he drew from an eyewitness, Peter.

(2) He didn’t speak Aramaic (Jesus’ language)

How does he know this? The Gospel of Mark came down to us in Greek, but there is no proof that Mark didn’t speak Aramaic. Professor of New Testament Language Larry Hurtado wrote that “Mark has more Semitic words/expressions (mainly Aramaic) than any of the other Gospels.” As to whether Mark spoke Aramaic, see “Aramaic in Mark” by Dr. Benjamin Shaw (who earned a Th.M. from Princeton Theological Seminary, with an emphasis in biblical languages: Greek, Hebrew, Old Testament and Targumic Aramaic, as well as Ugaritic), 2021.

Ben Witherington in The Gospel of Mark: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (pp. 18-9) documents a number of stylistic traits of Mark’s Gospel:

Historical present tense verbs

Repetition of phrases

Impersonal plural verb followed by a singular verb

First-person plural narrative

Parenthetical clarifications

γάρ–clauses

Anacoluthon

Paratactic καί

Aramaic phrases

Unusual words or constructions

Chreia

In sum, these traits point to an author who struggles to express himself in the language he is writing. . . . So the text itself suggests the author of Mark was, in fact, an Aramaic speaker. [source]

Kenneth Kuziej, in his article, “The Aramaic Logic of Jesus in Mark and Matthew,” Consensus: Vol. 2 : Iss. 3 , Article 5 (1976) provides very helpful information:

Mark’s Greek is rough, strongly Aramaic, and not surprisingly, full of grammatical errors. At the same time, however, it is language which is lively and appealing, like that of an enthusiastic young immigrant. . . . Luke’s Gospel preserves no Aramaic words of Jesus. Neither does the Gospel of John, which, though accented with Aramaic, has such a simple vocabulary it almost seems as if this evangelist chooses not to make his work hard to understand for readers who understood no Aramaic.

The question is why did Matthew’s and Mark’s Gospels preserve those Aramaic words and phrases of Jesus? It’s only a guess, but perhaps, like many people who are new to a language, when stumped, fall back on their native words. This almost could be the explanation for the word Mammon (loosely translated “money” but meaning all material things) and Raka (which is an obscure term of abuse loosely translated “you fool”).

and wrote in Greek, not Hebrew,

The manuscript came down to us in Greek. No one disagrees with that. So why mention it? But the evidence presented above strongly suggests that Greek was not his first language; Aramaic very likely was.

even having Jesus quote a Greek mistranslation of the Old Testament. . . .

All of his quotes from the Old Testament are from the faulty Septuagint translation, in Greek.

Catholic apologist Jason Evert explains the New Testament use of the Septuagint: Greek translation of the Old Testament:

Of the places where the New Testament quotes the Old, the great majority is from the Septuagint version. Protestant authors Archer and Chirichigno list 340 places where the New Testament cites the Septuagint but only 33 places where it cites from the Masoretic Text rather than the Septuagint (G. Archer and G. C. Chirichigno, Old Testament Quotations in the New Testament: A Complete Survey, 25-32).

For those who may not know, the Septuagint was the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament. The common abbreviation for it—LXX, or the Roman numerals for 70—come from a legend that the first part of the Septuagint was done by 70 translators.

By the first century, the LXX was the Bible of Greek-speaking Jews and so was the most frequently used version of the Old Testament in the early Church. For this reason, it was natural for the authors of the New Testament to lift quotes from it while writing in Greek to the Church.

But, while the New Testament authors quoted the LXX frequently, it does not necessarily follow that Christ did. We know for certain that Jesus quoted the Hebrew Old Testament at times, since he read from the scrolls in the synagogue. But Jesus could have only quoted from the Hebrew, and the New Testament authors later used the Greek translation to record the fact.

Some details such as what Jesus said in his personal prayers is made-up. . . .

How did Mark know what Jesus said in his private prayer in Mark 14:32-36? Jesus specifically goes out of his way to leave the disciples behind, taking only James, John and Peter with him. Then, he departs from them for such a distance that they are asleep by the time he returns – and this happens twice. The occasional academic is not afraid to voice the obvious truth: “So how did Mark know? He ‘knew’ because he made it up” – Price.

On what basis is this to be believed? It’s simply the usual irrational, hostile atheist skepticism. Jesus could have simply communicated what He was praying to Peter, who passed it on to Mark. The Bible doesn’t claim to be absolutely exhaustive, as to what Jesus taught His followers. Indeed, one long conversation in one evening by Jesus would contain far more words, by far, than all of His words recorded in Scripture. And that’s just one night. He was constantly with the disciples for three years, day and night. Mark 6:34 notes in one instance, even with the crowds, not just the disciples: “he began to teach them many things” (RSV, as throughout my reply) None of them are recorded. Mark 4:34 adds: “privately to his own disciples he explained everything.”

So some of this “everything” could have easily been what Jesus prayed. All Jesus had to do was tell Peter, “last night I prayed [so-and-so]” (maybe in response to the ever-zealous Peter asking Him) just as we have cases where He revealed what He prayed in Scripture: “I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail” (Lk 22:32; spoken to Peter). Then Peter could tell Mark about one of these prayers, and that’s how Mark could have “known” about Jesus’ private prayers. It’s not rocket science to envision such a scenario. It’s absolutely not impossible.

He included multiple copies of the same story (but often with different details – evidence that he was using passed-on stories that had diverged over time). This often results in internal contradictions and inconsistencies.

Another bald claim. Mr. Crabtree has to provide more specifics, then the Christian can respond to the accusation (just as I did with Steven Carr’s hit-piece: systematically refuting every “anti-Mark” argument that he made). Christian apologists don’t have time to chase vague phantoms of anti-theist atheists’ unbridled imaginations.

The unfamiliarity with Jewish ways of life. There was no-one to correct his blunders such as misquoting the 10 commandments, attributing God’s words to Moses, and having Jews buy things on the Sabbath.

I thoroughly refuted all of these bogus charges last time, along with many others. They are born of rank ignorance, and it’s embarrassing to see how woefully inadequate and downright silly they are, once scrutinized.

Many of the Gospel of Mark’s mistakes were edited and corrections were attempted by Matthew and Luke when they made their own copies of Mark (together there are only about 30 verses that they didn’t copy).

Once again, specifics would have to be given, for me to reply. When such alleged “corrections” of Matthew were posited by Mr. Carr, I showed in every instance that they were groundless.

Because of its influence, some historians have argued that Mark’s text it the primary material that created the legend of Jesus: “Bruno Bauer believed Mark had invented Jesus, just as Mark Twain created Huck Finn”.

Saying that a real Jesus didn’t exist at all, or if He did, it was nothing like the Gospel portrayal, is intellectual suicide (hence, I spend little time with it, just as I rarely waste my time wrangling about a flat earth or a 10,000-year-old earth. See: Seidensticker Folly #4: Jesus Never Existed, Huh? [8-14-18]

Mr. Crabtree cites Robert M. Price stating about the time of Jesus: “there is no evidence for synagogues in Galilee.” Nonsense. The text Price was dealing with (Mark 3:1-5) was about an incident in Capernaum (see Mk 2:1 for the context regarding place). Capernaum had a synagogue. It’s located in Galilee on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. I visited it myself in 2014, and it was noted that the present one was built on top of an older one, whose foundation could still be seen at the bottom of the structure (much darker basalt rocks). Where do people like Price get off saying stupid things like this? A UNESCO page: “Early Synagogues in the Galilee” gives the real story:

The remains of as many as 50 different synagogues were identified in the Galilee, one of the most concentrated sites for synagogues in the world at that time. These early synagogues included Meron, Gush Halav, Navorin, Bar Am and Bet Alfa and Korazim, and Capernaum by the Sea of Galilee. The earliest synagogue remains in Palestine date to the late first century BCE, or by the early first century CE. By this time the synagogue was a developed central institution throughout the Jewish world.

Len Ritmeyer noted in his article, “The Synagogue of Capernaum in which Jesus taught” (3-15-18):

Digging deeper down in 1981, walls made of basalt stones and a basalt floor turned up 4 feet below the surface. These walls were located underneath the walls of the white synagogue and also under the stylobates (low walls that support a row of columns). It was initially thought that these walls were foundation walls, but when 1st century material was found on and below the basalt floor, it became evident that these basalt walls belonged to a synagogue of the 1st century, i.e, the synagogue in which Jesus taught.

Some of the trenches have been left open and the remains of this early synagogue can be seen today. [the article has a photo of that]

The Times of Israel reported on 8-19-16 about another synagogue in Galilee from Jesus’ time, that He very well may have visited:

Israeli archaeologists in northern Israel have uncovered the ruins of a rural synagogue that dates back some 2,000 years.

The remains of the synagogue were found during an archaeological dig at Tel Rekhesh, near Mount Tabor in the lower Galilee, in what was an ancient Jewish village.

The find could lend weight to the New Testament narrative that Jesus visited villages in the area to preach.

Mordechai Aviam, an archaeologist at Kinneret College on the Sea of Galilee who led the dig, estimated the synagogue was built between 20-40 AD and was used for a hundred years. . . .

“The site is 17 km (10 miles) as crow flies east of Nazareth, and 12 km from Nin (Naim), and although we don’t have its name in the New Testament, it is in the area in which Jesus acted,” said Aviam.

Mark 1:30 And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues . . .

Mark 6:6 And he went about among the villages teaching. [i.e., “villages” near Nazareth: see 6:1]

I could easily find more about this, but these counter-examples suffice. So goes “bust” another atheist myth: disproven by archaeology and historiography . . .

We have seen already that Mark was not known as a Gospel of ‘Mark’ for over a hundred years.

That’s of no relevance. All that matters is whether there were reliable oral traditions, based ultimately on eyewitness testimony. These eventually made their way into the written accounts.

When Christians came to name the Gospels, they picked ‘Mark’, who they thought should be a disciple of Peter, who in Greek mythology was associated with the Egyptian god Petra, the gate guardian of Heaven. Nowadays, Christians nowadays consider ‘Peter’ to be a genuine historical person, but it seems that even if he was real, Mark didn’t know him.

This is simply groundless, arbitrary, downright stupid speculation from atheists: as usual backed up with nothing substantial at all, let alone scholarly. Readers can see, on the other hand, how my replies consistently have scholarly backing. Mr. Crabtree is ridiculous enough to start doubting the historicity of Peter as well.

Peter certainly could have corrected any of Mark’s errors in Jewish knowledge, and it is ludicrous to assume that Mark wrote this text without showing Peter (or any other Jew).

Again, I think I disposed of many of the supposed examples of Mark’s “lack of Jewishness” in my previous reply along these lines. I flatly deny the premise.

It is clear that Mark didn’t know any Jews.

This is an extraordinary claim. What’s the evidence for it?

All three other gospels refer to Peter (Matthew 16:17-20, Luke 22:28-32 and John 21:15-17) and give him authority, whereas Mark doesn’t.

Mark mentions “Peter” 19 times. Matthew mentions him 23 times, with 12 more chapters to do so. So, proportionately, Mark has more emphasis on Peter. Luke mentions him 18 times, with eight more chapters than Mark. But then we have to add the use also of “Simon”: his earlier name. That’s ten more times in Mark for a total of references to Peter of 29 times. Matthew adds five more references with “Simon” for 28 total. Luke adds 14, for a total of 32. So the grand totals are:

Mark: 29 in 15 chapters (average of 1.9 times per chapter).

Matthew: 28 in 28 chapters (average of one time per chapter).

Luke: 32 in 24 chapters (average of 1.3 times per chapter).

So Mark mentions Peter (“Peter” or “Simon”) almost twice as much per chapter as Matthew does and almost three times to every two times that Luke does. That’s hardly an underemphasis on Peter.

Moreover, Mark shows him as preeminent, just as the others do, by showing that he is the most mentioned of the disciples and their leader. Peter’s name invariably occurs first in all lists of apostles, including in Mark (3:16). Mark implies that he is the leader, in citing an angel stating, “tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee” (16:7). Singling him out in such a way, over against the rest of the disciples, is clearly expressing his leadership. This occurs again in Mark 1:36 (“And Simon and those who were with him pursued him,”). He’s a spokesman for the other disciples (Mk 8:29). He’s listed first of the “inner circle” of disciples: Peter, James, and John (Mk 5:37; 14:37). He’s the central figure in dramatic stories: for instance, Jesus walking on the water (Mk 10:28).

I think Mark knew Peter was not real; but merely a piece of Roman mythology used symbolically in a way all Romans would have understood. Later authors (such as the Jewish author of the Gospel of Matthew), who copied Mark’s text, did not know this, therefore they elevated him.

This is just manifestly ridiculous, and not worthy of any attention. It’s self-refuting.

Sandals and Staff: Jesus sends his disciples out to preach, but in Mark [6:8-9] they are told to wear sandals (contradicting Matthew [10:9-10] ), and are told to take a staff (contradicting Luke [9:3]). Only one of these three authors could have really been there (if any).

At least this appears at first glance to be a real contradiction (unlike virtually all atheist proposed ones I’ve ever seen: and I’ve dealt with several hundred). So it deserves a serious treatment. Protestant apologists Eric Lyons and Brad Harrub (on a site that specializes in alleged biblical contradictions) grant the difficulty of interpreting these passages harmoniously in writing that they were “Perhaps the most difficult alleged Bible contradiction that we have been asked to ‘tackle’ . . . A cursory reading of the above passages admittedly is somewhat confusing.” Then they proceed to explain the apparent discrepancies:

The differences between Matthew and Mark are explained easily when one acknowledges that the writers used different Greek verbs to express different meanings. In Matthew, the word “provide” (NKJV) is an English translation of the Greek word ktesthe. According to Bauer’s Greek-English Lexicon, the root word comes from ktaomai, which means to “procure for oneself, acquire, get” (1979, p. 455). Based upon these definitions, the New American Standard Version used the English verb “acquire” in Matthew 10:9 (“Do not acquire….”), instead of “provide” or “take.” In Matthew, Jesus is saying: “Do not acquire anything in addition to what you already have that may tempt you or stand in your way. Just go as you are.” As Mark indicated, the apostles were to “take” (airo) what they had, and go. The apostles were not to waste precious time gathering supplies (extra apparel, staffs, shoes, etc.) or making preparations for their trip, but instead were instructed to trust in God’s providence for additional needs. Jesus did not mean for the apostles to discard the staffs and sandals they already had; rather, they were not to go and acquire more.

They continue by tackling the additional information from Luke:

As is obvious from a comparison of the verses in Matthew and Luke, they are recording the same truth—that the apostles were not to spend valuable time gathering extra staffs—only they are using different words to do so.

“Provide (Greek ktaomi) neither gold nor silver…nor staffs” (Matthew 10:9-10, emp. added).

“Take (Greek airo) nothing for the journey, neither staffs” (Luke 9:3, emp. added).

Luke did not use ktaomi in his account because he nearly always used ktaomi in a different sense than Matthew did. In Matthew’s account, the word ktaomai is used to mean “provide” or “acquire,” whereas in the books of Luke and Acts, Luke used this word to mean “purchase, buy, or earn.” Notice the following examples of how Luke used this word.

“I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get” (ktaomai) [Luke 18:12, emp. added, NAS]

“Now this man purchased (ktaomai) a field with the wages of iniquity (Acts 1:18, emp. added).

“Your money perish with you, because you thought that the gift of God could be purchased (ktaomai) with money!” (Acts 8:20, emp. added).

The commander answered, “With a large sum I obtained (ktaomai) this citizenship” (Acts 22:28, emp. added).

[Luke 21:19 is the only place one could argue where Luke may have used ktaomai to mean something other than “purchase, buy, or earn,” but even here there is a transactional notion in it (Miller, 1997)].When Luke, the beloved physician (Colossians 4:14), used the word ktaomai, he meant something different than when Matthew, the tax collector, used the same word. Whereas Luke used ktaomai to refer to purchasing or buying something, Matthew used the Greek verb agorazo (cf. Matthew 14:15; 25:9-10; 27:6-7). Matthew used ktaomai only in the sense of acquiring something (not purchasing something). As such, it would make absolutely no sense for Luke to use ktaomai in his account of Jesus sending out the apostles (9:3). If he did, then he would have Jesus forbidding the apostles to “purchase” or “buy” money [“Buy nothing for the journey, neither staffs nor bag nor bread nor money….”]. Thus, Luke used the more general Greek verb (airo) in order to convey the same idea that Matthew did when using the Greek verb ktaomai.

Just as ktaomai did not mean the same for Luke and Matthew, the Greek word airo (translated “take” in both Mark 6:8 and Luke 9:3) often did not mean the same for Luke and Mark (see Miller, 1997). [Understanding this simple fact eliminates the “contradiction” completely, for unless the skeptic can be certain that Mark and Luke were using the word in the same sense, he cannot prove that the accounts contradict each other.] Mark consistently used airo in other passages throughout his gospel to mean simply “take” or “pick up and carry” (2:9; 6:29; 11:23; 13:16). That Luke (in 9:3) did not mean the same sense of airo as Mark did (in 6:8) is suggested by the fact that in Luke 19:21-22 he used this same verb to mean “acquire.” [see also the visual chart in the article that is very helpful]

Now, the anti-theist atheists (who love bringing up things like this) typically respond that “well, see how hard you had to work to solve the contradiction?! It shouldn’t have to be that hard!” We agree that it shouldn’t be so hard, if one understood Greek in the first place. But for those of us who don’t know Greek, it appears contradictory, because the difference hinges upon different Greek words and even different meanings of the same Greek words (in context): just as English words usually have several definitions.

Therefore, it takes a considerable bit of explaining to clarify for the non-Greek speaker. Once that key difference is understood, the so-called “contradiction” is shown to not be one at all, because the writers are using different Greek words and meaning different things. And there are many alleged “biblical contradictions” that are resolved in this same fashion.

Making Up Details on How Many Were Fed: The scribes who put together the Gospel of Mark included two versions of the same story of Jesus feeding crowds of people with only a small number of loaves of bread and fish. The two copies are at Mark 6:32-44 and Mark 8:1-10. “They are essentially the same in every detail except the precise numbers of people present and food left over. Such figures are, of course, the easiest details to lose and confuse” as the stories were passed on from person to person. This is more proof that Mark wasn’t an eye-witness (or even close to one).

This is untrue, and easily shown to be so. The two events took place in two entirely different locations, as the text states. The feeding of the 5,000 was near Bethsaida, which was on the north side of the Sea of Galilee (Mk 6:45; cf. Lk 9:10-17). The feeding of the 4,000, however, was a completely different story that occurred in a different place, as opposed to the fairy-tale of “essentially the same in every detail except the precise numbers of people present and food left over*“* that the foolish skeptic Robert Price invented, and Mr. Crabtree accepts uncritically.

It occurred in “the region of the Decapolis” (Mk 7:31), which was east of the Sea of Galilee, and included the town of Hippos, which was literally on a hill overlooking it. Immediately after the miracle, Jesus “immediately . . . got into the boat with his disciples, and went to the district of Dalmanu’tha” (Mk 8:10). Matthew 15:39, the parallel verse, states: “he got into the boat and went to the region of Mag’adan.” That would have been directly across the Sea of Galilee, and some archaeologists believe that Dalmanutha has been found, very close to Magadan, or Magdala, as I recently wrote about at length. There is evidence that the place where the feeding of the 4,000 occurred was near the archaeological site of Kursi. In any event, it’s clearly an entirely different place being described in the two feedings.

The two copies certainly do not represent two different events, as the disciples are surprised all-over-again in the second copy.

The disciples were continually surprised by any miracle Jesus did. This is a more-or-less common theme in every Gospel story of a miracle. They lacked faith and thought “carnally’ as Christians say, because they didn’t yet have the grace of the Holy Spirit dwelling with them (that came after Jesus’ death on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2).

It seems that the story didn’t start out as a story about Jesus anyway, as it looks like a Greek rewrite of 2 Kings 4:42-44, where Elisha also multiplies food.

Similarity to something else doesn’t prove that the second event is merely fictitious.

Mark 7’s Long Story About Unclean Food Practices Contradicts Book of Acts. Mark 7 has Jesus teach the disciples at length that the Jewish laws on food go too far. The obsession with washing hands before eating, and many other precise rules and regulations about cleanliness and uncleanliness, are not actually important. And yet, in Acts 10:14, the Disciples have forgotten the entire thing. Mark might have made-up these stories or (more likely) copied them from stories about other prophets, and rewritten them as with Jesus at their centre instead.

I dealt with this last time too:

Jesus indeed declared the principle that Peter would later publicly declare (after receiving a revelation) that all foods were clean (Acts 10:9-16): a thing shortly afterwards codified at the Jerusalem Council as applicable to all Gentile Christians (Acts 15:19-20). The difference is that Jesus did it only with His disciples (Mark 7:17-23). He wasn’t Himself proclaiming “all foods clean” in so many words (let alone publicly). He simply taught the principle underlying that thought, and Mark made his “theological” comment about it.

I would add now that the disciples didn’t (as far as the text informs us) hear Jesus specifically say in this incident recorded by Mark: “all foods are clean.” It was simply the narrator (Mark) making note of the broader point Jesus had made, summarizing it as “Thus he declared all foods clean.” This would explain why Peter was surprised to hear it more explicitly taught, in Acts 10:14. He was probably unaware that what Jesus had said in the earlier incident had the implication of changing Jewish food laws. So there is no contradiction here.

Galilee or Judea? The gospels describe where Jesus taught. Mark contradicts both Luke’s and John’s accounts:

The different Gospels simply emphasize different things and omit some things others include. There is no inexorable contradictions here. Harmonies of the Gospels (here’s an online version by A. T. Robertson) show how a non-contradictory scenario can be constructed of all of Jesus’ journeys.

Mark contradicts Luke and John on the issue of how Jesus was sentenced:

“According to Matthew and Mark, Jesus was both tried and sentenced by the Jewish priests of the Sanhedrin. Luke has it that Jesus was [not] sentenced by them. Yet according to John, Jesus does not appear before the Sanhedrin at all.” [“The Jesus Mysteries” by Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy (1999) ]

The ultimate sentence of crucifixion could not have been made by the Jews in any event. Only the Romans could put a man to death in that place at that time (see Jn 18:31). So Matthew records that the Sanhedrin concluded that Jesus “deserves death” (26:66), but they couldn’t sentence him. That’s why they had to send him to the Roman governor Pontius Pilate (Mt 27:1-2), who “delivered him to be crucified” (27:26). So Freke and Gandy are dead wrong in their assessment of what Matthew taught in this regard. The story in Mark is precisely the same. The Sanhedrin unanimously “condemned him as deserving death” (14:64), sent him to Pilate (15:1), who alone could sentence Him, and Pilate “delivered him to be crucified” (15:15). So the “interpretation” (to be charitable) above is dead wrong again.

Luke is no different. The Sanhedrin judged Him (as supposedly a blasphemer) in effect by saying, “What further testimony do we need? We have heard it ourselves from his own lips” (22:71). They “brought him before Pilate” (23:1), and we see them still trying to get Him killed (23:2, 5, 10, 14, 18, 21, 23). But Pilate decided (23:24-25). No essential difference whatsoever, and no contradiction. So the atheists, undaunted, and unconcerned with mere reason and never dissuaded from their aim of tearing down the Bible, simply move on to the Gospel of John, in their never-ending mocking crusade to find yet another biblical “contradiction.” What do we find there?

John reports that Jesus was first questioned by Annas: “the father-in-law of Ca’iaphas, who was high priest that year” (Jn 18:13), who “questioned Jesus about his disciples and his teaching ” (Jn 18:19). Annas “Annas then sent him bound to Ca’iaphas the high priest” (18:24). Then “they [implied: the Sanhedrin] led Jesus from the house of Ca’iaphas to the praetorium [where Pilate was]” (18:28). And “They answered him, “If this man were not an evildoer, we would not have handed him over” (18:30). Note that Caiaphas was present at the judgment and “monkey trial” of the Sanhedrin, as indicated by Matthew 26:57, 62, Mark (not named, but mentioned as the “high priest”: 14:53-54, 60, 63, 66), and Luke (“high priest”: 22:54).

So it’s all the same overall story, told by four storytellers, with the expected differences in detail and emphases that we would expect in any four different accounts of the same incident. Matthew and John refer directly to Caiphas the high priest as being involved (Matthew mentions also the assembly, whereas John doesn’t (directly), but still indicates their presence by the two uses of “they” in describing the Jewish leaders leading Jesus to Pilate. Mark and Luke don’t name him, but note that the “high priest” was involved, which is no contradiction.

So we see that Freke and Gandy have misrepresented the nature of all four Gospels in this regard. It’s nothing new, folks. It happens all the time, and I am demonstrating it over and over in this paper. Atheists don’t care what the biblical accounts state, because they think they are a pack of lies written by liars and propagandists, and they approach the Bible like a butcher approaches a hog. There’s no rhyme or reason in any of it; only irrational hostility: which alone can explain how they can consistently be factually and logically wrong, every time.

This is my fourth lengthy paper in the last seven days (links: one, two, three), exhaustively demonstrating that they get everything wrong when they attempt to do biblical exegesis and hermeneutics. Their efforts may look mighty impressive and convincing at first: until a biblical scholar or apologist like myself (who specializes in dealing with anti-theist / anti-biblical polemics) examines what they write and provides another side.

The gospel of Mark does not describe the history of Jesus or his virgin birth.

It doesn’t have to. Mark simply decided to start the story with John the Baptist, whom the Old Testament predicted (as a prototype of Elijah) as the forerunner of the Messiah. In other words, Mark presents the story as most people at that place and time would have witnessed or experienced it: Jesus suddenly appearing out of nowhere at His baptism and commencing His three-year ministry.

These parts of the New Testament’s stories were added by Matthew, 30 years later, who assimilated other myths into the legends.

It’s simply an atheist fairy-tale, with no basis. If they want to make ludicrous claims like this, the burden of proof is on them. But they have nothing. It’s just wild skeptical speculation.

“The accounts of Matthew, Mark and Luke contradict each other, even on the parts of Christian mythology which Christians consider to be the most important: The crucifixion and resurrection. They give different sets of final words, confusingly different accounts of the empty tomb (one of them including an earthquake), and wildly different accounts of the resurrection. They’re all making it up!” [“The Crucifixion Facade” by Vexen Crabtree (2002) ]

The final words of Jesus on the cross are completely harmonious and non-contradictory, as A. T. Robertson shows in his Harmony and as many others have demonstrated. It’s not difficult to synthesize them. It just take s a little work on the chronology.

I just demonstrated in two lengthy papers that all the accusations about contradictory accounts of the empty tomb and Jesus’ resurrection are bogus and a bunch of hot air.

Mr. Crabtree then tries to establish a contradiction between Matthew 20:29-34, where it is said that Jesus healed two blind men, and Mark 10:46-52, where He is said to heal one. Gleason Archer in his Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1982, p. 333) wrote:

Matthew was concerned to mention all who were involved in this episode . . . Matthew is content to record that actual scene of healing, whereas Luke gives particular attention to the entire proceedings, from the moment that Bartimaeus first heard about Jesus’ arrival — a feature only cursorily suggested by Mark 10:46 — because he is interested in the beggar’s persistence in request before the cure was actually performed on him. As for the second blind beggar, neither Mark nor Luke find him significant enough to mention; presumably he was the more colorless personality of the two.

No contradiction; no problem at all. Mark and Luke decide to focus on one blind man, whereas Matthew mentions a second as well. So what?

Mr. Crabtree produced a few more challenges, but I replied to 95% of his paper, and I am out of both energy and patience with tomfoolery at this point, having worked on this all day, so I will leave it here.

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Photo credit: Saint Mark (1450), by Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

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Jews & Judaism & Old Testament

apologetics & epistemology

2021-02-05T13:09:28-04:00

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Christian Apologetics Methodology: Similarities with Science

Last updated on: February 5, 2021 at 1:09 pm By Dave Armstrong

Christian apologetics is neither dishonest, a “stacked deck”, nor an “evidence-free” methodology, simply because the apologist assumes the truthfulness of Christian beliefs before he or she starts. The fact is that both philosophy and science (as well as mathematics) start from axioms or unproven premises and move on from there.

Modern science (especially since Darwin) commences with unproven or incompletely proven hypotheses and then seeks to disprove them (philosopher of science Karl Popper is notable for having stressed this idea of falsifiability).

As an example, today the big rage and cutting-edge of cosmology is dark matter and dark energy. I have recently written about these, in an analogical argument regarding God being a spirit (that is, a non-material entity just as scientists now tell us 68% of the universe is). Very little is known about either at this point, yet they are the hypotheses at present that scientists are seeking to bolster with observation and hard evidence.

So it is a methodology not completely unlike apologetics: a prior proposition is accepted, at least provisionally, without sufficient evidence to make it absolutely certain. Scientists then test it and see if it withstands the actual evidence. I do much the same thing as an apologist tackling proposed atheist “contradictions” in the Bible. I start with the faith assumption that the Bible is inspired and internally harmonious.

Atheists say that is poppycock and then provide me with 1001 “contradictions” that I get to spend entire days grappling with (which I actually enjoy: at least in particularly patient moods). This would be similar to the notorious “anomalies” in scientific hypotheses and theories that scientists grapple with. If I can defeat each of these contradictions with a plausible counter-reaction, then this backs up — or more accurately, establishes logical consistency with — my original Christian hypothesis.

I don’t think that’s any more questionable or intellectually dishonesty than scientists attempting to falsify hypotheses, to see if they can withstand scrutiny. They start out with a certain point of view just as I do.

I’m not saying it is an exact analogy (few are), but it is enough of one to establish my point and defend myself and my methodology as a Christian apologist. Everyone holds unproven axioms or premises that they regard (whether provisionally or by stronger opinions) as unquestionable. And they proceed accordingly.

There are many such laws regarded in this way in science; for example, the three laws of thermodynamics or biological evolution. Anyone who questions either gets the fifth degree as an anti-scientific troglodyte. They function (in practical effect) as scientific dogmas, just as we Christians have our root premises held in faith, but not contrary to reason (the Bible is inspired); therefore these alleged “contradictions” should have counter-arguments which can defeat them.

I start with the premise that the Bible is internally consistent. I don’t have “proof” of that from reason, of such a nature that it convinces one and all of its truthfulness. But what happens as an apologist is that once I refute literally hundreds and hundreds of these claims (in effect, testing or examining my hypothesis), then I am more confident — in reason — that my faith premise is indeed true, because it has withstood all that onslaught.

Atheists do the same thing. They start with a premise that the Bible is uninspired and is simply a collection of fables, old wives’ tales, legends, etc., of ancient ignorant and primitive people who have little to teach us sophisticated moderns. Then they read these old dusty atheist collections of biblical contradictions and get confirmed in their original suspicions and gut instincts.

Then the reactions (or lack thereof) of Christians further confirm them, because almost all Christians are woefully uneducated in apologetics and cannot defend their views rationally. So the atheist sees that and concludes: see! Christians are ignorant, anti-intellectual and anti-science. Glad I ain’t one of ’em and have been liberated . . .”

What I do as an apologist is aggressively tackle these objections, interact with them and their defenders (as the case may be), present both sides on my blog in a dialogue format, and let readers decide who presented a better, more believable case.

Apart from what I have observed about methodology, I think that is far more honest and open than atheists gathering together in forums, simply cheerleading each other and rarely interacting with serious opposing Christian arguments.

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Photo credit: geralt (1-27-21) [Pixabay / Pixabay License]

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Catholic Apologetics

Apologetics

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2021-02-04T13:39:06-04:00

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Pearce’s Potshots #14: Resurrection “Contradictions” #2

Last updated on: February 4, 2021 at 1:39 pm By Dave Armstrong

Atheist anti-theist Jonathan M. S. Pearce is the main writer on the blog, A Tippling Philosopher. His “About” page states: “Pearce is a philosopher, author, blogger, public speaker and teacher from Hampshire in the UK. He specialises in philosophy of religion, but likes to turn his hand to science, psychology, politics and anything involved in investigating reality.” .

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I am replying to the post on Jonathan’s site, “Contradictions in the Resurrection of Jesus Accounts” (1-31-21): a guest-post written by one David Austin. This is my second reply. The first dealt with the 18-point chart. Now I tackle the text after it. David Austin’s words will be in blue.

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Paul has no mention of an empty tomb; Just Jesus was “buried”.

Acts 13:28-37 (RSV) Though they could charge him with nothing deserving death, yet they asked Pilate to have him killed. [29] And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a tomb. [30] But God raised him from the dead; [31] and for many days he appeared to those who came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses to the people. [32] And we bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, [33] this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus; as also it is written in the second psalm, `Thou art my Son, today I have begotten thee.’ [34] And as for the fact that he raised him from the dead, no more to return to corruption, he spoke in this way, `I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David.’ [35] Therefore he says also in another psalm, `Thou wilt not let thy Holy One see corruption.’ [36] For David, after he had served the counsel of God in his own generation, fell asleep, and was laid with his fathers, and saw corruption; [37] but he whom God raised up saw no corruption.

[“tomb” was mentioned in 13:29, then Paul says Jesus was “raised him from the dead.” That’s an “empty tomb” is it not?: by straightforward logical deduction. Jesus wasn’t there anymore, and “for many days he appeared” (13:31). Inexorable conclusion: empty tomb!] There are many many more references to Jesus’ Resurrection in Paul:

Acts 17:2-3 And Paul went in, as was his custom, and for three weeks he argued with them from the scriptures, [3] explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.”

Acts 17:30-31 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all men everywhere to repent, [31] because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all men by raising him from the dead.”

Acts 26:22-23 To this day I have had the help that comes from God, and so I stand here testifying both to small and great, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would come to pass: [23] that the Christ must suffer, and that, by being the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light both to the people and to the Gentiles.”

Romans 1:4 and designated Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord,

Romans 4:24 . . . It will be reckoned to us who believe in him that raised from the dead Jesus our Lord,

[see also: Rom 4:24-25; 6:4-5, 9; 7:4; 8:11, 34; 10:9; 1 Cor 6:14; 15:3-8, 12-17, 20; 2 Cor 4:14; 5:15; Gal 1:1; Eph 1:20; Phil 3:10; Col 2:12; 1 Thess 1:10; 2 Tim 2:8]

Normal practice with crucified victims was for their bodies to rot on the cross, and then thrown into a mass grave.

It’s pretty impossible to argue that there could be no conceivable exceptions to this “normal practice” ever. So it’s much ado about nothing. But Protestant apologist Timothy Paul Jones offers an excellent rebuttal to this argument (fashionable among atheists and skeptics): “Is it Possible That Jesus’ Body Was Left on the Cross?” (4-6-12).

According to Paul, if the Resurrection had not occurred, then Christians’ faith is in vain. One would, therefore, expect the Resurrection to be the best corroborated event in the NT, but, as you can see, in the above chart, this is NOT the case. If there are contradictions, this means at least one account (& maybe more) is incorrect.

That’s why I wrote this paper and the one before it. I believe I refuted all 18 alleged contradictions, so there is nothing to the charge. And if indeed contradictions aren’t demonstrable, as I contend, then it means that the atheists coming up with such bogus nonsense have a serious problem with 1) logic and [possibly] 2) reading comprehension. They certainly don’t — on the whole — have a clue about biblical exegesis. I’ve shown that over and over in my refutations of atheist “exegetes”: who approach the Bible (as I always say) like a butcher approaches a hog.

The four Gospels are anonymous; The “authorship” of these writings was a 2nd Century addition and was merely speculation by the early Church. The gospels were written in Greek, but it is generally agreed that Jesus & the Disciples spoke Aramaic and were “unlettered”.

Tax collectors for the Romans were in fact, literate and well-educated. Thus, Matthew very likely would have known Greek and Latin. We learn from Colossians 4:14 that Luke was a medical doctor. Wyatt Graham observed:

Consider for example the testimony of a bishop named Papias [c. 60-c. 130 AD] who lived while some disciples of Jesus still lived. For example, he had access to John the elder and Ariston, who were disciples of Jesus. He also knew of the daughters of Phillip who lived nearby to him (Acts 21:8–9). And Papias records the words of one of Jesus’ disciples by the name of John the Elder regarding Mark’s Gospel:

And the elder used to say this: “Mark, having become Peter’s interpreter, wrote down accurately everything he remembered, though not in order, of the things either said or done by Christ. For [Mark] neither heard the Lord nor [accompanied] him, but afterward, as I said, [accompanied] Peter. (Frag. Pap. 3.15; I modified slightly Holmes’ translation) . . .

Papias also records that Matthew wrote the Gospel according to Matthew (Frag. Pap. 3.16). So, Papias lived while disciples of Jesus still lived, and he also lived when the Gospels were being written (or was born around this period). And it is Papias who affirms that Peter committed his preaching to words through Mark’s hand (through the testimony of John). And it is Papias who affirms that Matthew, an apostle of Jesus, wrote the Gospel according to Matthew.

As for Luke as the author of the book bearing his name, see: “Who Wrote the Gospel of Luke and Acts” by Brian Chilton (7-2-17), and by the same writer: “Who Wrote the Gospel of John?” (9-3-17). Chilton thinks that John dictated his Gospel.

Matthew & Mark have the women being instructed for the Disciples to meet Jesus in Galilee.

So what? Unless they say something like “this is the only time they saw the risen Jesus” there is no contradiction. It gets very tiresome having to reiterate elementary logic over and over.

Matthew has the Disciples’ one & only sighting of Jesus on a mountain in Galilee.

This is an absolutely classic and “textbook” example of the dumbfounded and intellectually dishonest methodology of atheist Bible-bashers: seeing “contradictions” under every rock. Nothing in the text of Matthew even remotely hints at this being the “one & only sighting of Jesus.” That’s simply a groundless, completely arbitrary extrapolation from David Austin’s brain with nothing to back it up.

The original manuscripts of Mark end at Chapter 16 verse 8 (Frightened women run from the tomb and tell no-one). . . . Since the women, in Mark, don’t tell the Disciples about what they were told, we can only speculate whether they ever met Jesus at all.

I dealt with this claim concerning the supposed non-canonicity of Mark 16:9-20 in the previous paper. But even if one accepts the shorter version of Mark 16, I wrote about 16:8 in another paper on this same topic:

The last clause gives no indication of how long they “said nothing.” It may not have been very long at all. We can only guess or speculate. 2) “Said nothing” with no indication of how long the silence was, is not the same thing as saying that they never mentioned it to anyone, ever.

Luke & John contradict Matthew. Luke has two Jesus meetings with the Disciples, prior to a locked room meeting, (ie. With two Disciples on the road to Emmaus, and a meeting with Peter {time & location unspecified}) followed by a meeting with all Eleven Disciples in a room in Jerusalem. At this meeting, Jesus specifically tells them NOT to leave Jerusalem until “clothed in power from on high” (ie Pentecost). No 2nd meeting in Jerusalem or Galilee meeting.

Unlike Luke, John has the 1st sighting of Jesus by Ten Disciples in a locked room in Jerusalem, followed by two more appearances to them; 2nd in Jerusalem to Eleven and 3rd at the Sea of Tiberias to seven (This appearance specifically noted as the 3rd, hence NO prior visit to Galilee, “Road to Emmaus” or separate meeting with Peter). . . . Paul’s Corinthians 15:3 states that the first appearance of the resurrected Jesus was to Cephas (Peter), but according to the Gospel accounts the first witness(es) would be Mary Magdalene & the other Mary, Mary Magdalene alone, or Cleopas & another un-named Disciple, not Peter.

For a quite sufficient explanation, see the article, “To Galilee or Jerusalem?” by Eric Lyons, at the excellent Apologetics Press website. Here is the heart of his argument:

The truth is, Jesus met with His disciples in both places, but He did so at different times. One of the reasons so many people allege that two or more Bible passages are contradictory is because they fail to recognize that mere differences do not necessitate a contradiction. For there to be a bona fide contradiction, not only must one be referring to the same person, place, or thing in the same sense, but the same time period must be under consideration. . . .

Similarly, Jesus met with His disciples both in Jerusalem and in Galilee, but at different times. On the day of His resurrection, He met with all of the apostles (except Thomas) in Jerusalem just as both Luke and John recorded (Luke 24:33-43; John 20:19-25). Since Jesus was on the Earth for only forty days following His resurrection (cf. Acts 1:3), sometime between this meeting with His apostles in Jerusalem and His ascension more than five weeks later, Jesus met with seven of His disciples at the Sea of Tiberias in Galilee (John 21:1-14), and later with all eleven of the apostles on a mountain in Galilee that Jesus earlier had appointed for them (Matthew 28:16).

Sometime following these meetings in Galilee, Jesus and His disciples traveled back to Judea, where He ascended into heaven from the Mount of Olives near Bethany (Luke 24:50-53; Acts 1:9-12). None of the accounts of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances contradicts another. Rather, each writer supplemented what a different writer left out. . . .

Still, one may ask, “Why did Jesus command His apostles to ‘tarry in the city of Jerusalem’ on the day of His resurrection until they were ‘endued with power from on high’ (Luke 24:49), if He really wanted them to meet Him in Galilee?” Actually, it is an assumption to assert that Jesus made the above statement on the same day that He arose from the grave. One thing we must keep in mind as we study the Bible is that it normally is not as concerned about chronology as modern-day writings.

Frequently (especially in the gospel accounts), writers went from one subject to the next without giving the actual time or the exact order in which something was done or taught (cf. Luke 4:1-3; Matthew 4:1-11). In Luke 24, the writer omitted the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus in Galilee (mentioned by both Matthew and John). However, notice that he never stated that Jesus remained only in Jerusalem from the day He rose from the grave until the day He ascended up into heaven.

See also an article from the always superb Christian Think Tank site, by Glenn Miller, entitled, “Do the Resurrection accounts HOPELESSLY contradict one another?” He includes the following summary of Protestant theologian and exegete Murray Harris’ chronological schema of post-Resurrection appearances of Jesus:

Mary Magdalene followed Peter and John to the tomb, saw two angels inside, and then met Jesus (John 20: 11-17; cf Mark 16:9).

Mary (the mother of James and Joses) and Salome met Jesus and were directed to tell his brethren to go to Galilee (Matt. 28:9-10).

During the afternoon Jesus appeared to two disciples on the way to Emmaus. They then returned to Jerusalem to report the appearance to the Eleven and others (Luke 24:13-35; c£ Mark 16:12-13).

Jesus appeared to Peter (Luke 24:34; 1 Cor. 15 :5).

That evening Jesus appeared to the Eleven and others (Luke 24:33), Thomas being absent (Luke 24:36-43; John 20:19-23; 1 Cor. 15:5; cf Mark 16:14).

One week later Jesus appeared to the Eleven, Thomas being present (John 20:26-29) .

Seven disciples had an encounter with Jesus by the Sea of Tiberias in Galilee (John 21: 1-22).

The Eleven met Jesus on a mountain in Galilee (Matt. 28:16-20; cf Mark 16:15-18).

Jesus appeared to more than five hundred people (Luke 24:44-49; 1 Cor. 15:6).

He appeared to James (1 Cor. 15 :7) .

Immediately before his ascension, Jesus appeared to the Eleven near Bethany (Luke 24:50-52; Acts 1:6-11; 1 Cor. 15:7; cf Mark 16: 19-20).

Assuming the women had gone to anoint the body, how did they expect to gain access to the body with the stone in position, and guards barring the entrance? (Note: Only Matthew mentions guards at the tomb) Protestant apologist William Lane Craig adequately refutes this:

Would that have kept the women away? Well, maybe so, but only if they knew of the guard. But did they know? When you read Mark and Matthew’s accounts of the women’s observation of Jesus’ interment (Mark 15.46-47; Matthew 27.57-61), what you find is that the guard was not posted on Friday when the women watched Joseph inter the body in the tomb. The guard was something of an afterthought on the part of the Jewish authorities, who went to Pilate on the following day (Saturday) to ask that the tomb be sealed and a guard posted before it.

Saturday was, of course, the Jewish Sabbath, and Luke records of the women that “On the sabbath they rested according to the commandment” (Luke 23.56). Like the male disciples, they may have remained in seclusion all that day (cf. John 20.19). So there’s no reason at all to think that when the women set out for the tomb at early dawn on Sunday morning, they expected to find that the tomb was guarded and sealed. That’s why “they were saying to one another, ‘Who will roll away the stone for us from the door of the tomb?’” (Mark 16.3). They didn’t know if anybody would be there. So I see no problem in affirming the compatibility of Matthew’s guard story with the women’s intent to anoint Jesus’ corpse.

As to the stone, Fr. Charles Grondin proposes two possible solutions to the proposed “difficulty”:

The women had seen where Jesus had been placed (Mark 15:47) but might not have stayed long enough to see the stone rolled in front of the tomb, and they asked the question recorded in Mark 16:3 only once they saw the stone from a distance. . . .

The woman expected to encounter other people either along the way or in the vicinity who could roll it back for them—for example, the gardener (John 20:15).

Why was stone rolled away if Jesus could enter locked rooms? Maybe for some-one to remove the body?

Orthodox Christian Network answers this:

There can hardly be any Christian believer who doesn’t know that an angel descended from heaven and rolled away the stone from the entry to the tomb where the Creator of life lay dead, without breath. Very few, however really know why the stone was rolled away. Most people confuse two things which are independent of each other: the Lord’s exit from the tomb and the rolling away of the stone.

In other words, they think that the angel came down and rolled away the stone so that the Lord could emerge, that when He did so there was an earthquake which terrified the guards to such an extent that they ‘became as if dead’. This is not only what ordinary Christians believe, but even what some of those who preach the Gospel think. In many icons of the Resurrection, in fact, both Byzantine and Western, we see the angel taking away the stone and the Lord emerging from the tomb, while the guards, terrified at the sight of Him, fall down as if dead.

This is historically inaccurate! If you study the Gospel of Matthew carefully, you’ll see that the Lord had emerged from the tomb before the descent of the angel, the rolling away of the stone, and the earthquake which occurred at the same time. The stone was rolled away, not so that the Lord could emerge, but to demonstrate that He’d already done so.

If Mary’s tomb visit (in John) was earlier than the visit in Matthew, why did she not encounter any guards?

Because, as John 20:1 states, she “saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.” An angel had already removed the stone and as a result, “the guards trembled and became like dead men” (Mt 28:4). Presumably they also fled as a result (likely for fear of their lives, for the penalty for not properly guarding something was death in Roman law); therefore, Mary didn’t see them.

Matthew & John say the women/woman met Jesus at the tomb, but Mark & Luke says there was NO such meeting.

Where do Mark and Luke say there was no such meeting? They don’t. So this is just another non-contradiction that atheists somehow conjure up as an authentic one. To not mention something is logically not the same as denying the same thing. The latter would have been a contradiction if Mark and Luke actually did it. But they didn’t, so it isn’t. But it’s another classic example of atheist special pleading.

The women in Luke see two men inside the tomb BEFORE Peter inspects the empty tomb, but John says that Mary Magdalene saw two angels inside the tomb AFTER Peter & Beloved Disciple had inspected the tomb.

So what? Angels could have been there both times.

The ascension of Jesus is only mentioned in Luke, apparently on the same day as his resurrection (contradicted in Acts [supposedly also written by “Luke”] which says Jesus remained on earth for forty days).

I answer that in this paper: Seidensticker Folly #15: Jesus’ Ascension: One or 40 Days? [9-10-18]

How did the chief priests and Pharisees know that Jesus would be resurrected after 3 days when the Disciples didn’t seem to understand this?

Two Bible commentaries (writing about Matthew 27:63) provide answers:

It appears, then, that though they had deliberately stirred up the passions of the people by representing the mysterious words of John 2:14 as threatening a literal destruction of the Temple (Matthew 26:61; Matthew 27:40), they themselves had understood, wholly or in part, their true meaning. We are, perhaps, surprised that they should in this respect have been more clear-sighted than the disciples, but in such a matter sorrow and disappointment confuse, and suspicion sharpens the intellect. (Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers)

after three days I will rise again: now, though he said to his to his disciples privately, Matthew 16:21, yet not clearly and expressly to the Scribes and Pharisees; wherefore they must either have it from Judas, and lied in saying they remembered it: or they gathered it either from what he said concerning the sign of the prophet Jonas, Matthew 12:40, or rather from his words in John 2:19, and if so, they acted a most wicked part, in admitting a charge against him, as having a design upon their temple, to destroy it, and then rebuild it in three days; when they knew those words were spoken by him concerning his death, and resurrection from the dead: they remembered this, when the disciples did not: bad men have sometimes good memories, and good men bad ones; so that memory is no sign of grace, (Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible)

Who witnessed this meeting when guards were sent to secure the tomb? Who witnessed the meeting between the guards and the chief priests when a bribe was suggested?

Simply because we can’t determine either thing from the texts alone, doesn’t mean or logically follow that there were none, or that this person or persons could not have communicated it to Matthew. Matthew may have also received it by direct revelation from God (under the Christian view that the Bible is inspired writing and God’s revelation to mankind). In any event, this is not a “contradiction”; only an unknown (two different things). But certainly plausible hypotheses exist.

Paul says Jesus appeared to “The Twelve” but if Judas Iscariot was no longer a Disciple, there would be only eleven of them left for Jesus to appear to, not twelve.

Protestant apologist Eric Lyons provides the rebuttal:

Numerous alleged Bible discrepancies arise because skeptics frequently interpret figurative language in a literal fashion. They treat God’s Word as if it were a dissertation on the Pythagorean theorem rather than a book written using ordinary language. . . . The simple solution to this numbering “problem” is that “the twelve” to which Paul referred was not a literal number, but the designation of an office. This term is used merely “to point out the society of the apostles, who, though at this time they were only eleven, were still called the twelve, because this was their original number, and a number which was afterward filled up” (Clarke, 1996). Gordon Fee stated that Paul’s use of the term “twelve” in 1 Corinthians 15:5 “is a clear indication that in the early going this was a title given to the special group of twelve whom Jesus called to ‘be with him’ (Mark 3:14).

This figurative use of numbers is just as common in English vernacular as it was in the ancient languages. In certain collegiate sports, one can refer to the Big Ten conference, which consists of 14 teams, or the Atlantic Ten conference, which is also made up of 14 teams. At one time, these conferences only had ten teams, but when they exceeded that number, they kept their original conference “names.” Their names are a designation for a particular conference, not a literal number.

In 1884, the term “two-by-four” was coined to refer to a piece of lumber two-by-four inches. Interestingly, a two-by-four still is called a two-by-four, even though today it is trimmed to slightly smaller dimensions (1 5/8 by 3 5/8). Again, the numbers are more of a designation than a literal number.

Biblical use of “the twelve” as a designation for the original disciples is strongly indicated in many Gospel passages. Jesus Himself did this: “Did I not choose you, the twelve . . .?” (Jn 6:70). He didn’t say, “did I not choose you twelve men.” By saying, “the twelve” in the way He did, it’s proven that it was a [not always literal] title for the group. Hence, John refers to “Thomas, one of the twelve” after Judas departed, and before he was replaced by Matthias (Jn 20:24). Paul simply continues the same practice. It was also used because “twelve” was an important number in biblical thinking (40 and 70 are two other such numbers). For a plain and undeniable example of this, see Revelation 21:12, 14, 21.

Luke contradicts himself in 3 places during this Resurrection account :- a) Early text states the women meet 2 men inside the tomb, but later says the women met 2 angels there**.** b) Early text has “only” Peter inspecting the empty tomb, but later text has “some” Disciples going to the tomb.

These two are simply not contradictions, as shown last time.

Early text has Jesus’ body being wrapped in a cloth, but later, the Disciples see cloths in the empty tomb. Matthew, Mark & Luke say Joseph wrapped Jesus’ body in “a clean linen cloth” (ie one cloth), but John says “linen cloths, as per Jewish tradition. John has the Disciples, when inspecting the empty tomb, seeing a separate cloth that covered Jesus’ head, & Luke mentions the Disciples seeing cloths.

Ethan R. Longhenry explains:

[O]ne particular detail is associated with Peter and John’s visitation to the tomb in John 20:4-7 . . . : the othonion, the linen cloths, were lying on the ground, and the soudarion, normally a handkerchief but also used to cover the head of a corpse (cf. Luke 19:20, John 11:44, Acts 19:12), was in its own place and rolled up. They were the only things left in the otherwise empty tomb.

Today we tend to dress up the dead in their best clothing or in some sort of clothing most special to them. In first century Judea it was customary to wrap the dead body in strips of linen cloths (othonion) and covering the face with the soudarion.

So this is two different things (apples and oranges). It’s not a “contradiction” (as I have by now explained umpteen times) because the head napkin is not mentioned by all accounts. The latter’s existence is not expressly denied (which would be a contradiction). It would be like the time I wore a suit and also my fedora to a wedding. Someone might say, “Dave was dressed up in his nicest suit” and another could say, “Dave was wearing his ‘gangster’ pinstriped suit and also a cool hat.” Both are true, and they are not contradictory. I was wearing a [pinstriped] suit, and I was wearing a hat, and I was wearing both.

When will anti-theist atheists hellbent on opposing the Bible at every turn, ever comprehend these elementary things? This is far from rocket science. Dumbfounded atheist attempted biblical “exegesis” — besides often being hysterically funny — seems to be an ongoing proof of Romans 1:21-22 (RSV): “. . . they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. [22] Claiming to be wise, they became fools,”

NB: Mark has Joseph of Arimathea buying a linen cloth. How could he buy this cloth when all shops were closed for Passover?

Theology Web hosted a discussion on this non-issue (“Joseph of Arimathea Buying Linen On Passover?”) in which one of the commenters shredded this “gotcha” question:

The imagined issue here is that it was illegal to work and to buy or sell goods on Passover per the following passages: [cites Ex 12:16; Lev 23:6-7; Neh 10:31]

Joseph, who was prominent on the council, would appear to be publicly breaking Jewish law by buying linen on Passover, and he couldn’t do it on the Sabbath (which was the next day) either. There appear to be a number of solutions to this issue though. So, starting with NT scholar Harold Hoehner, “The purchases of Joseph of Arimathea were proper for necessities could be obtained on the Sabbath (and on a feast day).” His source for this is Mishnah Shabbath 23.4[:] “One may await the dusk at the limits of the techoom, to furnish what is necessary for a bride and for a corpse, and to bring a coffin and shrouds for the latter.” “By ‘techoom’ is meant the distance of 2,000 ells [7,500 feet] which a man may traverse on the Sabbath, and refers to the limits of that distance.”

Hoehner also cites Gustaf Dalman’s Jesus – Jeshua: Studies in the Gospels (1929), where Dalman points out that these were extenuating circumstances. A criminal who had been hung (crucifixion was a type of hanging) had to be buried by nightfall to prevent the land from being defiled and burial on the Sabbath was likely not permitted. The body couldn’t lay out in the hot Judean environment for two days. It had to be buried,

See related papers:

Dialogue w Atheist on Post-Resurrection “Contradictions” [1-26-11]

Seidensticker Folly #18: Resurrection “Contradictions”? [9-17-18]

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Photo credit: geralt (1-23-21) [Pixabay / Pixabay License]

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A Tippling Philosopher

alleged Resurrection contradictions

Non-Contradictory Biblical Numbers

Resurrection of Jesus

2021-02-02T12:23:38-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Pearce’s Potshots #13: Resurrection “Contradictions” (?)

Last updated on: February 2, 2021 at 12:23 pm By Dave Armstrong

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I am replying to Jonathan’s paper, “Contradictions in the Resurrection of Jesus Accounts” (1-31-21), which is apparently actually written by one David Austin, but in any event, wholly endorsed by Jonathan. It starts out with the usual laundry list of 18 alleged contradictions in the biblical accounts, in a neat little chart. This stuff makes the anti-theist atheist Bible bashers drool. They love it.

Most of these sorts of “alleged contradictions” are simply recycled from some prior standard “playbook” atheist volume, which may even be a few hundred years old. I highly doubt that most atheists actually sit reading the Bible, to come up with these bogus “contradictions.” That’s why most of these things never cross most Christians’ minds (including my own): because you have to work very hard to notice them in the first place.

Atheists most assuredly do not love it, however, when Christians refute their bogus biblical claims. I have done so scores of times, and it’s almost always so easy — usually involving the simplest of logical errors — that I have come to enjoy these challenges quite a bit; gives me something fun to do. Answering all 18 points in the chart only took me a few hours. Readers can view the chart at the link above. I shall respond to each point by number below.

1) “Women at Tomb“: Not contradictory because in questions of numbers of people said to do something or be somewhere, etc., an actual logical contradiction requires exclusionary clauses such as “only x, y, and z were there and no one else” or “only three people witnessed incident a.” None of the Gospel texts do that here; hence, no demonstrable contradiction (see Mt 28:1; Mk 16:1; Lk 24:1-10; Jn 20:1). Some atheists who concede this logical shortcoming will nonetheless (rather desperately) go on to argue that it is still a “contradiction” in some sense because, after all, the texts don’t all say exactly the same thing.

Unfortunately, that’s not how logic works, and it is ridiculous and downright unrealistic to “demand” that four separate accounts written by as many people must report what was seen in identical fashion; otherwise, the ubiquitous atheist cry of “contradiction!” will raise its ugly and obnoxious head.

2) “Guards at the tomb“: Not a contradiction merely because Matthew mentions this and the other three Gospels don’t. Arguments from silence prove nothing. A true contradiction would require one or more of the other three to say something like “the tomb was unguarded.” That‘s a direct contradiction. It would be nice if once in a while atheists could actually produce one of those. As it is, they make fools of themselves all the time with these pseudo-“contradictions” that aren’t at all. It’s embarrassing.

One would think that logic (like fresh air, cute puppies, and the joy of ice cream) is something where Christians and atheists could readily agree with each other. But sadly, that’s not the case: at least not in the “1001 biblical contradictions” sub-group of anti-theist atheists. They wouldn’t know a real contradiction from a hole in the ground.

3) “Time of women’s visit“: the descriptions in RSV are “toward the dawn . . . [they] went to see the sepulchre” (Mt 28:1) [David Austin describes it as “day was dawning”], “very early . . . they went to the tomb when the sun had risen” (Mk 16:2), “at early dawn, they went to the tomb” (Lk 24:1) — clearly no contradiction so far — “; then we have: “Mary Mag’dalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark” (Jn 20:1). A plausible resolution is to posit that John describes an earlier visit of Mary Magdalene only. She then would have gone back with other women (since she is mentioned in all four accounts — as the chart notes in #1 –, but alone only in John 20:1).

The inevitable atheist objection might then be: “well, then why didn’t the text say it was an earlier visit?” Because it doesn’t have to. It’s a silly demand. They would simply be describing different visits to the tomb. It would be like my saying, “my daughter got up and ate breakfast” [and shortly after I went off to work], and my wife [stay-at-home mom] saying [referring to the same morning], “my daughter and her brother ate brunch together.”

Though the two accounts don’t reference each other, they don’t contradict at all. Our daughter ate two meals; one being alone and the other not. But in fact, in the Gospel of John the text does show Mary visiting alone (20:1), then running to tell the disciples the tomb was empty (20:2), and then after “the disciples went back to their homes” (20:10), being outside the tomb again, weeping (20:11) and then seeing the risen Jesus (20:14-17) and then going to the disciples and telling them she saw Jesus risen (20:18).

4) “Reason for visit“: Matthew says two women “went to see the sepulchre”; that is, they wanted to see if it was left as it was when Jesus was laid there: in order to apply burial spices. What other reason would there be? Mark and Luke mention the intent to anoint Jesus’ body. Matthew doesn’t contradict that. It simply (arguably) describes it in different terms. John gives no reason, but again, the logical thing is to assume it is referring to anointing of the body. They wanted to get it done as soon as the sun came up. It was Jewish ritual. In April 2019 I refuted atheist Bob Seidensticker (one of 71 unanswered times) regarding Jewish burial spices. I made a humorous (but quite apt) analogy in that paper, relevant to this section:

First of all, just because John does not state the reason why Mary went to the tomb, it doesn’t follow that no reason existed. This is not a contradiction. . . . One might say, by the same token: “Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Bob Seidensticker went to the bathroom”. Did he go there for “no reason” too? Or is it reasonable to assume that he must have had some reason, which was not stated in this particular description, but also is not that difficult to surmise? Maybe an additional account (say, Bob’s diary) could conceivably inform us that he went to empty his bladder, comb his hair, and brush his teeth (and perhaps also to spend a minute admiring a sophist in the mirror).

Austin noted twice that John stated that the body was already anointed. But it’s plausible to hold that the women thought it was hastily or insufficiently done after the crucifixion, for lack of time, since it was getting dark. So they went again (after the Sabbath day was over). It’s just another trumped-up faux-“contradiction” that is not at all. One wearies of this. Believe me, as an apologist who deals with this all the time, it’s far beyond frustrating by now. On the other hand, I’m delighted to have these golden opportunities to demonstrate the bankruptcy of anti-theist attempts to tear down the Bible and Christianity.

5) “Stone rolled away“: Matthew seems to mention it as occurring in the women’s presence; the other three Gospels portray it as having already happened when they got there. Catholic apologist Karlo Broussard ably tackles this one:

Once again, the objection makes a false assumption—namely, that Matthew is intending to assert that the women witnessed the angel rolling away the stone. But a close examination of the text proves otherwise. First, as A. Jones argues in A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture, the entire passage concerning the angel, the stone, and the guards who “trembled and became like dead men” (Matt. 28:2-4) seems to be a parenthetical statement. It’s unlikely that the women would have conversed with the angel while the guards laid there as if dead.

Furthermore, the details concerning the angel and the stone are introduced with the Greek conjunction gar: “And behold, there was a great earthquake; for [Greek, gar] an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone, and sat upon it” (28:2, emphasis added). Such an explanatory conjunction is used to introduce a clarification of a previous part of the sentence. For Matthew, the angel rolling away the stone is his explanation for the earthquake, not to assert that the women witnessed a stone-moving spectacle.

This answer could be further supported by Matthew’s use of an indicative mood in the aorist verb tense of ginomai: “And behold, there was [Greek, egeneto] a great earthquake” (28:2, emphasis added). The aorist verb tense in the indicative mood usually denotes the simple past. So a possible translation is “an earthquake had occurred,” implying the women didn’t witness it. Even the angel’s descent can be described as having already occurred, since the aorist participle katabas (“descended”) can be translated with the English past perfect: “for an angel of the Lord had descended” (28:2; ISV, emphasis added). (“Biblical Resurrection Reports Are Not ‘Hopelessly Contradictory’ “, Catholic Answers, 7-11-17)

6) “Earthquake“: Only Matthew mentions it, but this is explained in the explanation provided for #5 above. It was a past incident.

7) “Angels/men seen at the tomb“: Again, the explanation in #5 accounts for the uniqueness of Matthew’s account (angel sitting on a rolled-away stone). The various reports of angels’ actions are not necessarily contradictory at all. Angels are (in the biblical view: believe it or not), extraordinary supernatural creatures, and they do lots of appearing and disappearing. Austin makes an issue out of Matthew and John referring to “angels” but Mark and Luke calling them “men.” But he notes that in Luke they were later referred to as “angels” (24:23).

And that’s because both terms are used for angels. In Genesis 19, for example, “two angels” visit Lot (19:1), but in the same passage they are also called “men” twice (19:10, 12) and then “angels” again (19:15) and “men” again (19:16). In Judges 13, this interchangeability is striking, with reference to an “angel” (13:3, 6, 9, 13, 15-18, 20-21) and “man” (13:6, 10-11): referring to the same being.

8) “Did women/woman enter tomb?“: Mark and Luke say they did. Matthew and John don’t. But to contradict the other two reports, they would have to outright deny that it happened. And of course they don’t do that, so (sorry, guys!), no contradiction is present. Matthew strongly implies that they did, however, because the angel says to them, “Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead . . .” (28:6-7).

9) “Did disciple[s] visit tomb?“: John says Peter and John (“the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved”: John’s humble terminology to refer to himself); Luke says “Some of those who were with us [i.e., apostles: 24:10, 13] went to the tomb” [24:24]. It doesn’t specify Peter, as Austin claims, but it might be taken as strongly implied by “The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!” (24:34). No contradiction so far (by the same logical criteria I have repeatedly explained, here, and many times to atheists in the past).

Matthew doesn’t specifically say, but it says that the women “ran to tell his disciples” (28:8). Now what would you do if you were Jesus’ disciples — in despair over His crucifixion — and were told that He had risen from the dead? Of course, you would run to the tomb to see, which is exactly what Luke and John report, and which Matthew surely strongly insinuates. Austin presupposes the view that Mark 16:9-20 is not actually part of the Gospel. For a great refutation of that, see Dave Miller: “Is Mark 16:9-20 Inspired?” Apologetics Press, 2005 [link] ). But either way, Mark 16 (long or short) doesn’t specifically say that a disciple went to the tomb. But it doesn’t deny it, either, so it is the good ol’ notorious argument from silence again. So: no problem in the final analysis.

10) “Did disciple[s] enter tomb?“: John says Peter and John did; the others say nothing (argument of silence and thus, no contradiction). To not mention something is not the same as a denial. If I don’t mention that the sun came up this morning, it doesn’t follow that I denied it. If I forget to say “I love you” to my wife one day, I highly doubt that she will conclude that I don’t, based only on that. This kind of “reasoning” is just dumb. It’s unworthy of any thinking person.

11) “What did disciple[s] see?“: Luke and John saw “linen” cloths in the tomb. Matthew and Mark are silent; so no contradiction. Atheists seem to not realize that the four Gospels are obviously complementary to one another. No single one of them is required to report every jot and tittle of an event. They differ (but don’t contradict) just as any four witnesses of a crime usually will report or emphasize different aspects of the truth of what occurred, and perhaps miss some details that other witnesses saw. All of them together, if consistent, verify each other’s claims.

Likewise, what one Gospel doesn’t mention is usually mentioned by another. In fact, this silly chart bears strong witness to that, even in its dumbfounded opposition to biblical inspiration and harmony. I’m sitting here (as always) having my faith in biblical inspiration strengthened, because the critical objections are so ridiculously weak and non-substantial. This is the blessing of apologetics.

12) “Did women/woman meet Jesus?“: Since Mark and Luke are silent on this aspect, they can’t contradict. Austin attempts to make hay out of the women grabbing Jesus’ feet and worshiping Him in Matthew, but Mary Magdalene later being told “not to touch” Jesus in John 20:17. A. T. Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament explains this:

Touch me not (mh mou aptou). Present middle imperative in prohibition with genitive case, meaning “cease clinging to me” rather than “Do not touch me.” Jesus allowed the women to take hold of his feet (ekrathsan) and worship (prosekunhsan) as we read in Matthew 28:9 . The prohibition here reminds Mary that the previous personal fellowship by sight, sound, and touch no longer exists and that the final state of glory was not yet begun. Jesus checks Mary’s impulsive eagerness (A T Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament, John 20:17).

Almost all more recent English translations reflect this more specific (prolonged, more intense) sense of touch: *

RSV: hold

TEV / NIV / NRSV / Beck: hold on to

NAB: holding on to

ESV / NKJV / Weymouth / Barclay / Goodspeed / NEB / REB / Jerusalem / Knox / Amplified: cling

NASB / Williams / Wuest / Moffatt: clinging

So (guess what?), no contradiction again.

13) “What did Jesus say to the women/woman?“: Mark and Luke are silent; Matthew and John say two different, but not contradictory things. So to be contradictory, one or both would have to say, Jesus said only [whatever]. But they don’t.

14) “Where was 1st Jesus appearance to Disciples?” Mark doesn’t say. The others don’t indicate that their account was the “first” appearance (Austin baldly assumes this to be the case), so different harmonious chronologies are entirely possible to construct (and a “contradiction” impossible to undeniably construct).

15) “Where was 2nd Jesus appearance to Disciples?” Matthew and Mark are silent, and so irrelevant. John doesn’t specify that there were no visits in-between the two he mentions, and “first and second” can only apply to his version itself (not to the other Gospels), even if we assume that the two mentioned are directly chronological. The same factors apply to Luke’s account.

16) “Where was 3rd Jesus appearance to Disciples?” Only John mentions a third in his own account, but this doesn’t prove that it is the third time, period. My replies to #14-15 apply here too. These challenges get easier the more they continue! It’s pretty tough to come up with 18 fake biblical “contradictions”; not even one having any validity or force. Whoever devised this list surely flunked logic (assuming he even took it: and that’s a huge assumption).

17) “When did the Disciples receive the ‘Holy Spirit’?“: Matthew, Mark, and Luke are silent. But as Austin notes, Acts [2] places it 50 days later (and most Christians believe Luke wrote Acts). John 20:22 has Jesus visiting ten disciples (minus Thomas and the fallen Judas) and bestowing on them (“receive“) the Holy Spirit. Acts 2 is a completely different public event, with tongues of fire and speaking in tongues. There is no contradiction present. Here they (disciples and any others, too) are described as being “filled with the Holy Spirit” (2:4). Apples and oranges. An apple doesn’t “contradict” an orange.

18) “When & where did Ascension happen?“: only one mentions it, so how can it be a contradiction? Acts appears at first glance to conflict with Luke (which would be a self-contradiction), but there are adequate explanations for this. I have already dealt with this topic. *

[to be continued]

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Photo credit: geralt (8-18-16) [Pixabay / Pixabay License]

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A Tippling Philosopher

alleged Resurrection contradictions

Non-Contradictory Biblical Numbers

Resurrection of Jesus

2026-06-05T23:57:29-04:00

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Loftus Lies #23: Hypocrisy Re Deconversion Stories

Last updated on: June 5, 2026 at 11:57 pm By Dave Armstrong

Atheist author and polemicist John W. Loftus wrote an article entitled, “The Evidential Value of Conversion/Deconversion Stories. Reviewing Mittelberg’s “Confident Christianity” Part 7″ (2-22-18). I will be responding to his arguments regarding atheist deconversion stories (which tell of how and why one left the Christian faith). His words will be in blue.

*****

I want to digress a bit for this post to discuss the value of personal conversion/deconversion stories. [Nomenclature: A conversion story is one which an atheist or nonbeliever becomes a Christian. A deconversion story is one in which a Christian becomes a non-believer or atheist.] . . .

Mittelberg never tells any Christian-to-atheist deconversion stories. He just tells atheist-to-Christian conversion stories (plus Antony Flew’s story). Should we fault him for not telling any deconversion stories? Yes, I think so! For it means he’s not offering readers any evidence to consider, but rather trying to persuade them to believe based on the conclusions others reached. His faulty line of reasoning goes this: since atheist person X became a Christian, you should too. Why should that matter? He had asked readers to follow the evidence for themselves. But by putting forth several stories of skeptic/atheist conversions to Christianity he’s not actually presenting any objective evidence for the readers to consider. Instead, he’s presenting the conclusions of others about the evidence, which is arguing by authority, the very thing he questions later. He had also asked readers to follow logic. But by adopting the conclusion of others just because they adopted it is not logical. Why not just present the evidence? The stories are a propaganda technique designed purposefully to persuade.

In any case, if Mittelberg considers atheist-to-Christian conversion stories as some kind of evidence, he needs to share a few Christian-to-atheist deconversion stories, or else, explain why the later deconversion stories have very little, or no evidential weight to them! If he’s honest that is. If nothing else, he should provide an Endnote acknowledging this additional issue with a reference for readers to look up. But then, who said apologetics was an honest enterprise? Not me. Not from what I see.

This is absolutely fascinating. I say that specifically because I have my own history of interaction with John Loftus, and of dealing with many atheists, whose deconversion stories I have critiqued. I’ve done quite a few of these through the years (including John’s). One can check out the section “Atheist ‘Deconversions'” on my Atheism web page, plus other critiques of atheists to whom I’ve devoted sections on that page.

I can testify (no pun intended!) that absolutely nothing makes an atheist (at least of the anti-theist variety) more angry than having some Christian critique their deconversion. They especially hate and despise any insinuation at all that they may have left Christianity out of ignorance and false premises, rather than the claimed massive increase in knowledge and rationality.

Anthony Toohey is one of the few atheists who has ever troubled himself to reply back to one of my critiques (twice; I link to his second counter-reply). And of course, he is very personally hostile (the virtually universal response to my critiques). First, he refers to me as “simply a self-educated Catholic schlemiel with a blog,” then pours out the inevitable avalanche of personal insults:

Dave is just being the aforementioned jerk . . . habit of inserting the worst assumptions into every gap he can find rather than make an honest attempt . . . offensive and puerile tactics of belittling the writer because of what he imagines in the spaces rather than respond to what he actually reads in the words . . . Dave’s dishonesty . . .

Then he concludes:

The main takeaway is that Dave is reading a deconversion story, and is mystified that in 2,701 words he can’t find a book full of arguments as to why Christianity is not to be believed. And he trashes John [Loftus] for it. John calls him stupid. I don’t think he’s far from the mark there, if we’re being honest. John’s challenge is for Dave to put his money where his mouth is and actually read the damn book. Dave won’t.

Believe me, this is absolutely typical of responses to critiques such as those I have offered. Most won’t write an entire counter-response, but there will be snipes in comboxes, and then feeding frenzies, where a bunch of atheists decide to go on the attack and anything goes. Note, however, how Anthony claims that I supposedly “won’t” read John Loftus’ book about his deconversion. Therein lies a tale, and is the main focus of this paper.

I first critiqued one online version of Loftus’ deconversion way back on 10-15-06. This is how Loftus responded:

You are an idiot! You never critiqued my whole deconversion story. Deconversion stories are piecemeal. They cannot give a full explanation for why someone left the faith. They only give hints at why they left the faith. It requires writing a whole book about why someone left the faith to understand why they did, and few people do that. I did. If you truly want to critique my deconversion story then critique my book. Other than that, you can critique a few brief paragraphs or a brief testimony, if you want to, but that says very little about why someone left the faith. You walk away thinking you have completely analysed someone’s story. But from where I sit, that’s just stupid. That’s S-T-U-P-I-D! If you truly want to critique a deconversion story, then critique mine in my book. I wrote a complete story there.

Dave, I can only tolerate stupidity so long.

I challenge you to really critique the one deconversion story that has been published in a book. It’s a complete story. A whole story. It’s mine.

Do you accept my challenge?

At the time I declined. Here is an abridged version of my explanation why:

First of all, why would you even want to have your book critiqued by someone whom you routinely call an “idiot,” an “arrogant idiot,” a “joke,” a “know-it-all,” and so forth? I’ve never understood this.

It is a hyper-ludicrous implication to maintain that deconversion stories are immune to all criticism simply because they are not exhaustive. It’s embarrassing to even have to point this out, but there it is.

I have already long since taken up your “challenge.” I said many weeks ago that if you sent me your book in an e-file for free, I’d be more than happy to critique it. I won’t buy it, and I refuse to type long portions of it when it is possible to cut-and-paste. That is an important factor since my methodology is Socratic and point-by-point. I actually try to comprehensively answer opposing arguments, not just talk about them or do a mutual monologue. You railed against that, saying that it was a “handout.” I responded that you could have any of my (14 completed) books in e-book form for free.

One wonders, however, with your manifest “gnashing teeth” attitude towards me, what would be accomplished by such a critique? You’ve already shown that you can’t or won’t offer any rational counter-reply when I analyze any of your arguments.

Loftus, around this time, made a challenge to a Protestant who had critiqued his shorter deconversion story:

Again, are you going to read it [his book, Why I Am an Atheist] and critique it for yourself? Hey, I dare you! I bet you think you’re that smart, don’t ya, or that your faith is that strong – that you can read something like my book and not have it affect your faith.

If Christianity is true, then you have nothing to fear. But if Christianity is false, then you owe it to yourself to get the book. Either way you win.

And even if you blast my book after reading it here on this Blog, I’ll know that you read it, and just like poison takes time to work, all I have to do from then on is to wait for a personal crisis to kill your faith.

Want to give it a go? The way I see you reason here makes me think it’ll make your head spin with so many unanswerable questions that you won’t know what to do.

But that’s just me. I couldn’t answer these questions, so if you can, you’re a smarter man than I am, and that could well be. Are you? I think not, but that’s just me.

Yet one of Loftus’ droning complaints about me is that I am way too confident! I never claimed that someone would inevitably become a Christian or a Catholic Christian upon reading any of my books or many online papers! Then he sent his potshots my way again:

You’re a joke. I’m surprised you have an audience. . . . To think you could pompously proclaim you are better than me is beyond me when you don’t know me. It’s a defensive mechanism you have with people like me. . . . It’s called respecting people as people, and Dave’s Christianity does not do that with people who don’t agree with him. . . . I’m just tired of pompous asses on the internet who go around claiming they are superior to me in terms of intelligence and faith. Such arrogance makes me vomit. . . . self-assured arrogant idiots out there, like Dave, who prefer to proclaim off of my personal experience that they are better than I. (all on 10-16-06)

Six weeks later (11-30-06) he railed against me again:

You are ignorant

you present your uninformed arguments as if everyone should agree with you

Any educated person would not state the things you do with such arrogance.

with you there is no discussion to be had for any topic you write about.

You are the answer man. Everyone else is ignoring the obvious. And that’s the hallmark of an ignorant and uneducated man.

I am annoyed by people like you, . . . pompous self-righteous know-it-all’s

Now you are attempting to defend the arrogant way you argue.

You’re just right about everything, or, at least you always come across that way.

you are an uneducated, ignorant, arrogant know-it-all.

So, anyway, this is how John Loftus: the Great Unvanquishable Christianity-Killer and Self-Proclaimed Very Important Atheist Author replied in this fashion to my critique of his story. Does that strike anyone as confident and assured that he was on the right side of the debate and had the better arguments? Yeah, that was my impression, too.

It was in June 2019 that Loftus friend Anthony Toohey confidently proclaimed that I “won’t” touch Loftus’s book, Why I Became An Atheist (the implication being, of course, that was scared and/or unable to do so). I explained why I didn’t. The main reason was that Loftus refused to send me a free PDF copy of the book, so I could deal with it point-by-point without having to type War and Peace.

But I changed my mind on 9-1-19, writing on Facebook:

I Will be Doing an In-Depth Series of Replies to Atheist John Loftus’ Self-Described “Magnum Opus,” “Why I Became an Atheist.”

I’ve been asking Loftus since 2006 [13 years!] to send me an ebook of his for free to review (while offering him any number of my books for free). He has always refused. I didn’t want to spend any money to buy one.

I did a critique of one online version of his deconversion story in 2006. He kept insisting that to properly do such a critique, I had to order his book, where it appeared in its fullness.

Lately, he has again acted like such an insufferable, pompous ass, as he has towards me these past 13 years (most recently censoring even bare links of mine to my replies to material on his website), that I decided tonight to purchase this book (revised version).

I got it for $7.52 on Amazon, including shipping, for a used / very good condition copy. That won’t put me out. He’s been challenging and insulting me, so very well: I shall now devote my energies to replying to this book.

If he is so momentously famous and important as he modestly claims he is, then my replies should get a ton of attention. That would be fine for my purposes, but as always, I’m not in this for the money. I’m simply providing rational replies to objections to Christianity. Whoever reads them, reads them. That’s not up to me. It’s not my concern. My job is to do the best job I can do, according to my capabilities.

Stay tuned!

I then set to work on my rebuttal, over the next ten days. Here it is, in ten installments:

Loftus Atheist Error #1: Intro: “Why [He] Became an Atheist” [9-3-19]

Loftus Atheist Error #2: 16-Page Deconversion Story [9-4-19]

Loftus Atheist Error #3: Scientism & a “Better [Pascal’s] Wager” [9-5-19]

Loftus Atheist Error #4: The Outsider Test for Faith [9-5-19]

Loftus Atheist Error #5: Origins, Flew’s Deism, Anthropomorphism [9-9-19]

Loftus Atheist Error #6: Is God “Love” or a “Moral Monster”? [9-9-19]

Loftus Atheist Error #7: Christian Influence on Science [9-9-19]

Loftus Atheist Error #8: Ancient Jews, “Body” of God, & Polytheism [9-10-19]

Loftus Atheist Error #9: Bible Espouses Mythical Animals? [9-10-19]

Loftus Atheist Error #10: Prophet Jeremiah vs. Mosaic Law? [9-11-19]

So of course, Loftus (full of vim and vigor and supremely confident of his beliefs) would certainly respond to such a vigorous critique, right?: since, after all, he had challenged me and others to do this very thing, and since he had written about a year-and-a-half earlier, regarding another Christian apologist:

[H]e needs to share a few Christian-to-atheist deconversion stories, or else, explain why the later deconversion stories have very little, or no evidential weight to them! If he’s honest that is. If nothing else, he should provide an Endnote acknowledging this additional issue with a reference for readers to look up. But then, who said apologetics was an honest enterprise? Not me.

Alrightey! So he made an honest man of me, and I have attained to the sublime levels of honesty and self-confidence that Jittery John Loftus has attained. So he will certainly defend himself now, right? Wrong! Here it is a year and four months later and I still haven’t heard a peep back from him. He’ still running and insulting, as always with me (these past 13 years). On 1-6-21 on his blog, he wrote about me: “I’ve had dealings with him. He’s obnoxious to the core whether it’s here or on his site. He’s unworthy of our time.” That’s anti-theist atheist-speak for “Man, I don’t know how to rationally overthrow his arguments so I better come up with a personal insult quick and pretend that that my critic’s profound ignorance and jerkhood is why I don’t reply!”

Meanwhile, over the past two years and a few months I’ve also been systematically refuting his associate, Dr. David Madison, a former Methodist pastor who is the dominant writer on Loftus’ blog, Debunking Christianity. He’s been refuted no less than 44 times, with not a single word in reply. Instead, he issued the following jeremiad against me on 9-6-19 (not naming me, but it was clear who he meant, after 35 of my critiques):

This is a time of distress for Christian apologists. These are the die-hards who brag that they are devotees—in a professional capacity, no less—of the ancient Jesus mystery cult. They feel compelled to defend it at whatever cost. But times are changing, and they face challenges unknown to earlier apologists. . . .

So the burden of the apologist has become heavy indeed, and some don’t handle the anguish well. They vent and rage at critics, like toddlers throwing tantrums when a threadbare security blanket gets tossed out. We can smell their panic. Engaging with the ranters serves no purpose—any more than it does to engage with Flat-Earthers, Chemtrail conspiracy theorists, and those who argue that the moon landings were faked.

The five stages of Bible grief provide opportunities to initiate dialogue. I prefer to engage with NON-obsessive-compulsive-hysterical Christians, those who have spotted rubbish in the Bible, and might already have one foot out the door.

So once again, his comrade isn’t following Loftus’ advice, either. Why should he, since Loftus himself doesn’t? The game is to act all confident and triumphant and to challenge some of those ignorant Christians out there to take up the challenge of the deconversion story or the Bible-bashing obsession of a man like Dr. Madison. When someone takes up the challenge, both of ’em do absolutely everything they can to avoid any interaction.

Ten days earlier, on 8-28-19, Loftus himself had changed the rules of engagement for his forum, so as to deal with the huge “crisis” that my actually taking up his own challenge posed:

Some angry Catholic apologist has been tagging our posts with his angry long-winded responses. I know of no other blog, Christian or atheist, that allows for arguments by links, especially to plug one’s failing blog or site. I’ve allowed it for about a month with this guy but no more. He’s not banned. He can still come here to comment. It’s just that we don’t allow responses in the comments longer than the blog post itself, or near that. If any respectful person has a counter-argument or some counter-evidence then bring it. State your case in as few words as possible and then engage our commenters in a discussion. But arguments by links or long comments are disallowed. I talked with David Madison who has been the target of these links and he’s in agreement with this decision. He’s planning to write something about one or more of these links in the near future [he has yet to do so, now almost 17 months later]. So here’s how our readers can help. I’ve deleted a few of these arguments by link. There are others I’ve missed. If you see some apologist arguing by link flag it. Then I’ll be alerted where it is to delete it. What’s curious to me are the current posts he’s neglecting, like this one on horrific suffering. If he tackles that one I’ll allow him a link back.

Can’t be too careful if you get a Christian who is actually refuting your arguments! He must be silenced and mocked and dismissed in whatever way it takes: insults, ignoring, feeding frenzies in echo chamber comboxes, removing links informing your readers that he has refuted your right-hand man now for the 35th time . . .

This is how Loftus and his anti-theist buddy Dr. David Madison actually act! So in light of this revealing background information, let’s get back to Loftus’ post that I was addressing at the top:

What are these conversion stories evidence for? That people change their minds. We already knew this. But it’s worse than that. For as soon as Mittelberg uses conversion stories to bolster his case, it means he has to allow atheists to use their own deconversion stories to persuade people. When he does, it will provoke a debate over which side has the advantage, and Mittelberg will lose the advantage. All by themselves then, the fact that people change their minds provides no evidential weight in and of itself. But upon considering all other relevant things, ex-Christian deconversion stories have the evidential advantage.

Yeah, that’s obviously the case, ain’t it, which must be the reason why Loftus has ignored ten critiques of his book-length deconversion, why his loudmouthed associate David Madison has ignored 44 rebuttals of his relentless Bible-bashing, and why fellow anti-theist atheist Bob Seidensticker (who directly challenged me to take up the burden of answering his charges) has now absolutely ignored no less than a remarkable 69 critiques of mine.

Who could fail to be impressed by this confident performance?: three of the most vocal and influential atheists online have now ignored a total of 123 of my critiques!

There are many Christian-turned-atheist deconversion stories, like those of authors Dan Barker, Hector Avalos, David Madison, David Chumney, Bart Ehrman, Valerie Tarico, Robert Price, Richard C. Miller, Marlene Winell, Edwin Suominen, Joe E. Holman, Stephen Uhl, William Lobdell, Jason Long, Charles Templeton, Kenneth Daniels, Bruce Gerencser, and myself to name a few off the top of my head (apologies to the many others I failed to mention).

Perhaps Mr. John “You’re an idiot!” Loftus can be kind enough to let me know which of these will 1) not become furious if I critique their story, and 2) will actually respond and be willing to engage in written debate? I did critique Joe E. Holman’s story, right before I critiqued Loftus’ own, in October 2006.

To highlight one of the less conspicuous deconversions is Dustin Lawson, a former protege of Christian apologist Josh McDowell. McDowell goes around to churches telling them to try to disprove Christianity. Well, Dustin listened to him and followed his advice! Guess what happened? ;-) Here’s a picture of us together, the apostates that apologists William Lane Craig and Josh McDowell would like to forget!

Thanks for the recommendation. I’ll have to seek out this guy and see if he has more intellectual courage than Loftus, Madison, Seidensticker et al.

Loftus then provides links to three sites that specialize in posting deconversion stories. I have bookmarked them and will be sure to check them out after the kind encouragement of Jittery John. Certainly, all these confident, oh-so-smart and superior atheists will warmly welcome any such challenge to their stories from a lowly Christian ignoramus like me, right?

Our stories are not just personal feel good stuffs. We have the arguments too.

Yeah, they have arguments all right. It’s just that they are terribly weak and I’ve never had any trouble exposing them for how fallacious, fact-challenged, and unconvincing they are. One is never more convinced of Christianity than after one sees how very flimsy and insubstantial the opposing arguments are, and how misinformed so many ex-Christians were of their faith (including Loftus himself) before they made the fateful decision to leave Christianity.

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Photo credit: cover of John Loftus’ 2012 book from its Amazon page.

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Atheist deconversion stories

apostasy

atheist apologetics

atheist polemics

conversion stories

Debunking Christianity

2021-01-15T17:13:44-04:00

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Star of Bethlehem: Reply to Obnoxious Atheist Aaron Adair

Last updated on: January 15, 2021 at 5:13 pm By Dave Armstrong

Plus Further Related Exchanges with Aaron and a Few Others in an Atheist Combox

Aaron Adair is an atheist physicist, who wrote the book, The Star of Bethlehem: A Skeptical View (2013). He initially wrote me a cordial letter after seeing a few of my recent posts on that topic, and I responded in kind, at considerable length. But — sadly — it quickly descended to the usual anti-theist atheist insults. My reply below under an absolutely atrocious, abominable put-down post from him against me (or rather, a gross caricature of what I am and what I have argued), was posted underneath it at Jonathan Pearce’s blog, A Tippling Philosopher. Aaron’s words will be in blue.

*****

As Aaron alluded to, we had been engaging in private correspondence, which quickly went sour due to his relentless insults. It was perfectly cordial in the first round till Jonathan publicly reported that Aaron [not named but later verified] called one of my articles — behind my back as it were –, a bunch of “hot air”. Then it quickly went downhill after that (to my immense disappointment: but I should have known better). One gets a flavor of what happened privately, above: “he’s a poor researcher, searching for any tidbit that seems to favor his theories and blind to any contrary evidence.”

What else is new with anti-theist atheists? If even well-known Christian debaters and philosophers like William Lane Craig and Alvin Plantinga get the same treatment (they’re all idiots and blowhards, so we are endlessly reminded), who am I (a mere lowly, despised lay apologist) to think it would be any different and that respectful dialogue could actually be attained? Heaven help me from my hopeless idealism . . .

Whatever my merits or demerits, abilities or lack thereof, clueless idiot or not, at least I was willing to enter into a full-fledged point-by-point debate, with both sides comprehensively presented on my blog (and his — + this one — , if he wanted) but Aaron flatly refused. So instead we have him systematically caricaturing my side of the argument. Very impressive, but par for the usual course. Rather than a fair exchange of two sides, we have one side cynically caricaturing what the other argued, with massive misrepresentation: trashing supposedly lousy research and then exhibiting the same for one and all to see. It’s pathetic and pitiful: all the more so from an academic (a physicist).

If anyone wants to read how I actually argue the thing, see my nine articles on the star:

Star of Bethlehem, Astronomy, Wise Men, & Josephus (Amazing Astronomically Verified Data in Relation to the Journey of the Wise Men & Jesus’ Birth & Infancy) [12-14-20]

Timeline: Star of Bethlehem, Herod’s Death, & Jesus’ Birth (Chronology of Harmonious Data from History, Archaeology, the Bible, and Astronomy) [12-15-20]

Conjunctions, the Star of Bethlehem and Astronomy [National Catholic Register, 12-21-20]

Star of Bethlehem: Refuting Silly Atheist Objections [12-26-20]

Star of Bethlehem: More Silly Atheist “Objections” [12-29-20]

Astronomy, Exegesis and the Star of Bethlehem [National Catholic Register, 12-31-20]

Pearce’s Potshots #12: Supernatural Star of Bethlehem? (Biblical View of Astronomy, Laws of Nature, and the Natural World) [1-11-21]

Star of Bethlehem: Natural or Supernatural? [1-13-21]

Bible Commentaries & Matthew 2:9 (Star of Bethlehem) [1-13-21]

I ain’t gonna take on every misrepresentation and/or noncomprehension of my arguments presented above. It would be a complete waste of time. I’ve already dealt with all this. Jonathan blew it off, refused to discuss it, and so I presented it in a new paper yesterday, and added another just about biblical commentators and their views. Most atheists will simply believe their fellow atheist no matter what. There is little interest in actual dialogue. Aaron had none.

Fair-mindedness and giving someone even a minimal benefit of the doubt that they have honest, thought-out differences seem to be regarded around here and in virtually all atheist echo chamber venues, as quaint and naive remnants of a remote past. So I’ll just pick one thing where Aaron has made a mountain out of a molehill: the issue of what the Greek word hou means.

I explained to him what happened there, and it was an exceedingly minor point, but to no avail. I never called it a “noun.” I simply said that it was translated as “place” in English translations (which will be documented below). It’s true I modified this section, because if Aaron could misunderstand what I wrote this badly, chances are others could, as well. In modifying, I took the opportunity to make my argument presented there far stronger (which is what I absolutely love about challenges: however ill thought out, as this one was), and Aaron hasn’t touched it: being too caught up in his goal of making me look like an idiot allegedly way over my head, special pleader, and dishonest researcher.

Here is my fuller / modified argument from the word hou, in one of my replies to Jonathan that he, too, has decided not to reply to thus far (though he has done so with several of my articles in the past, and recent past). Make up your own minds (since Aaron has flat-out refused to discuss these things in the depth they deserve):

*****

Matthew 2:9 . . . the star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came to rest over the place where the child was.

This passage refers only to the six-mile journey between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, and I have contended that all it means is that a bright star (I believe, Jupiter, in my scenario, backed up by astronomical charts of what was in the sky and where) was at the time in the direction of Bethlehem (that is, over it) from Jerusalem. It would not have “moved” in the perception of the wise men, over a journey of six miles, just as we could say we were traveling west, following the setting sun. It would always “go before us” as we traveled.

It’s phenomenological language, which is habitually used by Bible writers. We use it even to this day by referring to the “sun rising” or “sun going down” etc. Literally (as we understand) it is the earth rotating, thus making the sun appear to move. But we still refer to it in the non-literal way. So does the Bible, about a lot of things.

The other aspect is the clause “it came to rest over the place where the child was.” First of all, the text does not say that this means it shone specifically onto a “house.” Matthew 2:11 (i.e., two verses later) simply says they went “into a house”: not that the star was shining on it, identifying it. We have to get it straight: what exactly any given text under consideration actually asserts and does not assert.

Let’s examine the actual biblical text a little more closely. The Greek “adverb of place” in Matthew 2:9 is hou (Strong’s word #3757). In RSV hou is translated by “the place where” (in KJV, simply “where”). It applies to a wide range of meanings beyond something as specific as a house. In other passages in RSV it refers to a mountain (Mt 28:16), Nazareth (Lk 4:16), a village (Lk 24:28), the land of Midian (Acts 7:29), Puteoli (Pozzuoli): a sizeable city in Italy (Acts 28:14), and the vast wilderness that Moses and the Hebrews traveled through (Heb 3:9). Thus it can easily, plausibly refer to “Bethlehem” in Matthew 2:9.

In RSV (Mt 2:9), hou is translated by the italicized words: “it came to rest over the place where the child was.” So the question is: what does it mean by “place” in this instance? What is the star said to be “over”? And then I noted other uses of the same word, which referred to a variety of larger areas. The text does not specifically say that “it stood over a house.” Yet Jonathan (and many able and sincere, but in my opinion mistaken, Christian commentators) seem to think it does.

This is an important point because it goes to the issue of supernatural or natural. A “star” (whatever it is) shining a beam down on one house would be (I agree) supernatural; not any kind of “star” we know of in the natural world. But a star shining on an area; in the direction of an area (which a bright Jupiter was to Bethlehem in my scenario: at 68 degrees in the sky) can be a perfectly natural event.

Matthew 2:9 is similar to how we say in English: “where I was, I could see the conjunction very well.” “Where” obviously refers to a place. And one’s place is many things simultaneously. Thus, when I saw the “star of Bethlehem”-like conjunction in December [2020], I was in a field, near my house (in my neighborhood), in my town (Tecumseh), in my county (Lenawee), in my state (Michigan), and in my country (United States). This is my point about “place” in Matthew 2:9. It can mean larger areas, beyond just “house.” If the text doesn’t say specifically, “the star shone on the house” then we can’t say for sure that this is what the text meant.

I never claimed that hou was a “noun” in my original wording. I was noting that it was referring to place: as indeed it did in Matthew 2:9, since the translation of it in RSV is “the place where.” Therefore “place” is a translation of hou in this instance.

I have found 18 other English Bible translations of Matthew 2:9 that also have “the place where” (Weymouth, Moffatt, Confraternity, Knox, NEB, REB, NRSV, Lamsa, Amplified, Phillips, TEV, NIV, Jerusalem, Williams, Beck, NAB, Kleist & Lilly, and Goodspeed). In all these cases, they are translating hou: literally meaning “where” but at the same time implying place (which is the “where” referred to). The Living Bible (a very modern paraphrase) has “standing over Bethlehem”: which of course, bolsters my argument as well (because it didn’t say “house”).

All these things being understood, all the text in question plausibly meant is that the bright star was shining down on Bethlehem, just as we have all seen the moon or some bright star shining on a mountain in the distance or tall building or some other landmark. A man might see the light from the harvest moon romantically shining on his girlfriend or wife’s face. It need not necessarily mean that this is all they are shining on. It simply looks that way from our particular vantage-point.

All of this is in my opinion, more plausible and straightforward and in line with biblical thinking than positing a supernatural “star.” It’s true that many reputable and observant Christian biblical commentators exist who do argue for that interpretation, and I don’t disparage them. Theirs are honest efforts just as this paper is. Reasonable people can and do disagree. I can only present the reasons for why I hold to my opinion, and for why Jonathan’s assertions of a necessary or exclusively plausible supernatural nature of the star of Bethlehem are less reasonable and likely than my scenario.

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Carstonio (henceforth in green) Any point of light in the sky that would have been capable of spotlighting a small area on the ground certainly wouldn’t have been a star or a planet – perhaps only a few hundred feet in the air. The originators of the nativity legend wouldn’t have made that kind of distinction, given the knowledge of cosmology at the time. Based on the text, the behavior sounds more like the Deluminator in the last Harry Potter novel.

Again, the text doesn’t specify a “small area” being illuminated, or even a larger one, as I have explained over and over. All the actual text says is “the star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came to rest over the place where the child was” (Matthew 2:9, RSV). And as I have shown, all that has to mean, given the use of the word hou in the New Testament is: “the star stood over Bethlehem”: particularly from the vantage point of the journey south from Jerusalem to Bethlehem.

It had to be [in this scenario] in the direction of Bethlehem (south). In my scheme it (Jupiter) is that in December 2 BC: 68 degrees up in the sky too, according to the astronomical charts. That’s known; the only question is if it lines up with the date of Jesus’ birth, which is a whole different question, of course.

This business of “spotlighting a small area” is simply not in this text, and I think many people get the idea from 1) Christmas cards and other prevalent images of the Nativity, and 2) the passage in Luke regarding the angels and shepherds, where almost all Christian commentators (including myself) hold that the light is supernatural and what is called shekinah, or the light of “God’s [or angels’] glory.”

Geoff Benson (henceforth in brown)

“ them, till it came to rest over the place where the child was”

Two points. Firstly how could it ‘rest’? It is a very slow moving (our perception) celestial body so it could never just stop from the viewpoint of the Magi. They didn’t see it actually moving so they didn’t see it stop. Secondly, it’s several hundred million miles away. At any considered point it can’t be regarded as direction to any individual point. The Magi would have needed to move only a few yards and the indicated target would have been entirely different, even assuming it was sufficiently low on the horizon to give meaningful guidance. The very simple geometry problems are massive.

My broader point still holds – a light that behaved that way would have had to be in the troposphere.

Your presupposition as to how it supposedly behaved isn’t in the text, so it has no support.

The text says the star went before them, till it came to rest over the place where the child was. That’s a description of a light that’s moving in the sky at the traveling speed of the three men, independent of the stars, and that would require a fairly low height compared with celestial objects.

It is if it’s taken literally. I don’t take it absolutely literally, but rather, view it as one of many biblical examples of phenomenological language: the language of appearance.

Isn’t this an excellent example of why the ‘star’ should be regarded as supernatural, and not a natural phenomenon [?]

No, at least not in my opinion. But there are a lot of good Christians who think it’s supernatural. We have no problem allowing a diversity of explanations. The important thing was that it existed and was a sign to the wise men. All Christians fully agree on that, which is the essence of it, after all.

And plenty of other Christians don’t read the stories literally either. But some do and they demand that everyone else accept them as irrefutable fact. Because of that demand, the literal readings deserve to be scrutinized and challenged, or at least categorized as originating with legend.

I’m not demanding anything about the star (other than that it was an actual historical occurrence per my belief in the veracity of the Bible). Equally good Christians take all kinds of positions. I’m opposing Jonathan and Aaron’s “dogmatic supernaturalism” regarding the star.

Two quick things:

1. Since you translated hou as ‘place’, and ‘place’ is a noun, you therefore said hou is a noun. This is just basic transitive logic: if A=B, and B=C, then A=C. Please don’t tell me I misunderstood your argument when you clearly don’t understand your own.

2. I don’t have reason to go point-for-point because you literally just ignored the entirety of my article, not to mention my book on the subject. Why go into details when you don’t even know what the details of the argument are, while also showing you don’t know anything about the underlying text and need help with the most basic points?

Oh, so you are Aaron [I didn’t realize this at first, given the usual ridiculous nickname: a thing I have loathed online since 1996], and now you’ve worked up the gumption to actually interact with my specific arguments: here with all your buddies to support and cheerlead, while I’m all by myself? That’s cute.

I didn’t translate anything, so your premise is wrong. I don’t know Greek. 19 Bible translations (produced by many hundreds of Greek linguists) decided to translate the clause in Matthew 2:9 as “the place where” [Jesus was]. Go take it up with them. I merely reported what they did.

I have explained its relationship (it’s described by grammarians as an “adverb of place” after all) to what is indeed a noun: “place” (to no avail). Both you and Jonathan refused to address this. It can function very much like a noun in English usage, as I have noted recently. We say, for example, “where we were, was an excellent vantage-point to view the conjunction.” It obviously inexorably implies “place” (noun): which is why some Bible translations (e.g., KJV) simply use “where” for hou at Matthew 2:9, and additionally why 19 that I have found render it “the place where.”

So all this hogwash about me saying hou was a noun, which I never did, and ignoring this aspect which I have now explained more than once, is obscurantism and obfuscation; sophistry. It’s yet another case where atheists can’t admit that a Christian can be right about anything.

What’s actually relevant is what “place” in this sense refers to in biblical koine Greek, and as I have shown, it refers to larger areas: not just one house, as you and Jonathan appear to think.

Yes, I will ignore most of your idiotic “reply” to me because it’s aimed at things I don’t believe in the first place. You’ve forfeited the opportunity to have a serious, constructive discussion with a Christian about this (as your first letter seemed to be) by acting like a pompous ass and academic snob. That was your choice. I’m simply clarifying a few key things here since you have decided to attack me all the more and try to make me look like a pretentious fool.

It can function like a noun? Congrats, you’re just making things up. Adverbs are not nouns, and they don’t function as nouns. As for its relationship, uh all words have relationships! Don’t try to make a linguistic argument, it’s just embarrassing.

Please also note, I never said the translation ‘the place where’ was wrong. Not once. What I did say was that you said hou meant place, which it does not. Everything else you have tried to come up with is the same sort of hot air I complained about: sound and fury signifying nothing.

Additionally, I never said hou only refers to small areas or just houses. Not once. Instead, what did I say? Look up, and you’ll find that I said the meaning of such general words get their meaning from context. And you ignored every other word in the verse. You are literally taking the word out of context, and somehow say that proves its meaning in context.

Try addressing my actual arguments. You’ll learn a thing of two.

Hou is translated as “the place where” in 19 Bible translations. Take it up with them. I might get some finer grammatical points wrong (I freely confess) — I hated grammar in school, though I got A’s in English and wound up as an author and writer — , but this basic fact stands. You can’t (and don’t, above) deny that the word was rendered “the place where” by these many hundreds of linguists.

I did nothing wrong in noting that fact. The “sound and fury signifying nothing” is all from your end.

Looks like you’re reading skills are failing you, as are grammar skills. I never said the translation ‘the place where’ was wrong. Not on[c]e. I said that you were wrong when you said hou meant place. You can’t even begin to address my actual arguments if you don’t even know what I’ve said. Actually address what’s there, not the phantasm you imagine.

I know that feeling well! I’m not interested any longer in any discussion with you. When you first wrote, I was very interested. But I lose all interest once someone takes a hostile stance and starts misrepresenting my views. It’s only because you did the latter here that I replied, since I have a right to defend myself (and Jonathan is nice enough to not ban me like Seidensticker does).

But I’ve done about all I can do here. There’s very little genuine dialogue between Christians and atheists anywhere.

In other words, you can’t address any point I’ve made. I’ve already shown that your arguments are fundamentally flawed, you don’t even show an awareness of what my arguments are, and you copy-paste over and over what is not even relevant and misrepresent what anyone has said, all because you were shown to be wrong even on trivial basics.

If you want dialogue, actually address the arguments. If you can’t, then move on to something you can defend. If you don’t know Greek, don’t try declaring you know what the Greek means. If you don’t know astronomy, don’t make astronomical arguments. If you don’t know much of anything about the theories of the Star of Bethlehem, don’t argue with an expert on the subject as if you know anything and then cry all over the Internet that your feelings were hurt.

And most importantly, don’t lie about things. That’ll really get you in trouble.

And don’t be a pompous ass and an academic snob. It gives a bad name to atheists, who already are widely perceived among Christians as irrationally angry, relentlessly hostile and insulting, and impossible to interact with in any constructive manner. If you want to foster that perception, knock yourself out.

This could have been a great and enjoyable dialogue. There was no need to descend to rank insult as you have done. It impresses no one except atheists who want to push the notion that all Christians are idiots and anti-science, anti-reason. I’m not a liar and I’m not an idiot (agree or disagree with me on whatever). I don’t think all atheists are immoral people who will automatically go to hell (never have). I’ve had great dialogues with several atheists (one of which is my very favorite among my 1000+ posted online).

I haven’t pretended that I know more about anything (be it astronomy or Greek) than I do. I’m citing others who do know about those things. I simply have an honest disagreement on this issue with you.

Matt Brooker (Syncretocrat)

These attempts to make Bible stories fit with scientific fact strike me as odd for two reasons:

1) If you already accept miracles, what’s implausible about god creating a moving light in the sky that looks like a star? If critics don’t like miracles, just accuse them of “anti-supernatural bias.” That seems more congruent with theism than trying to shoehorn Bible stories into scientific fact.

2) Doesn’t the whole enterprise of making the Bible fit with science show that science is the greater authority?

No. It shows that Christians respect science just as everyone else does, and that we take it into consideration in biblical exegesis, which has changed as a result of scientific discovery. In one of my papers on the star I noted five areas where this has happened.

We believe in scientific knowledge and discovery and also theological knowledge (from revelation and reason). Both things are true. Many Christians were wrong about heliocentrism in the 16th century, but so also were Copernicus and Galileo (both Catholics, of course), since the sun ain’t the center of the universe, either. And Galileo and Kepler were neck-deep into astrology, and Newton into occultism and alchemy. We all learn stuff all the time.

eric

But how did you decide that that phenomena was not a miracle? You’re drawing from RSV Matthew 2. Okay, in that same section, in verse 13, an angel appears to Joseph in a dream. Was that also a natural phenomenon?

If not, how did you come to the conclusion that 2:9 does not describe a miracle, but 2:13 does? It seems quite arbitrary.

One has to look at each case. There are obviously lots of miracles in the Bible, and I believe them, as an orthodox Catholic who believes in biblical inspiration. I happen to think (for many reasons that I detail in my papers) that it’s more plausible to hold that the star of Bethlehem was a natural occurrence (actually a combination of two different celestial events). Likewise, natural occurrences coincided with Jesus’ crucifixion (an eclipse and an earthquake: both also able to be verified from scientific and literary records).

Many Christian commentators (and most before the 19th century, as Aaron likes to point out) have thought the star was supernatural, too. We have a diversity of opinion on the matter, but Jonathan and Aaron want to be dogmatic (how ironic, huh?) and act as if only the supernatural version can be held by any rational, sentient being. It’s poppycock.

While “all miracles” or “no miracles” might be dogmatic, having a consistent method for deciding which is which is, in my opinion, not. While personal reasoning may be fine for individual believers (like you), once someone decides they want to try and convince others, having a system that an outsider like me cannot apply independently means your system is not convincing. It may be valid, but without being able to communicate it, I cannot determine that.

But let’s leave this aside. I’d rather we continued to discuss your Jupiter explanation above, than spend more time on this.

I think most cases are obvious. The star is a bit more subtle than most (which is why it’s really fascinating for a Bible student and apologist like me to ponder, because it’s not hard and fast). I have provided many reasons for why I think the natural explanation is more plausible. It would have been fun to discuss and debate those point-by-point with Aaron, if he had remained congenial, but he decided not to.

Most biblical miracles can hardly be deemed as natural events (though many have tried: particularly more theologically liberal commentators). One famous one is the ridiculous slop about the “Reed Sea” that was only a few inches deep. Moses “parted” that and the Hebrews slogged through it. The standard joke about this is that the real miracle would have been the Egyptian army drowning in two inches of water. LOL

Most biblical miracles (assuming, of course, that they actually happened as reported) could only be miraculous. Jesus raised the dead, healed the sick, raised Himself, fed the 4000 and 5000 by multiplying available food, walked on water, stilled the storm, ascended to heaven. No one could say these were “natural” events. Elijah went to heaven in a fiery chariot. Manna came down from heaven, donkeys talked, weird plagues came upon Egypt. People talked in languages they themselves didn’t know, on the day of Pentecost. God became a man. Baptism regenerates us and does all sorts of wonderful things. Wicked sinners can be redeemed and exhibit radically changed lives. All miraculous . . .

One thing that can be natural was Jonah and the whale. It’s now been proven that men could be swallowed like that and actually survive (actual cases). If it wasn’t miraculous for them then it likely wasn’t for Jonah, either.

I noted in one of my papers that when I wrote about Joshua and the “sun standing still” I took a miraculous view, but not of the sun being still (which would mean, of course, that the earth stopped rotating). Rather, my view was that God caused a massive change in the perception of the people, in how they saw the sun. Some explanations try to take a more phenomenological-type view, as I have with the star. I didn’t buy it. It wasn’t convincing to me at all.

But back to the star: my scientific / natural view indeed can be examined independently, precisely because it involves known astronomical events in particular places. That’s what’s so fun about it. I think its a great argument for the Bible and the miraculous birth of Jesus. It’s one of those things like the Shroud of Turin and the image of Mary Guadalupe and the miracle of the sun at Fatima (witnessed by 70,000) and incorrupt bodies of saints that have all sorts of fascinating aspects to them (and can be scrutinized through scientific techniques). It reminds me of the confirming evidences of biblical archaeology: except here it’s astronomy that confirms biblical accounts.

All of this works to convince the occasional atheist precisely because it can be verified and examined in a way that a supernatural explanation cannot. Atheists can simply dismiss all miracles out of hand, and they do all the time (even though it’s irrational to do so, I would say, since it’s very difficult to prove universal negatives).

[RSV] Matthew 2:9 . . . the star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came to rest over the place where the child was.

[DA] This passage refers only to the six-mile journey between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, and I have contended that all it means is that a bright star (I believe, Jupiter, in my scenario, backed up by astronomical charts of what was in the sky and where) was at the time in the direction of Bethlehem (that is, over it) from Jerusalem. It would not have “moved” in the perception of the wise men, over a journey of six miles, just as we could say we were traveling west, following the setting sun. It would always “go before us” as we traveled.

Hello David. I hope you will answer my question.

So the Magi are in Jerusalem. Jupiter is in the southern part of the sky – mostly direct south or perhaps SSW of them. They travel the 5 or so miles in the direction of Jupiter and arrive at Bethlehem. Jupiter hasn’t moved, the time is too short. So it’s still in the southern sky to the Magi.

How is this “came to rest”? The ‘star’ looks exactly the same, and is in the exact same place, it was when they were in Jerusalem. Nothing about Jupiter can indicate to them that they’ve arrived at their destination, because to them, it’s exactly the same as it was one city back. So how is your scenario consistent with the passage?

Thanks for the question. I would reply in two ways: it’s phenomenological language: which is non-literal, but in this case describes what some commentators on the question would say is the retrograde motion or “stationary point” of planets (in this instance, Jupiter).

Thank you for your answer. But I do not understand how that answers my question. You said: “It would not have “moved” in the perception of the wise men.”

Now you’re discussing retrograde motion. Did they see retrograde motion? Is that what you are saying “come to rest” means – the observation of the planet going (very…very…slowly…) west instead of east?

How is this consistent with your original claim, above, that they didn’t see it move?

They wouldn’t see any motion to speak of if Jupiter was at a stationary point and in the sky to the south over Bethlehem, approached from Jerusalem.

Okay, so I’m sorry if I’m being dense about this, but if the Magi didn’t see it move, how is your post about retrograde motion relevant to the verse’s statement that the star ‘came to rest?’

It wouldn’t move much on the way from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. A camel normally travels about three miles an hour, so it would have taken them about two hours. That’s roughly the entire time the Bible refers to them (in non-literal language, I believe) following a star. In the language of appearance (remember, this is my interpretation: non-literal language employed), it “went before them” not in perceived motion, but because it was always ahead of them on the way.

To say, then, that the star “came to rest over the place” is to observe that they didn’t see it moving much over Bethlehem once they arrived there. I’m not an astronomer, so I can only cite other people who know more about these aspects.

The EarthSky site (“Jupiter ends retrograde on July 10-11”) notes regarding Jupiter’s stationary point in July 10-11, 2018:

Tonight – July 10-11, 2018 – the planet Jupiter is poised in front of the stars of the zodiac. It’s now moving neither east nor west against the star background, but will soon resume its usual eastward course. In other words, Jupiter is stationary on July 11 at 04:00 UTC. In United States time zones, Jupiter reaches its stationary point on July 11 at 12 midnight EDT, and on July 10 at 11 p.m. CDT, 10 p.m. MDT, 9 p.m. PDT, 8 p.m. Alaskan Time and 6 p.m. Hawaiian time.

So in my scenario, this was the case in Bethlehem when the Magi arrived. This is what would have looked to them like “[coming] to rest over” Bethlehem. The astronomical charts show this for one of the days in December, 2 BC. That’s my proposed date for their visit. Of course it could be wrong and is only speculation, but Jupiter would behave in this way then.

The Wikipedia article, “Apparent retrograde motion” provides another example:

Galileo’s drawings show that he first observed Neptune on December 28, 1612, and again on January 27, 1613. On both occasions, Galileo mistook Neptune for a fixed star when it appeared very close—in conjunction—to Jupiter in the night sky, hence, he is not credited with Neptune’s discovery. During the period of his first observation in December 1612, Neptune was stationary in the sky because it had just turned retrograde that very day. Since Neptune was only beginning its yearly retrograde cycle, the motion of the planet was far too slight to be detected with Galileo’s small telescope.

That’s lack of motion, and that is what I and others suggest was happening with Jupiter over Bethlehem when the wise men visited, thus bringing about the Bible’s statement that it “came to rest over the place where the child was” (Mt 2:9, RSV). Thus, the language of appearance can explain both clauses: the one just mentioned and also “went before them”, and can be harmonized with celestial events in the way I have explained.

If the wise men hit the right day, Jupiter would have appeared to be stationary, just as Neptune was for Galileo in December 1612 “because it had just turned retrograde that very day.” I didn’t make this stuff up. I had never heard about it till last month when I saw the famous Larson video on the star. But it has fascinated me ever since and it’s my theory unless and until I see something more plausible.

In the Christian view, God in His providence could have again arranged that the wise men, exercising their own free will, arrived at just the right time when the bright Jupiter appeared to be a sign above Jerusalem, for this king they believed was indicated by what they saw in Persia or Babylon (both due east).

Commentator Peter Pett stated that Jupiter “was actually stationary on December 25, interestingly enough, during Hanukkah, the season for giving presents.” That was in 2 BC. Note again that I am not saying this is when Jesus was born, but rather, when He was a year old. Just as the trek to Bethlehem may have taken only 18 or so minutes, likewise, their visit to Jesus may have been very short, for all we know. The overall passage may imply that they left quickly, to avoid a return visit to Herod: going back another way: which I think was either the coastal route west and north or straight through the desert to the east.

But say they were only there two hours. They would have seen very little motion of Jupiter in that time because of its being stationary, and so again, it would be perfectly harmonious with the clause “came to rest over the place where the child was”. Phenomenological language describing natural events all the way . . . That’s my theory.

Why didn’t they stop in Jerusalem? A 20-120 minute travel time means Jupiter would’ve also been in the ‘pause day’ in it’s precession when they were in Jerusalem.

Given that the pause-and-reverse window is relatively long (a day or so), how did they know the “at rest” moment was in Bethlehem, rather than an hour or two earlier in Jerusalem or an hour or two or more down the road?

Well, I did find some good material that I added somewhere in this mammoth thread: about ancient knowledge of retrograde motion of planets. [added to my longest paper on the star]

My view is that they saw a conjunction while in Persia or Babylon that led them (by means of their astronomy / astrology) to believe a king was to be born in Jerusalem or somewhere in Israel, at any rate. They got to Jerusalem by the usual known and well-traveled routes (Royal Road / King’s Highway / Silk Road through the Fertile Crescent around the desert) and inquired for more specific information to find Jesus (Mt 2:1-2). Herod summoned them and they learned about the messianic prophecy of Micah 5:2 from his priests. So now they had general astronomical guidance and more specific prophetic indication.

That’s more than enough to know that the blessed event was in Bethlehem, not in Jerusalem. Bethlehem was, moreover, the city of David, so if one is looking for more “kingly” significance, there you go. And the Old Testament presented David as a prototype of the Messiah. So that’s now two scriptural pointers to Bethlehem.

The star (not the bright conjunction they saw in the east but now Jupiter alone) was in that direction, but they already knew by this point that this was the destination anyway. Once they got there it “came to rest” and they recognized that this was retrograde motion and Jupiter’s stationary point, because we know (as I showed earlier) that the ancients (particularly the Babylonians) knew about these things, which would mean that they, as astronomers and sky-watchers, very likely did. Thus, they may have passed on the highly technical information about retrograde motion and Jupiter’s stationary point in common parlance as “came to rest.”

When they were in Bethlehem, the fact that Jupiter had reached its stationary point and appeared to be 1) over Bethlehem and 2) not moving much or at all, would have been further astronomical verification to them, so, accordingly, “they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy” (Mt 2:10).

The holy family itself could have been found by the usual means. Everyone in a small town knows everyone else. One simply asks around. Certainly, if Jesus was a year-old at this time, as I believe, people in Bethlehem (at least someone there) would have been familiar with the story of Luke 2 and His Nativity and would know where He was living. This ain’t rocket science.

The star didn’t guide them to that extent (right to the house) because it didn’t shine down on the house. That’s not in the text, and is simply widespread “Christmas myth” (and often atheist skeptical anti-Christmas myth as well). It was just sitting there up above Bethlehem, stationary, and so they took that as a sign, along with the messianic prophecy.

I also note: in my first emails to you I never insulted you. I said your arguments were bad in my second message to you. If you can’t distance yourself from your arguments, then that is a failure on your part. I’ve had friends tell me I’ve made bad arguments before, and I didn’t take it as a personal affront. Moreover, I even told you what you could do to have a good argument. I went out of my way to let you know how you could convince me. But instead, your just went and figuratively flipped the table, and now are looking for more places to vent.

Maybe, just maybe, you are taking this stuff that you don’t even know that well all too personally. I’d either drop it, or learn the underlying material better than folks like me. Flailing about because everyone here finds your arguments to be poor ain’t doing you or your apologetic mission any favors.

You know full well that you weren’t just disagreeing with what you think are bad arguments. You went (starting in your second letter; the first was basically just a few questions) right to me being supposedly deliberately dishonest and an absolutely incompetent researcher.

You made a mountain out of a molehill with a completely minor, “footnote”-like citation I made of [19th century Methodist commentator Joseph] Benson. I explained it and you said in your second reply, “That looks dishonest.” Then you continued (and upped) the rank insults with your post today:

He told me it was a simple mistake, but if so then it shows he’s a poor researcher, searching for any tidbit that seems to favor his theories and blind to any contrary evidence. Sounds like an apologist to me.

Somehow you think that constructive dialogue can occur with an opinion that rock-bottom low, taken of the opponent. It’s not possible, and I have no interest in a mud pie fight.

You’ve engaged in relentless condescension and snobbery. You haven’t overthrown my view at all. All you’ve done is mock and ridicule it and shown your abominable attitude and pomposity. You made it clear more than once that you had absolutely no interest in a point-by-point dialogue (which I am always interested in, if someone wants to be serious), and ridiculed my analogical and “background” arguments as utterly irrelevant: only fit to be ignored. You’ve yet to even fully grasp my position. If you had, you wouldn’t show such a great interest in caricaturing it for the crowd here: knowing they will sop up whatever you say, and that I’ll never receive fair treatment here.

I am grateful to Jonathan, though, for allowing me to at least respond to some extent underneath your atrocious hit-piece and to present my side of it. There were at least a few good smaller discussions. People can think what they will of me. I’ve long since stopped caring about whether the sub-group of anti-theist atheists think I am “honest” or not. I know I am, so it’s of no relevance at all to me if some snob like you decides in one day that I am both utterly incompetent in my very field (Christian apologetics) and dishonest. It means less than nothing. I have defended myself, yes, as most people would. But I know the truth about myself.

Anyone who is fair-minded and attempts even rudimentary objectivity can look at what I’ve written and clarified here and make up their own minds.

Early artistic depictions of the Nativity show the star as a comet, and it’s possible that the later depictions arose from misunderstanding when translating. I don’t know who came up with this theory, but it’s been proposed that the celestial phenomenon might have been Halley’s Comet. That would mean either that memories of the comet became attached to the Jesus story, or that he was some years older than claimed in the Gospels. None of that is meant to imply that the story is anything more than legend.

Which of course is one of the natural explanations. Jonathan and Aaron opt for the supernatural explanation and mock the alternatives. I don’t do that. I say that reasonable, able people hold both positions. I hold to the natural explanation and give many reasons for why I do.

We don’t even know if there was a star, and the word of whoever wrote that Gospel isn’t sufficient proof. Even if there were a star, and the purported event conformed to what we know of celestial mechanics, attributing the event to a sentient entity like a deity would make it a directed event rather than a natural phenomenon. A deity working through physical laws rather than in violation of them would still constitute another element in the causal chain.

Not necessarily. God in His providence could and would have (in this scenario) simply planned for the supernatural event (the virgin birth and incarnation of Jesus) to correspond with totally natural, not miraculous at all “sign events” (two manifestations of the star of Bethlehem), just as the crucifixion aligned with two natural events: an eclipse and an earthquake.

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Photo credit: OpenClipart-Vectors (1-31-17) [Pixabay / Pixabay License]

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