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Another analytical attempt at debunking the Bible. Many of the author's arguments can be dismissed on their face because a lack of understanding of the Christian faith. Some can be dismissed because there is no issue. And had the author took some time to look up what's already been written about some of these, he wouldn't even bother to include them.
Others we will examine in greater detail.
This is a very long article. I'm not quite sure I will be able to critique it in its entirety. However, it is very clear that the author's objections are of a sort that can be easily dealt with. Given that, we can safely assume that what I do not get to will be of the same vein.
I might return to this post from time to time to add commentary.
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Almost all evangelical Christians believe that the writing of the Bible was divinely inspired and represents God's main revelation to humanity. They also believe that the Bible contains special features which constitute evidence of its divine inspiration. This would be a use of the Bible to prove God's existence within natural theology rather than within revealed theology, since the book's features are supposed to be evident even to (open-minded) skeptics. Furthermore, since a divinely inspired work must be true, those features are thereby also evidence of the Bible's truth, and thus can be used in support of Christianity as the one true religion. When expressed that way, the reasoning can be construed as an argument both for God's existence and for the truth of the gospel message from the alleged special features of the Bible. We may refer to it as "the Argument from the Bible". Although almost all evangelical Christians agree with it at least to some extent, it is an argument that is for the most part ignored by professional philosophers of religion. One explanation for such neglect is that the argument can be easily refuted. In this essay/outline, I shall try to sketch how such a refutation might be formulated, though I am sure many will feel that I am attacking a strawman. (I believe there are millions of such "strawpeople" out there!)
The Argument from the Bible is usually regarded as a kind of "cumulative-case" argument. It may be formulated as follows:
Premises (3), (5), and (9) might be challenged by suggesting alternate explanations for the given data. An appeal might be made, for example, to the possibility of ESP or precognition on the part of some humans in the case of (3), or the phenomenon of spontaneous remissions and resurrections of some humans in the case of (5), or simply the exceedingly high intelligence of the Biblical authors and editors in the case of (9). But for our purposes here I shall ignore such challenges and simply focus on the argument's basic premises, which are its premises (1), (2), (4), and (6)-(8). If those steps are erroneous and do not express facts, then premises (3), (5), and (9) can be attacked on the grounds that what they call "facts" are not that but errors instead. What I put forward is merely a sketch. Details to fill out the sketch are provided elsewhere. [3]
Another analytical attempt at debunking the Bible. Many of the author's arguments can be dismissed on their face because a lack of understanding of the Christian faith. Some can be dismissed because there is no issue. And had the author took some time to look up what's already been written about some of these, he wouldn't even bother to include them.
Others we will examine in greater detail.
This is a very long article. I'm not quite sure I will be able to critique it in its entirety. However, it is very clear that the author's objections are of a sort that can be easily dealt with. Given that, we can safely assume that what I do not get to will be of the same vein.
I might return to this post from time to time to add commentary.
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Almost all evangelical Christians believe that the writing of the Bible was divinely inspired and represents God's main revelation to humanity. They also believe that the Bible contains special features which constitute evidence of its divine inspiration. This would be a use of the Bible to prove God's existence within natural theology rather than within revealed theology, since the book's features are supposed to be evident even to (open-minded) skeptics. Furthermore, since a divinely inspired work must be true, those features are thereby also evidence of the Bible's truth, and thus can be used in support of Christianity as the one true religion. When expressed that way, the reasoning can be construed as an argument both for God's existence and for the truth of the gospel message from the alleged special features of the Bible. We may refer to it as "the Argument from the Bible". Although almost all evangelical Christians agree with it at least to some extent, it is an argument that is for the most part ignored by professional philosophers of religion. One explanation for such neglect is that the argument can be easily refuted. In this essay/outline, I shall try to sketch how such a refutation might be formulated, though I am sure many will feel that I am attacking a strawman. (I believe there are millions of such "strawpeople" out there!)
1. The Argument Formulated
The Argument from the Bible is usually regarded as a kind of "cumulative-case" argument. It may be formulated as follows:
(1) The Bible contains a large number of prophecies of future events which have been remarkably fulfilled. (Agree.)
(2) The Bible does not contain any unfulfilled prophecies. (Disagree.)
(3) The only reasonable explanation for the above facts is that God used his foreknowledge to make the prophecies and inspired the authors of the Bible to record them. (Agree.)
(4) The Bible contains a convincing eye-witness account of the resurrection and subsequent appearances of Jesus of Nazareth. (Agree.)
(5) The only reasonable explanation for the above fact is that Jesus was and is a divine being, which shows the truth of the Bible and its gospel message. (Agree.)
(6) The Bible contains no contradictions. (Agree and disagree.)
(7) The Bible contains amazing facts about the planet earth, compatible with modern science, which were unknown in ancient times. (Agree and disagree.) Also, the Bible contains no conflicts with modern science or errors of a factual nature. (Agree and disagree.)
(8) The Bible contains a perfect morality, and no ethical defects. (Agree.)
(9) The only reasonable explanation for facts (6)-(8), above, is that the ultimate author of the Bible is God himself. (Agree and disagree.)
(10) Putting together results (3), (5), and (9), above, we may infer that the Bible is not a purely manmade work, but divinely inspired, which establishes the truth of Christianity and its gospel message. (Agree.)Other premises are sometimes appealed to in the formulation of the argument. For example, Henry M. Morris places much emphasis on the alleged uniqueness of the Bible. [1] He also mentions what he takes to be remarkable numerical designs in it. [2] But for our purposes, the given formulation should suffice. It includes what are regarded to be the main factors within the Argument from the Bible. (We have some additional criteria.
- The historical accuracy of the Bible
- The huge variety and numerousness of manuscripts placed close to the events
- The presentation of main characters that include all their flaws.
Premises (3), (5), and (9) might be challenged by suggesting alternate explanations for the given data. An appeal might be made, for example, to the possibility of ESP or precognition on the part of some humans in the case of (3), or the phenomenon of spontaneous remissions and resurrections of some humans in the case of (5), or simply the exceedingly high intelligence of the Biblical authors and editors in the case of (9). But for our purposes here I shall ignore such challenges and simply focus on the argument's basic premises, which are its premises (1), (2), (4), and (6)-(8). If those steps are erroneous and do not express facts, then premises (3), (5), and (9) can be attacked on the grounds that what they call "facts" are not that but errors instead. What I put forward is merely a sketch. Details to fill out the sketch are provided elsewhere. [3]
2. Alleged Fulfilled Prophecies
There are hundreds of alleged prophecies in the Bible, most of them in the Old Testament, which are supposed to have been remarkably fulfilled, thereby showing the divine inspiration of Scripture. I shall here look at just a few of them.
(I) Bethlehem
Consider, first, Micah 5:2 (or Micah 5:1 of the Tanakh), which is supposed to prophesy that the Messiah will be born in the town of Bethlehem. (Let's quote the passage. Mi. 5:2-5:
But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.” 3 Therefore Israel will be abandoned until the time when she who is in labor gives birth and the rest of his brothers return to join the Israelites. 4 He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God. And they will live securely, for then his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth. 5 And he will be their peace.According to the New Testament, Jesus was born in Bethlehem (Mt 2:1) and that was a fulfillment of the Micah prophecy (Mt 2:5-6, John 7:42). However, there are many problems with that:
(1) The verse in Micah may not be referring to a town at all, but a clan. David had been from old times described as "the son of the Ephrathite of Bethlehem" (1Sa 17:12). The verse in Micah states, "out of you [i.e., the clan, Bethlehem Ephrathah or Bethlehem of Ephrath] will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel." It may be that all Micah intended there was to affirm that the Messiah will be a descendant of David. (An irrelevant objection. Being born of the clan does not preclude being born in the city thereof.)
(2) Jesus was claimed to be a (bodily or blood) descendant of David (Ro 1:3), but it is unclear how that could be. According to both Matthew and Luke, Mary's husband Joseph was a descendant of David (though they disagree about the exact genealogy, as discussed below). However, both Matthew and Luke deny that Joseph was Jesus's father, so their genealogies of Joseph (Mt 1:2-16, Lu 3:23-38) should not be regarded as genealogies of Jesus. (Three points. First, some scholars think that Luke's genealogy is through Mary, so Jesus would indeed be a son of David.
Second, in antiquity the lineage through the males was the relevant lineage, and the Bible record is clear that Joseph took Jesus to be his son. Thus Jesus was entitled to all the rights and privileges of the first born son, including lineage.
Third, there are other pieces of evidence that make clear Jesus was the son of Joseph. Jn. 1:45:
Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote — Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”Jn. 6:42 They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, `I came down from heaven’?” (Note the author quotes community members what was commonly known. Jesus was known as the son of Joseph.)
Matthew erred when he called it that (Mt 1:1). (And so, Matthew did not err in his genealogy. Matthew was communicating common knowledge.)
(3) The prophecy seems further not to apply to Jesus, for it says that the Messiah "will be ruler over Israel". Jesus was not any ruler over Israel.
(Here the author completely misses a key tenet of Christianity, that Jesus come to earth as a servant, yet now is King of kings.
Even the NT testifies to this fact. Jn. 1:49: Then Nathanael declared, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.”
Note that Jesus did not correct him or deny what he said. In fact, Jesus affirmed his statement. Jn. 1:50-51:
Jesus said, “You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig-tree. You shall see greater things than that.”51 He then added, “I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”There is a lot of internal documentation to this fact. I'm truly surprised the author does not know this.
Mt. 2:2 and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.”
Mt. 13:41 The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil.
Mt. 16:19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”
Mt. 16:28 I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
Mt. 20:21 “What is it you want?” he asked. She said, “Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom.”
Mt. 21:5 “Say to the Daughter of Zion, `See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’“ [Zech. 9:9]
Mt. 25:31-34 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
Mt. 25:34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, `Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. In fact, he himself is supposed to have denied that his kingdom was of this world (John 18:36). Also, the ruler is to make Israel a secure place to live (Mic 5:4), but that certainly did not happen. It is understandable why Jews, reading Micah, believe that their Messiah has not yet come.And this is just Matthew. There are many more. It is quite clear that Jesus was and is King.
Interestingly, the author makes the exact same mistake as the Jews in assuming Jesus was a temporal king who would deliver Israel from the Romans.)
(4) Even if the prophecy were taken to refer to the town of Bethlehem, there is room for doubt as to whether Jesus really was born there. The birth narratives in Matthew and Luke are inconsistent with each other at various points. (The author does not document his assertions.
There was no doubt in Matthew's mind. Matthew states He was born in Bethlehem. Mt. 2:1: After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem...
As for Luke, no less than an Angel asserted Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Lk. 2:11: Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.
And even the lowly shepherds knew He was born in Bethlehem. Lk. 2:15: When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”
What we have in Matthew and Luke are two different story tellers telling details about what they viewed as important. In fact, there are no inconsistencies, there are simply different emphases.
It would be like going to restaurant and later telling someone what you ate. "I had the fish and chips." You might tell someone else, "They have great beer." Neither thing is incorrect or contradictory. They are simply different parts of the same event.)
Furthermore, both stories contain dubious elements. Matthew's story of the magi who followed a star (2:1-10) seems far-fetched. (That is, since the author doesn't believe the story, his doubt becomes evidence to bolster his case.)
And the story in Luke 2:1-5 about Mary and Joseph's journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem to participate in a Roman census seems contrived. (We are not really interested in the way things "seem" to the author. Perhaps he might restrict himself to the matters at hand.)
According to historians, the Romans never conducted the sort of census that Luke describes there, requiring people to travel to the birthplace of their ancestors, nor would such a requirement have much point. (Unfortunately, the author is incorrect.)
For these reasons, the alleged fulfillment of the Micah prophecy by Jesus is quite doubtful. It certainly cannot be taken to be evidence of the divine inspiration of the Bible. (Of course we disagree in view of such superficial objections.)
(II) The Virgin Birth
Another alleged prophecy that was claimed in Matthew 1:22-23 to have been fulfilled by Jesus is based on Isaiah 7:14, which is said to predict a certain virgin birth. But there are many problems with that.
(1) The Hebrew word "almah" which is used in the Isaiah verse does not mean "virgin" but "young woman". (Um, no. עַלְמָה, a young woman, a virgin.)
It is correctly translated in the Tanakh, the Revised Standard Version, the Revised English Bible, and the New Jerusalem Bible, but is incorrectly translated by the King James Version, the New International Version, and the New American Bible. It is also incorrectly translated by Matthew, who probably relied upon the incorrect translation in the Septuagint. There is another Hebrew word, "bethulah", which definitely means "virgin". Since a virgin birth is such an extraordinary event, presumably Isaiah would have used that other word if indeed he really meant to say that the woman is a virgin. ("Presumably?" C'mon! The author is simply inventing objections with a wave of the hand. The characters in the NT certainly believed Is. 7:14 pointed to Jesus. Joseph certainly believed it. Matthew did when he quoted it. Mt. 1:23: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” — [Isaiah 7:14] which means, 'God with us.'
Luke did as well. Lk. 1:26-27: In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a
town in Galilee, 27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.
Mary thought she was a virgin, and she would know. Lk. 1:34: “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
Paul equates young women with virgins. 1Co. 7:34: An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord’s affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world — how she can please her husband.
The author is free to disagree with the biblical account, but the record is clear. According to the Bible, Jesus was born of a virgin.)
(2) The sign mentioned in the Isaiah verse pertains to a specific woman, known to both speaker and listener (believed by many historians to be Isaiah's wife), who is already pregnant, not some unspecified woman who is to become pregnant. The correct translation (from the Tanakh) reads "Look, the young woman is with child and about to give birth to a son." It was a sign given to Ahaz, the king of Judah, in the eighth century B.C. regarding some events in what was then the immediate future. It had nothing to do with the Messiah or with events in the far distant future. (The author is correct up to the last sentence. The Bible is full of events fulfilled once as a physical sign [that is, a type], then again as a spiritual fulfillment. A prominent example: The OT sacrifices were a type of the one great sacrifice of Jesus for the sins of mankind.
But as mentioned, the NT people themselves believed Jesus was the fulfillment of Is. 7:14. The author can accept or reject as he pleases, but he named his article, "The Argument from the Bible." If he does not accept the contents of the Bible, how can he make such an argument?)
(3) Part of the sign to King Ahaz was that the child will be named "Immanuel". Since that name means "God with us", it was supposed to show Ahaz that God was on his side. But, despite Matthew's unreasonable claim that Jesus would be named "Immanuel" (Mt 1:23), Jesus was not named "Immanuel", but rather "Jesus" (as Matthew himself declared at 1:25).(That is, the author summarily rejects Matthew's testimony, which he simultaneously appeals to as evidence. He can't have it both ways...
Christians from the beginning have acknowledged the deity of Christ. Immanuel [Ἐμμανουήλ] is a title, not a name. Definition: Emmanuel, a Messianic title derived from Isaiah 7:14 = God with us. Therefore, God was indeed with us because Jesus is God. The title is completely appropriate.
In addition, the name Immanuel is a prophetic picture, describing Israel when God's favor rests upon it, and is even used sarcastically. Isaiah 8:7-8:
It will overflow all its channels, run over all its banks 8 and sweep on into Judah, swirling over it, passing through it and reaching up to the neck. Its outspread wings will cover the breadth of your land, O Immanuel!”)
(4) It seems unlikely that Isaiah would have meant to refer to a virgin birth, since that concept was totally foreign to the Israelites. (Well of course. It's a foreign concept to everyone! Births do not happen that way, and everyone knows that. That's the "miracle" part.)
Nowhere does it appear in Judaic theology or within the Judaic conceptual framework. If Isaiah had intended to introduce the idea, it would have been for the first time within the entire history of the Israelite people. (Since it did happen, and the NT characters appeal to it as evidence, the author's point is moot.)
Presumably he would in that case have used the clearer word "bethulah" instead of "almah", as mentioned above, and further, he would have said much more about such a remarkable event. The idea of a virgin birth was, however, a common notion among some other ancient groups, including the Greeks and Romans. Many famous people and mythical heroes were said, by one group or another, to have been born of a virgin. Among them were Julius Caesar, Augustus, Aristomenes, Alexander the Great, Plato, Cyrus, the elder Scipio, some of the Egyptian Pharaohs, the Buddha, Hermes, Mithra, Attis-Adonis, Hercules, Cybele, Demeter, Leo, and Vulcan. (Hmm. Those claims are not contested, but rather accepted at face value. Except of course excluding the Bible.)
Nowhere does it appear in Judaic theology or within the Judaic conceptual framework. If Isaiah had intended to introduce the idea, it would have been for the first time within the entire history of the Israelite people. (Since it did happen, and the NT characters appeal to it as evidence, the author's point is moot.)
Presumably he would in that case have used the clearer word "bethulah" instead of "almah", as mentioned above, and further, he would have said much more about such a remarkable event. The idea of a virgin birth was, however, a common notion among some other ancient groups, including the Greeks and Romans. Many famous people and mythical heroes were said, by one group or another, to have been born of a virgin. Among them were Julius Caesar, Augustus, Aristomenes, Alexander the Great, Plato, Cyrus, the elder Scipio, some of the Egyptian Pharaohs, the Buddha, Hermes, Mithra, Attis-Adonis, Hercules, Cybele, Demeter, Leo, and Vulcan. (Hmm. Those claims are not contested, but rather accepted at face value. Except of course excluding the Bible.)
For this reason it seems likely that Matthew and the Greek translators of the Septuagint did not discover the virgin birth idea in Isaiah, but imposed it upon the text. (Um, no. The virgin birth was universally accepted in the Christian church by the 2nd century and, except for some minor sects, was not seriously challenged until the 18th century.")
It was out of sheer ignorance that it was made one of the five "fundamentals" of the Christian faith in the early Twentieth Century by those who came to be called "fundamentalists". (Our first gratuitous insult. Hopefully the author will refrain from further unseemly outbursts.)
(III) The Donkey
It has been claimed that, according to Zechariah 9:9, (The author seems reluctant to quote the scriptures involved, so we shall do so. Zec. 9:9:
Also, it is unclear (This lack of clarity on the author's part is not evidence.)
whether, when Matthew wrote "Jesus sat on them", he meant to imply that Jesus rode both animals simultaneously, circus-style.] (The author only need to look up words. He would then stop embarrassing himself. αὐτός: Definition: he, she, it, they, them, same.)
But let us not dwell on the discrepancy regarding numbers. (Especially since there is no discrepancy.)
There are more serious difficulties with the alleged prophecy, (I hope so. This has been pretty thin stuff so far.)
as follows:
(1) Zechariah describes the person who rides the donkey as "the king of the Daughter of Zion and the Daughter of Jerusalem" ("the king of Zion and Jerusalem" in the Tanakh). But it is hard to see how such a title could properly be ascribed to Jesus, since the Jews for the most part rejected him and he never claimed to be their king. (The second time the author has stated this, and it shall be the second time we point out he is wrong.)
(2) In the next verse (Zec 9:10), it says (in the Tanakh) that the one who rides the donkey will banish chariots from Ephraim, horses from Jerusalem, and the warrior's bow, and that "he shall call on the nations to surrender, and his rule shall extend from sea to sea and from ocean to land's end". It is hard to see how any of that could apply to Jesus of Nazareth. Some say that the great peace that Jesus will bring and the kingdom over which he will rule is a thing of the future, but that is irrelevant in the present context, which is the issue of prophecies already fulfilled. (It is not irrelevant, since the messianic prophecies speak to future as well as present. The author seems to have a hard time with the idea of Jesus as the son of the Most High who emptied himself and found himself as a man, then rose again in glory, and is now seated at the right hand of the Father.
Further, it is the author who imposed the idea of all prophecies being fulfilled [Argument 2]. We did not consent to this, and here is why. The King of kings is coming again in glory, according to well attested Christian doctrine. Therefore, He does not have to be the kind of king the author wants Him to be.)
It seems clear that the gospel writers' attempt to depict Jesus as the king who rides into Jerusalem on a donkey is purely contrived and is a failure, at least so far as the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy is concerned. Thus, it lends no support whatever to premise (1) of the Argument from the Bible. (Hopefully the author's presentation will improve. So far it's very nearly embarrassing.)
(IV) The Betrayal
According to many, it was prophesied in the Old Testament that the Messiah would be betrayed by an unfaithful friend for 30 pieces of silver, which would later be thrown into God's house and used to buy a potter's field (Ps 41:9, Zec 11:12-13), and that this was precisely what happened to Jesus. It is said that Judas betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver but later, feeling remorse, returned the money by throwing it into the temple, and that the money was eventually used to buy the potter's field (Mt 26:15, 27:3-10). But there are many problems with this, as follows:
(1) None of the Old Testament passages in question relate to the Messiah. In the passage from Zechariah, it is the author who is paid the 30 pieces of silver by good people for doing good work, which is just the opposite of what was supposed to have taken place in the case of Judas. (This passage in Zechariah is intricate and nuanced. The author's inability to understand it is not evidence for his case.)
Nor is there any reference to the Messiah in the verse from Psalms. In fact, it is made clear in a preceding verse (Ps 41:4) that the one who is betrayed (i.e., the author, David) is himself a sinner, so that could hardly apply to Jesus. (Again, the author's ignorance betrays him. We frequently find the voice changing from David to the LORD in the Psalms. As David became overcome by the Spirit of the Lord, he began prophetic utterances.
And the author must not be aware of David being a type of Christ.)
(2) Matthew claims (27:9-10) that the purchase of the potter's field had been prophesied by Jeremiah, but there is absolutely nothing about that in the Book of Jeremiah, and that is why the passage from Zechariah is usually appealed to instead. It was perhaps a slip of the pen by Matthew. (Very easily solved.)
(3) However, the translation of the relevant part of Zec 11:13 in the Tanakh just reads "I took the thirty shekels and deposited it in the treasury in the House of the Lord." There is no reference there to throwing the money, nor is there any reference to a potter or to a "potter's field". So the alleged prophecy in Matthew does not appear in Zechariah either. It seems to be a figment of Matthew's imagination. (Well, not exactly. Zec. 11:13: And the LORD said to me, “Throw it to the potter” — the handsome price at which they priced me! So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the LORD to the potter. The potter owned the field, he would be the one who was paid.)
(V) John the Baptist
Some other Old Testament verses are supposed to be related to the alleged messianic prophecies. Mt 3:3, 11:10, and 17:10-13 (and parallel verses in other gospels) take Isa 40:3, Mal 3:1, and Mal 4:5, respectively, to be prophecies of John the Baptist. But there are problems with that:
(1) Isa 40:3 is followed by verses that tell of great events (the leveling of mountains and the glory of God to be witnessed by all mankind), and that certainly did not happen in the time of John the Baptist. (Let's quote the passage. Is. 40:3:
(2) In Mal 3:1, God is supposed to be speaking and saying that a messenger would be sent to "prepare the way" before him (God). But Mt 11:10 has stated the verse incorrectly, trying to make God say that the messenger would be sent before someone else.
Further, since Christians have for centuries acknowledged Matthew as divinely inspired, what he writes as he extrapolates on the OT is therefore inspired. Matthew simply adds insight into the original prophecy.)
So the verse does not actually say what Matthew claims. One plausible interpretation of the original verse is that it is referring to Malachi himself, since the Hebrew name Malachi means "my messenger".
(3) Mal 4:5 says, "I will send you the prophet Elijah", and Mt 17:12-13 takes that to refer to John the Baptist. However, John the Baptist denied being Elijah (John 1:21). Also, the next verse (Mal 4:6) declares that, following the coming of Elijah, fathers and children will be reconciled or else God will "come and strike the land with a curse". But neither event took place following John the Baptist, so that part of the alleged prophecy was not fulfilled. Jesus himself set family members against one another (Mt 10:21,35-36, Lu 14:26), which runs counter to Mal 4:6. (The author mixes time frames to suit his scenario, but we do not have to accept it. These are references to different events at different times. For some reason, the author assumes that everything must happen at once or the prophecy isn't true. The reason for this is inexplicable.
So let's again quote.
The author doesn't understand that Elijah represents a type as well as a man. Elijah may well be the most powerful prophet in Scripture. So much so that his successor, Elisha, desired the same power. And he got it, so much so that the company of prophets said, The spirit of Elijah is resting on Elisha. 2Kg. 2:15 This is very telling, because there is no other account of a character in the Bible inheriting his predecessor's mantle.
So John the Baptist could rightly say he was not Elijah, because there was only one Elijah. Yet whether he was fully aware or not of his calling and position at that moment is an entirely different matter. He would eventually carry the "mantle" of Elijah, whether he could admit it or not.
Lastly, Jesus' testimony should carry a lot of weight. Mk. 9:12-13:
(VI) The Suffering Servant
Among the alleged messianic prophecies are ones contained within the description of the "suffering servant" of Isaiah 53. And some of the alleged prophecies contained within that chapter claimed to have been fulfilled by Jesus are the following [with verse numbers indicated]:
(1) The Messiah's message would not be believed, supposedly fulfilled by Jesus at John 12:37-38.
(3) The Messiah would be despised and rejected, supposedly fulfilled by Jesus in that his own people did not believe in him, according to John 1:11, 7:5.
(5) The Messiah would be wounded, supposedly fulfilled by the scourging of Jesus at Mt 27:26.
(7) The Messiah would be silent before his accusers, supposedly fulfilled by Jesus at Mt 27:12 (and Ac 8:32-35).
(9) The Messiah would have a grave provided for him by a rich man, supposedly fulfilled for Jesus by Joseph of Arimathea at Mt 27:57-60.
(12) The Messiah would be arrested as a criminal (which is perhaps Jesus' own interpretation at Lu 22:37) or perhaps that the Messiah would be crucified with criminals, supposedly fulfilled by Jesus at Mt 27:38 and Mk 15:27 (with Mk 15:28 inserted later) and Lu 23:32.
(12) The Messiah would make intercession for his persecutors, supposedly fulfilled by Jesus at Lu 23:34.
But there are many problems with taking Isa 53 in such a way, among which are the following.
(1) According to Isa 53:3 in the Tanakh, the suffering servant was "despised [and] shunned by men". It seems doubtful that that is fulfilled by Jesus just in virtue of the fact that his own people did not accept him, for he apparently was widely accepted by the common people elsewhere. According to Lu 4:15, he taught in the synagogue and everyone praised him. And later, huge crowds supposedly followed him, and he was described as making a "Triumphal Entry" into Jerusalem (Mt 21:8-11; John 12:12-13,17-19). (It is beyond dispute that Jesus was rejected.
(2) Verse 3 in the Tanakh also declares that the suffering servant was "familiar with disease", and verse 4 says that he was "stricken by God", where the Hebrew word for "stricken" is one that is used in the Hebrew Scriptures to stand only for leprosy (as at Le 13:3,9,20 and 2Ki 15:5). (Factually incorrect. נָגַע - Definition: to touch, reach, strike.)
But Jesus is not known to have suffered from leprosy or any other disease, so those verses are not applicable to him. (Let's quote the passage. Is. 53:3-4:
Isaiah doesn't say the messiah would get sick, he says the messiah "took up" our infirmities and "carried" our sorrows. Notice that Isaiah uses the word "our." Jesus wasn't sick, He bore *our* sickness.
(3) As for Jesus being silent before his accusers (thereby satisfying verse 7), that seems not to work either. Verse 7 says (twice): "He did not open his mouth." But according to John 18:33-37, 19:11, Jesus said much to Pontius Pilate.
In each of the four gospels Jesus opened his mouth and said something before his accusers. Hence, Jesus did not actually fulfill that part of the prophecy. (The passages read,
(4) In verse 9 it says of the suffering servant "his grave was set among the wicked, and with the rich, in his death." It is unclear how that applies to Jesus, for there were no other bodies in the tomb in which Jesus' body was placed. (Since the verse in question does not say there would be other bodies in the tomb, we summarily dismiss this complaint.)
The verse definitely does not say that the servant would have a grave provided for him by a rich man, so that part of the alleged prophecy is sheer invention. (we have no information about what other tombs were in this particular graveyard. There certainly could have been tombs of wicked men and rich men.)
(5) According to verse 10, "the Lord chose to crush him by disease, that if he made himself an offering for guilt, he might see offspring and have long life, ..." That seems totally inapplicable to Jesus, for Jesus was not crushed by disease, nor did he see any offspring, nor did he have a long life. (Again we find it necessary to quote the entire passage. Is. 53:10:
(7) There is a Judaic interpretation of Isa 53 that seems plausible. The suffering servant is the nation of Israel which is represented by King Uzziah, who was its king in Isaiah's time and who died of leprosy. According to Shmuel Golding, Isaiah's message may have been: "Here is your leprous king, who is in type suffering under God's hand for you the backslidden servant nation of Israel" (which explains verse 6). Uzziah was taken away from the royal palace because of his affliction as a leper and spent his remaining years in isolation, which fits verse 8. Golding says the following:
Israel is portrayed as a suffering servant on account of its anointed leader being stricken with leprosy. Israel, like the leper, is a suffering servant of God. Both have suffered humiliation at the hand of their fellowmen: the leper because of his unsightly appearance; Israel through its defeat at the hands of the Babylonians. The gist of the message is that Israel like the leper has suffered, but nevertheless will retain its identity in the form of the exiled Jewish people and that they will prosper in this form. [5]
This interpretation of Isaiah 53 seems preferable to the Christian one because it does not suffer from drawbacks (1)-(6) mentioned above. It would also better explain the many changes of tense that occur in the chapter. And Israel is indeed referred to as "God's servant" (e.g., at Isa 49:3). However, the given interpretation does not make the chapter into a prophecy so much as an explanation of Israel's situation at around the time of Isaiah. At the very least, it shows, I think, that Isaiah 53 is not a clear example of a fulfilled prophecy (or set of fulfilled prophecies) in the Bible. So it is not any good support for premise (1) of the Argument from the Bible. (Um, yeah. King Uzziah did not die for us all. He was not crushed by God as a guilt offering. He did not receive our iniquity. He was not silent before his accusers.
The author has completely failed to refute this prophecy. Ironically, he admits it is a prophecy, just about a different person.)
(VII) Tyre
Leaving the realm of alleged prophecies associated with Jesus, we could look at a couple of them dealing with history. I think that these are the more promising ones, for their fulfillments, if any, cannot be charged with having been made up by such imaginative writers as Matthew. As I said in Chapter 5 of the book, if God were to put impressive fulfilled prophecies into the Bible, then he would use fulfillments that become part of secular history, and which would already be known about by those to whom the missionaries go to preach the gospel message.
One writer who mentions historical-type prophecies is Josh McDowell. He discusses twelve cities that were prophesied to be destroyed. [6] The first of them is the city of Tyre, the destruction of which was prophesied in Eze 26:3-21. It was said that, after being destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, Tyre would never be rebuilt and would never be found again (Eze 26:14,21, 27:36, 28:19). According to McDowell, all of the prophecies regarding Tyre and the other cities he talks about were fulfilled in history. He goes on to say the following:
We can then draw only one conclusion, and that is that God inspired the writing of every one of these prophecies. ... He has predicted multitudes of events to happen in the future. They have come true exactly as predicted, even though in some cases thousands of years were involved for the fulfillment. God has proven that He is our supernatural God with all wisdom. We have no alternative but to believe. [7]
I shall not try to deal here with all of the prophecies mentioned by McDowell, only the one related to the city of Tyre. But I think that similar considerations can be raised with regard to all of them. Let us look at some of the problems with the Tyre prophecy.
(1) Tyre had two parts, an island part and a mainland part. Nebuchadnezzar only managed to destroy the mainland part. According to historians, he failed to capture the island city of Tyre, despite a 13-year siege (585-572 B.C.). That was why Nebuchadnezzar was unable to pay his soldiers, as reported in Eze 29:18. [That in itself refutes the earlier prophecy. Ezekiel is in effect admitting its failure. He should have scrapped it before completing his book.] It was not until the attack by Alexander the Great more than 200 years later that the island part of Tyre was also destroyed. However, since Ezekiel did not mention Alexander, only Nebuchadnezzar, it is hard to see how that later attack fulfills any part of his prophecy.
(2) According to historians, Tyre recovered quickly following the attack by Alexander. In 64 B.C., it became part of the Roman Empire and prospered. It is mentioned in the present tense in the New Testament. [8] Christian buildings were constructed there in the Fourth Century A.D. and during the Crusades, but Muslims later destroyed them.
(3) Tyre still exists today. It is a city on the coast of Lebanon, to be found on any map of that country. It has been mentioned in recent times in connection with retaliatory raids upon Hezbollah forces in Lebanon by Israel in their ongoing warfare.
It does not seem, then, that Ezekiel's prophecies came true. He said that Tyre would "be no more" but that did not happen. Similar considerations could be raised in connection with all the other prophecies that McDowell and others have claimed to have been fulfilled in history.
I am going to take the Israelite people from among the nations they have gone to, and gather them from every quarter, and bring them to their own land. (Tanakh)
The obvious objection is that Ezekiel is not here talking about the twentieth century but is predicting the return of the Jews from their captivity, exile, and dispersal at the hands of the Assyrians (in the 8th and 7th centuries, B.C.) and the Babylonians (in the 7th and 6th centuries). That return occurred in 537 B.C., shortly after the book of Ezekiel was written. In itself, it is a prophecy that became fulfilled, though not a particularly remarkable one. The book was written during the exile, and there may have been good evidence available to Ezekiel that the exile would soon come to an end. Other parts of the prophecy, that the returning Jews would faithfully observe God's laws and that they would live in their restored homeland forever (Eze 37:24-28) were not fulfilled. It is understandable why McDowell stayed clear of this alleged prophecy, though it is sometimes cited by missionaries today. As a prophecy about an event 2500 years in the future, it would certainly be an impressive one if it could be adequately supported.
Undaunted, Morris cites Isaiah 11:11-12, which reads:
In that day, My Lord will apply His hand again to redeeming the other part of His people from Assyria - as also from Egypt, Pathros, Nubia, Elam, Shinar, Hamath, and the coastlands. He will hold up a signal to the nations and assemble the banished of Israel, and gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth. (Tanakh)
Morris claims that Isaiah's use of the word "again" indicates that he is referring to the twentieth century, A.D., and that "the first time" would be the return from the Babylonian captivity. But there is a more plausible interpretation: that the word "again" is referring to what was then (at the writing of Isaiah) a future return from the Assyrian and Babylonian exiles and that "the first time" would be the Exodus (from Egypt, many centuries earlier).
Although I have not looked at all the alleged remarkable fulfilled prophecies, my conclusion is that none of them is what its advocates maintain. Many of them are not prophecies at all. Of the ones that are prophecies, almost all remain unfulfilled. And the few that are fulfilled prophecies are not remarkable, for one reason or another. Therefore, premise (1) of the Argument from the Bible has not been adequately supported and may reasonably be doubted. (I refrained from commenting, since the author is not refuting the Bible, he's refuting someone else's viewpoint on the Bible.)
It was out of sheer ignorance that it was made one of the five "fundamentals" of the Christian faith in the early Twentieth Century by those who came to be called "fundamentalists". (Our first gratuitous insult. Hopefully the author will refrain from further unseemly outbursts.)
(III) The Donkey
It has been claimed that, according to Zechariah 9:9, (The author seems reluctant to quote the scriptures involved, so we shall do so. Zec. 9:9:
Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.the Messiah is to come riding into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey and that Jesus did indeed fulfill that prophecy (Mt 21:1-7, John 12:14-15). [See also Mk 11:2-7 and Lu 19:30-35.] That ride into Jerusalem is often entitled "the Triumphal Entry". There is a slight problem in that Matthew speaks of two donkeys, whereas each of the other three gospels mentions only one. [Matthew may have misunderstood Zec 9:9 to be referring to two donkeys, rather than just one. (Well, no. An animal like a donkey should not be separated from its foal. It only makes sense that both animals were taken. This is common sense.)
Also, it is unclear (This lack of clarity on the author's part is not evidence.)
whether, when Matthew wrote "Jesus sat on them", he meant to imply that Jesus rode both animals simultaneously, circus-style.] (The author only need to look up words. He would then stop embarrassing himself. αὐτός: Definition: he, she, it, they, them, same.)
But let us not dwell on the discrepancy regarding numbers. (Especially since there is no discrepancy.)
There are more serious difficulties with the alleged prophecy, (I hope so. This has been pretty thin stuff so far.)
as follows:
(1) Zechariah describes the person who rides the donkey as "the king of the Daughter of Zion and the Daughter of Jerusalem" ("the king of Zion and Jerusalem" in the Tanakh). But it is hard to see how such a title could properly be ascribed to Jesus, since the Jews for the most part rejected him and he never claimed to be their king. (The second time the author has stated this, and it shall be the second time we point out he is wrong.)
(2) In the next verse (Zec 9:10), it says (in the Tanakh) that the one who rides the donkey will banish chariots from Ephraim, horses from Jerusalem, and the warrior's bow, and that "he shall call on the nations to surrender, and his rule shall extend from sea to sea and from ocean to land's end". It is hard to see how any of that could apply to Jesus of Nazareth. Some say that the great peace that Jesus will bring and the kingdom over which he will rule is a thing of the future, but that is irrelevant in the present context, which is the issue of prophecies already fulfilled. (It is not irrelevant, since the messianic prophecies speak to future as well as present. The author seems to have a hard time with the idea of Jesus as the son of the Most High who emptied himself and found himself as a man, then rose again in glory, and is now seated at the right hand of the Father.
Further, it is the author who imposed the idea of all prophecies being fulfilled [Argument 2]. We did not consent to this, and here is why. The King of kings is coming again in glory, according to well attested Christian doctrine. Therefore, He does not have to be the kind of king the author wants Him to be.)
It seems clear that the gospel writers' attempt to depict Jesus as the king who rides into Jerusalem on a donkey is purely contrived and is a failure, at least so far as the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy is concerned. Thus, it lends no support whatever to premise (1) of the Argument from the Bible. (Hopefully the author's presentation will improve. So far it's very nearly embarrassing.)
(IV) The Betrayal
According to many, it was prophesied in the Old Testament that the Messiah would be betrayed by an unfaithful friend for 30 pieces of silver, which would later be thrown into God's house and used to buy a potter's field (Ps 41:9, Zec 11:12-13), and that this was precisely what happened to Jesus. It is said that Judas betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver but later, feeling remorse, returned the money by throwing it into the temple, and that the money was eventually used to buy the potter's field (Mt 26:15, 27:3-10). But there are many problems with this, as follows:
(1) None of the Old Testament passages in question relate to the Messiah. In the passage from Zechariah, it is the author who is paid the 30 pieces of silver by good people for doing good work, which is just the opposite of what was supposed to have taken place in the case of Judas. (This passage in Zechariah is intricate and nuanced. The author's inability to understand it is not evidence for his case.)
Nor is there any reference to the Messiah in the verse from Psalms. In fact, it is made clear in a preceding verse (Ps 41:4) that the one who is betrayed (i.e., the author, David) is himself a sinner, so that could hardly apply to Jesus. (Again, the author's ignorance betrays him. We frequently find the voice changing from David to the LORD in the Psalms. As David became overcome by the Spirit of the Lord, he began prophetic utterances.
And the author must not be aware of David being a type of Christ.)
(2) Matthew claims (27:9-10) that the purchase of the potter's field had been prophesied by Jeremiah, but there is absolutely nothing about that in the Book of Jeremiah, and that is why the passage from Zechariah is usually appealed to instead. It was perhaps a slip of the pen by Matthew. (Very easily solved.)
(3) However, the translation of the relevant part of Zec 11:13 in the Tanakh just reads "I took the thirty shekels and deposited it in the treasury in the House of the Lord." There is no reference there to throwing the money, nor is there any reference to a potter or to a "potter's field". So the alleged prophecy in Matthew does not appear in Zechariah either. It seems to be a figment of Matthew's imagination. (Well, not exactly. Zec. 11:13: And the LORD said to me, “Throw it to the potter” — the handsome price at which they priced me! So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the LORD to the potter. The potter owned the field, he would be the one who was paid.)
(V) John the Baptist
Some other Old Testament verses are supposed to be related to the alleged messianic prophecies. Mt 3:3, 11:10, and 17:10-13 (and parallel verses in other gospels) take Isa 40:3, Mal 3:1, and Mal 4:5, respectively, to be prophecies of John the Baptist. But there are problems with that:
(1) Isa 40:3 is followed by verses that tell of great events (the leveling of mountains and the glory of God to be witnessed by all mankind), and that certainly did not happen in the time of John the Baptist. (Let's quote the passage. Is. 40:3:
A voice of one calling in the desert: Prepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God. 4 Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. 5 And the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it. For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”Captain Obvious to the rescue again:
- There is no mention of a time frame
- This is typical language regarding the coming of a king. The way would be cleared for the approach of the king.
- Since Jesus did come, the way must have been cleared. Since He will come again, the way will be cleared.
- The glory of the LORD "will be" revealed.
(2) In Mal 3:1, God is supposed to be speaking and saying that a messenger would be sent to "prepare the way" before him (God). But Mt 11:10 has stated the verse incorrectly, trying to make God say that the messenger would be sent before someone else.
Mal. 3:1 “See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the LORD Almighty.
Mt. 11:10 This is the one about whom it is written: “`I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.’ [Mal. 3:1]Commentators agree that Matthew was engaging in a free translation of the LXX.
Further, since Christians have for centuries acknowledged Matthew as divinely inspired, what he writes as he extrapolates on the OT is therefore inspired. Matthew simply adds insight into the original prophecy.)
So the verse does not actually say what Matthew claims. One plausible interpretation of the original verse is that it is referring to Malachi himself, since the Hebrew name Malachi means "my messenger".
(3) Mal 4:5 says, "I will send you the prophet Elijah", and Mt 17:12-13 takes that to refer to John the Baptist. However, John the Baptist denied being Elijah (John 1:21). Also, the next verse (Mal 4:6) declares that, following the coming of Elijah, fathers and children will be reconciled or else God will "come and strike the land with a curse". But neither event took place following John the Baptist, so that part of the alleged prophecy was not fulfilled. Jesus himself set family members against one another (Mt 10:21,35-36, Lu 14:26), which runs counter to Mal 4:6. (The author mixes time frames to suit his scenario, but we do not have to accept it. These are references to different events at different times. For some reason, the author assumes that everything must happen at once or the prophecy isn't true. The reason for this is inexplicable.
So let's again quote.
Jn. 1:21-23: They asked him, “Then who are you? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the Prophet?” He answered, “No.” 22 Finally they said, “Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” 23 John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, “I am the voice of one calling in the desert, `Make straight the way for the Lord.’“ [Isaiah 40:3]Before we get too far, let's note that the author's prior objection regarding John the Baptist was not connected to Is. 40:3. Here John the Baptist himself acknowledges his fulfillment of the Isaiah prophecy!
The author doesn't understand that Elijah represents a type as well as a man. Elijah may well be the most powerful prophet in Scripture. So much so that his successor, Elisha, desired the same power. And he got it, so much so that the company of prophets said, The spirit of Elijah is resting on Elisha. 2Kg. 2:15 This is very telling, because there is no other account of a character in the Bible inheriting his predecessor's mantle.
So John the Baptist could rightly say he was not Elijah, because there was only one Elijah. Yet whether he was fully aware or not of his calling and position at that moment is an entirely different matter. He would eventually carry the "mantle" of Elijah, whether he could admit it or not.
Lastly, Jesus' testimony should carry a lot of weight. Mk. 9:12-13:
Jesus replied, “To be sure, Elijah does come first, and restores all things. Why then is it written that the Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected? 13 But I tell you, Elijah has come, and they have done to him everything they wished, just as it is written about him.”)For these various reasons, it does not appear that any of the given Old Testament verses made any sort of reference to John the Baptist. Again, there is no evidence here that any Biblical prophecies were fulfilled at about the time of Jesus of Nazareth.
(VI) The Suffering Servant
Among the alleged messianic prophecies are ones contained within the description of the "suffering servant" of Isaiah 53. And some of the alleged prophecies contained within that chapter claimed to have been fulfilled by Jesus are the following [with verse numbers indicated]:
(1) The Messiah's message would not be believed, supposedly fulfilled by Jesus at John 12:37-38.
(3) The Messiah would be despised and rejected, supposedly fulfilled by Jesus in that his own people did not believe in him, according to John 1:11, 7:5.
(5) The Messiah would be wounded, supposedly fulfilled by the scourging of Jesus at Mt 27:26.
(7) The Messiah would be silent before his accusers, supposedly fulfilled by Jesus at Mt 27:12 (and Ac 8:32-35).
(9) The Messiah would have a grave provided for him by a rich man, supposedly fulfilled for Jesus by Joseph of Arimathea at Mt 27:57-60.
(12) The Messiah would be arrested as a criminal (which is perhaps Jesus' own interpretation at Lu 22:37) or perhaps that the Messiah would be crucified with criminals, supposedly fulfilled by Jesus at Mt 27:38 and Mk 15:27 (with Mk 15:28 inserted later) and Lu 23:32.
(12) The Messiah would make intercession for his persecutors, supposedly fulfilled by Jesus at Lu 23:34.
But there are many problems with taking Isa 53 in such a way, among which are the following.
(1) According to Isa 53:3 in the Tanakh, the suffering servant was "despised [and] shunned by men". It seems doubtful that that is fulfilled by Jesus just in virtue of the fact that his own people did not accept him, for he apparently was widely accepted by the common people elsewhere. According to Lu 4:15, he taught in the synagogue and everyone praised him. And later, huge crowds supposedly followed him, and he was described as making a "Triumphal Entry" into Jerusalem (Mt 21:8-11; John 12:12-13,17-19). (It is beyond dispute that Jesus was rejected.
Jn. 6:6 From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.
Mt. 21:42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: “`The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? [Psalm 118:22,23]
Mk. 8:31 He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again.
Lk. 17:25 But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.
Ac. 4:10 then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed.
1Pe. 2:4 As you come to him, the living Stone — rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him —Jesus was crucified, for pete's sake! If that's not rejection, I don't know what is.)
(2) Verse 3 in the Tanakh also declares that the suffering servant was "familiar with disease", and verse 4 says that he was "stricken by God", where the Hebrew word for "stricken" is one that is used in the Hebrew Scriptures to stand only for leprosy (as at Le 13:3,9,20 and 2Ki 15:5). (Factually incorrect. נָגַע - Definition: to touch, reach, strike.)
But Jesus is not known to have suffered from leprosy or any other disease, so those verses are not applicable to him. (Let's quote the passage. Is. 53:3-4:
He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4 Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.Again the author appears uninformed about well-established doctrine held for millennia. That Jesus bore our sins, our wounds, and our sicknesses is rudimentary knowledge for any Christian.
Isaiah doesn't say the messiah would get sick, he says the messiah "took up" our infirmities and "carried" our sorrows. Notice that Isaiah uses the word "our." Jesus wasn't sick, He bore *our* sickness.
Ro. 3:25 God presented him as the one who would turn aside his wrath, taking away sin through faith in his blood.
Ro. 4:25 He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.
He. 13:12-13 And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. 13 Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore.
1Pe. 2:24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.It may even be part of some forms of Christian doctrine that Jesus needed to be perfectly healthy in order to adequately play the role of "sacrificial lamb" (which by law needed to be "without blemish"). It is clear that the suffering servant of Isa 53 could not adequately play such a role.
(3) As for Jesus being silent before his accusers (thereby satisfying verse 7), that seems not to work either. Verse 7 says (twice): "He did not open his mouth." But according to John 18:33-37, 19:11, Jesus said much to Pontius Pilate.
In each of the four gospels Jesus opened his mouth and said something before his accusers. Hence, Jesus did not actually fulfill that part of the prophecy. (The passages read,
Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” 34 “Is that your own idea,” Jesus asked, “or did others talk to you about me?” 35 “Am I a Jew?” Pilate replied. “It was your people and your chief priests who handed you over to me. Jn. 18:33-35
Jn. 19:10 “Do you refuse to speak to me?” Pilate said. “Don’t you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?” 11 Jesus answered, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above.Pilate was not one of the accusers, so the prophecy is intact.)
(4) In verse 9 it says of the suffering servant "his grave was set among the wicked, and with the rich, in his death." It is unclear how that applies to Jesus, for there were no other bodies in the tomb in which Jesus' body was placed. (Since the verse in question does not say there would be other bodies in the tomb, we summarily dismiss this complaint.)
The verse definitely does not say that the servant would have a grave provided for him by a rich man, so that part of the alleged prophecy is sheer invention. (we have no information about what other tombs were in this particular graveyard. There certainly could have been tombs of wicked men and rich men.)
(5) According to verse 10, "the Lord chose to crush him by disease, that if he made himself an offering for guilt, he might see offspring and have long life, ..." That seems totally inapplicable to Jesus, for Jesus was not crushed by disease, nor did he see any offspring, nor did he have a long life. (Again we find it necessary to quote the entire passage. Is. 53:10:
Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.Again we see how the Scriptures make a statement that applies far beyond the surface. Jesus indeed has many offspring.
Ro. 8:14 those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
2Co. 6:18 “I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.” [2 Samuel 7:14; 7:8]
Ga. 3:26 You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus...
Ga. 4:4-5 But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, 5 to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.And Jesus does indeed have a long life as the eternal one who overcame death and the grave.
Ro. 6:4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
Ro. 6:9-10 For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10 The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
1Co. 15:55-57 “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” [Hosea 13:14] 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
2Ti. 1:10 but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.(6) Isaiah 53 does not actually mention the Messiah. In fact, when we look closely at the chapter, it is hard to find anything in it that is applicable to either the (Jewish) Messiah or to Jesus. Verse 1 does not actually say that the servant's message would not be believed, but merely asks, "Who can believe what we have heard?" There seems to be no prophecy there at all. Nor is there any indication that the servant would be arrested as a criminal or scourged or crucified with criminals or make intercession for his persecutors. None of that is in there. Verse 6 does say, "the Lord visited upon him the guilt of us all," but there are other interpretations of that than the Christian one. (No one has suggested there aren't other interpretations. In fact, there are other interpretations precisely because people don't like the idea that the messiah has already come.)
(7) There is a Judaic interpretation of Isa 53 that seems plausible. The suffering servant is the nation of Israel which is represented by King Uzziah, who was its king in Isaiah's time and who died of leprosy. According to Shmuel Golding, Isaiah's message may have been: "Here is your leprous king, who is in type suffering under God's hand for you the backslidden servant nation of Israel" (which explains verse 6). Uzziah was taken away from the royal palace because of his affliction as a leper and spent his remaining years in isolation, which fits verse 8. Golding says the following:
Israel is portrayed as a suffering servant on account of its anointed leader being stricken with leprosy. Israel, like the leper, is a suffering servant of God. Both have suffered humiliation at the hand of their fellowmen: the leper because of his unsightly appearance; Israel through its defeat at the hands of the Babylonians. The gist of the message is that Israel like the leper has suffered, but nevertheless will retain its identity in the form of the exiled Jewish people and that they will prosper in this form. [5]
This interpretation of Isaiah 53 seems preferable to the Christian one because it does not suffer from drawbacks (1)-(6) mentioned above. It would also better explain the many changes of tense that occur in the chapter. And Israel is indeed referred to as "God's servant" (e.g., at Isa 49:3). However, the given interpretation does not make the chapter into a prophecy so much as an explanation of Israel's situation at around the time of Isaiah. At the very least, it shows, I think, that Isaiah 53 is not a clear example of a fulfilled prophecy (or set of fulfilled prophecies) in the Bible. So it is not any good support for premise (1) of the Argument from the Bible. (Um, yeah. King Uzziah did not die for us all. He was not crushed by God as a guilt offering. He did not receive our iniquity. He was not silent before his accusers.
The author has completely failed to refute this prophecy. Ironically, he admits it is a prophecy, just about a different person.)
(VII) Tyre
Leaving the realm of alleged prophecies associated with Jesus, we could look at a couple of them dealing with history. I think that these are the more promising ones, for their fulfillments, if any, cannot be charged with having been made up by such imaginative writers as Matthew. As I said in Chapter 5 of the book, if God were to put impressive fulfilled prophecies into the Bible, then he would use fulfillments that become part of secular history, and which would already be known about by those to whom the missionaries go to preach the gospel message.
One writer who mentions historical-type prophecies is Josh McDowell. He discusses twelve cities that were prophesied to be destroyed. [6] The first of them is the city of Tyre, the destruction of which was prophesied in Eze 26:3-21. It was said that, after being destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, Tyre would never be rebuilt and would never be found again (Eze 26:14,21, 27:36, 28:19). According to McDowell, all of the prophecies regarding Tyre and the other cities he talks about were fulfilled in history. He goes on to say the following:
We can then draw only one conclusion, and that is that God inspired the writing of every one of these prophecies. ... He has predicted multitudes of events to happen in the future. They have come true exactly as predicted, even though in some cases thousands of years were involved for the fulfillment. God has proven that He is our supernatural God with all wisdom. We have no alternative but to believe. [7]
I shall not try to deal here with all of the prophecies mentioned by McDowell, only the one related to the city of Tyre. But I think that similar considerations can be raised with regard to all of them. Let us look at some of the problems with the Tyre prophecy.
(1) Tyre had two parts, an island part and a mainland part. Nebuchadnezzar only managed to destroy the mainland part. According to historians, he failed to capture the island city of Tyre, despite a 13-year siege (585-572 B.C.). That was why Nebuchadnezzar was unable to pay his soldiers, as reported in Eze 29:18. [That in itself refutes the earlier prophecy. Ezekiel is in effect admitting its failure. He should have scrapped it before completing his book.] It was not until the attack by Alexander the Great more than 200 years later that the island part of Tyre was also destroyed. However, since Ezekiel did not mention Alexander, only Nebuchadnezzar, it is hard to see how that later attack fulfills any part of his prophecy.
(2) According to historians, Tyre recovered quickly following the attack by Alexander. In 64 B.C., it became part of the Roman Empire and prospered. It is mentioned in the present tense in the New Testament. [8] Christian buildings were constructed there in the Fourth Century A.D. and during the Crusades, but Muslims later destroyed them.
(3) Tyre still exists today. It is a city on the coast of Lebanon, to be found on any map of that country. It has been mentioned in recent times in connection with retaliatory raids upon Hezbollah forces in Lebanon by Israel in their ongoing warfare.
It does not seem, then, that Ezekiel's prophecies came true. He said that Tyre would "be no more" but that did not happen. Similar considerations could be raised in connection with all the other prophecies that McDowell and others have claimed to have been fulfilled in history.
(VIII) The Nation of Israel
Although McDowell does not mention it, Henry Morris takes the restoration of the nation of Israel in the twentieth century as a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. [9] He cites Ezekiel 37:21 in which God says:I am going to take the Israelite people from among the nations they have gone to, and gather them from every quarter, and bring them to their own land. (Tanakh)
The obvious objection is that Ezekiel is not here talking about the twentieth century but is predicting the return of the Jews from their captivity, exile, and dispersal at the hands of the Assyrians (in the 8th and 7th centuries, B.C.) and the Babylonians (in the 7th and 6th centuries). That return occurred in 537 B.C., shortly after the book of Ezekiel was written. In itself, it is a prophecy that became fulfilled, though not a particularly remarkable one. The book was written during the exile, and there may have been good evidence available to Ezekiel that the exile would soon come to an end. Other parts of the prophecy, that the returning Jews would faithfully observe God's laws and that they would live in their restored homeland forever (Eze 37:24-28) were not fulfilled. It is understandable why McDowell stayed clear of this alleged prophecy, though it is sometimes cited by missionaries today. As a prophecy about an event 2500 years in the future, it would certainly be an impressive one if it could be adequately supported.
Undaunted, Morris cites Isaiah 11:11-12, which reads:
In that day, My Lord will apply His hand again to redeeming the other part of His people from Assyria - as also from Egypt, Pathros, Nubia, Elam, Shinar, Hamath, and the coastlands. He will hold up a signal to the nations and assemble the banished of Israel, and gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth. (Tanakh)
Morris claims that Isaiah's use of the word "again" indicates that he is referring to the twentieth century, A.D., and that "the first time" would be the return from the Babylonian captivity. But there is a more plausible interpretation: that the word "again" is referring to what was then (at the writing of Isaiah) a future return from the Assyrian and Babylonian exiles and that "the first time" would be the Exodus (from Egypt, many centuries earlier).
Although I have not looked at all the alleged remarkable fulfilled prophecies, my conclusion is that none of them is what its advocates maintain. Many of them are not prophecies at all. Of the ones that are prophecies, almost all remain unfulfilled. And the few that are fulfilled prophecies are not remarkable, for one reason or another. Therefore, premise (1) of the Argument from the Bible has not been adequately supported and may reasonably be doubted. (I refrained from commenting, since the author is not refuting the Bible, he's refuting someone else's viewpoint on the Bible.)
3. Unfulfilled Prophecies
According to premise (2) of the Argument from the Bible, there are no unfulfilled prophecies in the Bible. (We do not agree. There are many prophecies yet to be fulfilled.)
We have already seen some counter-examples to that claim. Let us look at a few others, beginning with a type that is more like a Biblical contradiction:
1. According to Ge 2:17, Adam will die the same day that he eats the fruit, but that did not come about, since, according to Ge 5:5, Adam lived to age 930. [Note that the same Hebrew word for "die" is used as elsewhere in the Old Testament, standing for physical death.] (Sigh. Let's quote the passage. Ge. 2:17: but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die. This indeed did happen. Adam was created not to die. When he ate the fruit, he died.)
2. According to Ge 4:12,14, Cain will be a fugitive and a vagabond, and constantly subject to assassination, but that did not come about, for, according to Ge 4:16-17, Cain had a wife and family, and lived in the same area all his life, and built a city. (Again we actually quote the passages.
Ge 4:12 When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.
Ge. 4:16-17 So Cain went out from the LORD’s presence and lived in the land of Nod, [Nod means wandering (see verses 12 and 14).] east of Eden. 17 Cain lay with his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch. Cain was then building a city, and he named it after his son Enoch.Can wanderers build cities? Yes. Can wanderers get married? Yes. Do these things mean that Cain wasn't a wanderer? No.
Regarding being subject to assassination, it seems clear that the author didn't actually read this story. Right in between the two verses he references is this verse he misses:
But the LORD said to him, “Not so; if anyone kills Cain, he will suffer vengeance seven times over.” Then the LORD put a mark on Cain so that no-one who found him would kill him. Ge. 4:15So the assassination didn't come about because God took care of that. Hmmm.)
3. According to Jos 17:17-18, Ephraim and Manasseh will drive out the Canaanites, but according to Jg 1:27-29, they did not drive out the Canaanites. (Here's a good discussion.)
4. Jer 34:5 prophesied that Zedekiah will die in peace, but according to 2Ki 25:7 and Jer 52:10-11, that did not happen. Instead, he saw his sons killed, was carried off in chains, blinded, and eventually died in prison. (The prophecy was conditional and Zedekiah did not obey.)
5. Am 7:17 prophesied that Amaziah's sons will die by the sword, but according to 2Ch 26:1,21, Amaziah's son Uzziah died of leprosy. (Uzziah was not born yet.)
6. According to Jon 3:4, Nineveh will be overthrown in 40 days, but then God changed his mind about having Nineveh overthrown. (See Jon 3:10.) (God threatened to destroy Nineveh, but they repented. This is not a prophecy at all, but a conditional judgement.)
7. According to Mt 12:40, Christ will be buried for three nights, but he died on a Friday and by Sunday the tomb was empty. Between Friday and Sunday, there are just two nights, not three. (Jesus did not die on Friday, He died on Wednesday. I explain here.)
8. According to Mt 19:28 and Lu 22:30, all 12 disciples will sit on 12 thrones as judges. But actually, not all 12 disciples could reign, for Judas, who was one of them, was excluded. (See Mt 26:24-25.) (Paul took his place.
Ac. 9:15: But the Lord said to Ananias, “Go! This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel."
1Co. 1:1 Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God...
Ga. 1:1 Paul, an apostle — sent not from men nor by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead...
1Ti. 1:1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope...)9. In Mt 26:34 and Lu 22:34, it is prophesied that before the cock crows, Peter will deny Jesus three times, but according to Mk 14:66-68, Peter denied Jesus only once before the cock crowed. (Well, no. That's not what it says. Mk. 14:72:
Immediately the cock crowed the second time. [Some early manuscripts do not have the second time.] Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken to him: “Before the cock crows twice [Some early manuscripts do not have twice.] you will disown me three times.” And he broke down and wept.)10. According to Lu 23:43, the thief will be with Christ in paradise on that very day. But Christ's body was buried that day and, according to Ac 2:27,31, his soul went to hell, not to paradise. (Let's quote the verse. Ac. 2:27: ...because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay. Jesus did not decay. He did not stay in the grave. He did not go to hell.)
More will be said about Biblical contradictions in Sections D.4 and D.5, below. Some other examples that are a little more like unfulfilled prophecies are the following.
11. According to Ge 15:18, 17:3,8, and Dt 1:7-8, Abraham's descendants will own all the land between the Nile River and the Euphrates River, but it never happened: they never owned all that land. God broke his promise, as conceded in Ac 7:5 and Heb 11:13. (Let's quote the passage. Ac. 7:4:
“So he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. After the death of his father, God sent him to this land where you are now living. Ac. 7:5 He gave him no inheritance here, not even a foot of ground.Haran is located in present-day Turkey. That is not between the Nile and the Euphrates.
He. 11:15: If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. This has nothing to do with the prophecy.)
12. According to Ge 49:13, the tribe of Zebulun will dwell at a seashore, but, instead, as may be gathered from various later verses as well as extra-Biblical sources, they dwelled inland, not at any seashore. (It would be nice if the author quoted the verses to prove his case. Ge. 49:13 reads,
“Zebulun will live by the seashore and become a haven for ships; his border will extend towards Sidon.So, did Zebulun ever live by the seashore? Is there any indication anywhere in the Bible that this did not happen? No.)
13. According to Jos 8:28, the city of Ai will be destroyed forever. In actuality, Ai did have later inhabitants. (See Ezr 2:1,28 and Ne 7:32.) (Again the verse. Jo. 8:28: So Joshua burned Ai and made it a permanent heap of ruins, a desolate place to this day. Desolate does not mean uninhabited.)
But these still look a little bit like Biblical contradictions. I think the very best examples of unfulfilled prophecies are ones like the following.
14. According to Ex 3:8, the Israelites will live in a large land, flowing with milk and honey, and according to 2Sa 7:10, they will not be disturbed anymore, but as a matter of historical fact Israel (and vicinity) has been a relatively small and mostly barren land, and the Israelites have been continually harassed from all sides. (The author apparently has never been to Israel. It's a fertile place. Speaking to the verse, 2Sa. 7:12-13 says:
When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever.Clearly this is a messianic prophecy. Jesus is King of kings, and His rule is forever.)
15. Many verses prophesy that the throne of David will endure forever and that there will never be a time without a man upon that throne. But in point of historical fact, the Davidic line of kings ended with Zedekiah. 450 yrs. later, the Maccabeans had a brief reign. But for 2000 years, there has been no Davidic king. (Again, it would be nice to see where there is a promise of unbroken kingship. The author does not supply a reference.)
16. According to Isa 14:23, Babylon will become wet, but that never happened. According to Jer 51:36, Babylon will become totally dry, but that never happened either. According to other verses, [11] Babylon will never be inhabited by people again, but in fact Babylon has been continually inhabited by people since that time. [Note 1Pe 5:13.] It is now part of Iraq.
17. According to Isa 17:1, Damascus will be destroyed, but in fact Damascus is one of the few ancient cities that has never been destroyed. [The fact that so many were destroyed makes prophecies of the future destruction of ancient cities rather unremarkable.] If Isaiah had predicted that Damascus would never be destroyed, then that would have been remarkable.
18. According to Isa 19:5, Eze 30:12, and Zec 10:11, the Nile River will dry up, and according to Eze 29:9-12, Egypt will become desolate for 40 years, with no man or animal passing through it and with all Egyptians dispersed, but as a matter of fact the Nile River has never dried up and in the whole history of Egypt no such calamitous events have ever occurred.
19. According to Isa 19:18, five Egyptian cities will speak the language of Canaan, but linguists and archeologists assure us that no Egyptian cities have ever spoken the language of Canaan.
20. According to Isa 29:17, Lebanon will become a fruitful field, but that has never happened to Lebanon!
21. According to Isa 34:9-10, Edom (the land between the Dead Sea and Gulf of Aqaba) will become burning pitch: no one will ever pass through it again. But in truth that has never happened to Edom. People have passed through it for thousands of years.
22. According to Isa 52:1, the uncircumcised and unclean will never enter Jerusalem, but in fact such people have continually entered Jerusalem for thousands of years.
23. According to Jer 42:17, Jews who choose to live in Egypt will all die and leave no remnant. But history shows that Jews continued to live there for centuries, later establishing a cultural center at Alexandria.
24. Zep 3:13 prophesied that the remnant of Israel will not sin or lie or be afraid, but in truth they were never so moral nor so fearless.
25. Many verses [12] prophesy that Christ's second coming will occur soon. Some of them specifically say that it will be within his listeners' lifetime, i.e., before that generation (there with Jesus) passes away. But in truth more than 19 centuries have elapsed since then and the event still has not occurred. Of all the examples of unfulfilled prophecies, this one strikes me as the one that is clearest and most powerful.
With all these unfulfilled prophecies, it is clear that premise (2) of the Argument from the Bible is false. It might be suggested that the argument dispense with its premise (2), but it serves an important purpose. With unfulfilled prophecies in the Bible, even if there had been some fulfilled ones, they would, in effect, have gotten "canceled out". The law of probabilities would allow some prophecies to come true, just as a matter of coincidence, provided that many of them do not come true. Thus, it is important for the advocate of the Argument from the Bible to insert premise (2). As it turns out, since in fact none of the alleged remarkable fulfilled Biblical prophecies really turn out to be that, all of the unfulfilled ones mentioned are a kind of "overkill". They could have been used for "canceling-out" purposes, but are not needed for that after all.
4. The Resurrection
According to premise (4) of the Argument from the Bible, the Bible contains a convincing eye-witness account of the resurrection and subsequent appearances of Jesus of Nazareth. The gospels do describe Jesus's execution and subsequent burial in a tomb, and they do claim that the tomb was later found to be empty and that Jesus appeared to his followers in bodily form. The main reason for calling them "eye-witness accounts" is that in Luke 1:2 it says, "they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses." There are, however, several problems.
First, it is generally conceded that the accounts of the resurrection were not actually written down until more than thirty years after the alleged event had occurred and that, prior to being written down, they were, in effect, rumors or stories which had been spread orally throughout the region. It is easy for such rumors to become embellished over time. Changes tend to occur in oral messages, even when their conveyers make every effort to pass them on accurately. So even if the resurrection accounts are based on what are said to be eye-witness reports, there is much room for doubt regarding them. An analogy would be the report of some event in history, such as the explosion and burning of the Hindenburg Zeppelin over Lakehurst, NJ, in 1937. If the very earliest written account of that event were published in, say, 1967, then historians would be reasonably suspicious as to whether it really did occur, even if the account is based on alleged eye-witness reports.
Second, the event in question is supernatural or miraculous in character. That in itself makes it an event which calls for something more in support than just reports by a handful of alleged eyewitnesses. By analogy, if the explosion and burning of the Hindenburg Zeppelin were claimed to be followed by its miraculous reappearance out of nowhere, say, the next day, then historians would need far more than just some alleged eye-witness reports before they would include such an event (as an actual event, not merely a reported one) in their history books. Even if the alleged eyewitnesses were to show their complete sincerity, say, by passing lie-detector tests, that would still not sway historians. The event could still be some sort of mass hallucination or the product of the power of suggestion (as has been suggested in the case of the astronomical miracle at Fatima, Portugal in 1917).
Third, those who wrote the accounts of Jesus's resurrection were not reporters or historians. They were all motivated to win converts to their new religion, which was at that time a kind of Judaic cult. Even Luke, who says, "I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning" (1:3), was not a neutral investigative reporter, but a proselytizer for Christianity (mainly to the Gentiles). That is another fact about the writings which tends to cast doubt upon their objectivity and accuracy.
Fourth, the alleged resurrection appearances were only to Jesus's followers, not to his opponents. If the whole purpose of the resurrection had been for God to convey to the world the truth of the gospel message, as suggested in Mt 12:38-40, or at least the information that there is such a state as an afterlife, as suggested by St. Paul in 1Co 15:12-19, then the event was very badly staged. More people should have witnessed the crucifixion and certified that Jesus was really dead. [13] And certainly many more people than just a handful of his followers should have witnessed his return from the dead. This is a point made previously in the present book in connection with ANB.
Fifth, the Biblical accounts of the resurrection are not consistent and that tends to cast doubt on them. They contradict one another regarding such matters as how many women went to Jesus's tomb, whether it was still dark out, whether Mary Magdalene told people about the tomb, whether she went back to it with them, whether there was just one angel there or two, whether the angels were inside of the tomb or outside, whether they got there before the women and disciples, and what they looked like, whether there were guards at the tomb, whether Peter went there alone, whether Jesus appeared first to him (1Co 15:3-5), whether he appeared at all to Mary Magdalene, whether he appeared to her at the tomb, whether she was then alone, whether she recognized him immediately, and whether it was after the disciples were told, whether Peter went to the tomb before or after the others were told and whether he was alone, whether Jesus appeared specially to two disciples, whether they recognized him immediately, whether he later appeared to the others as the two were speaking or afterwards, whether he scolded the others for not believing the two, whether he appeared to the disciples just once or three times, whether the first appearance was in Galilee, whether they all recognized him immediately, whether he ascended to heaven right afterwards, whether he ascended from Jerusalem (Mark), Bethany (Luke), or Mt. Olivet (Acts), and whether he appeared to the Twelve, to over 500, and then specially to James (1Co 15:5-7).
Here are references to support the alleged contradictions involved in the Bible's account of Jesus's post-resurrection appearances:
Question Answers
1. How many women went to Jesus's tomb? One - John 20:1-18 Three - Mk 16:1-8 Two - Mt 28:1-8 Many - Lu 23:55-24:10
(In what follows, the middle column supplies references for a "Yes" answer and the right-hand column supplies references for a "No" answer.)
It is to be granted that Biblical inerrantists have tried to harmonize all of the various accounts of Jesus's post-mortem appearances in a way that would avoid the apparent inconsistencies. But the general consensus, I think, is that all such attempts have been failures. The topic of Biblical contradictions is of course complicated. Some apparent inconsistencies might be capable of being explained away by appeal to special interpretations. For example, Acts 26:23 seems to say that Jesus was the first to rise from the dead. (See also Re 1:5.) Yet we know there were many prior resurrections described in Scripture, [14] which implies an inconsistency. Perhaps the verse in question could be interpreted to mean merely that Jesus is the first to be resurrected following the atonement for mankind's sin, or something akin to that. It may be that some of the alleged contradictions listed above can be dealt with in some such fashion. But it seems unreasonable to think that all of them can be. I, for one, have never seen it done. As for premise (4) of the Argument from the Bible regarding a convincing eye-witness account of the resurrection, we have seen that there are many reasons of various sorts to doubt the accuracy of that claim.
5. More Contradictions
According to premise (6) of the Argument from the Bible, the Bible contains no contradictions. We have already seen above how that claim might be challenged. It might be objected that the alleged contradictions only concern trivial matters. However, there are also inconsistencies regarding the important matter of salvation, [15] so not all of them are over trivial matters. Furthermore, even the trivial contradictions are important in the present context. The fact that the Bible contradicts itself at all, whatever the matter may be, does make a lot of difference. It shows that God was not the author (or inspirer) of all of the Bible, which refutes the claim on the part of evangelical Christians (and Orthodox Jews) that he was. Without the Argument from the Bible to fall back on, evangelical Christian theology is in a heap of trouble with regard to many issues, as mentioned in the beginning of this appendix.
The importance of Biblical inerrancy to evangelical Christianity is borne out by the fact that the translators of the NIV translation of the Bible, all of whom are certified evangelicals, go through a lot of trouble to try to evade contradictions. For example, although all Hebrew manuscripts containing 2Ch 22:2 cite Ahaziah's age when he began his reign to be 42, the NIV translation of that verse gives the age as 22, to bring it into conformity with 2Ki 8:26. They justify this on the grounds that the Septuagint and some Syriac manuscripts give the figure as 22. But in just about all other cases they rely on the Hebrew manuscripts. It seems to be a departure from the task of translating from the Hebrew into English (which presumably is the translators' task) to engage in such juggling of the texts.
In any case, according to premise (6) of the Argument from the Bible, the Bible contains no contradictions. We have already seen in Sections D.4 and D.5, above, how that claim might be challenged. Here are some more counter-examples.
6. Factual Errors
According to premise (7) of the Argument from the Bible, the Bible contains amazing facts about the planet earth, compatible with modern science, which were unknown in ancient times. One verse that is often cited in this regard is Job 26:7, which says that the earth is suspended upon nothing. That is indeed a remarkable insight, coming from an ancient writer. One wonders, however, what to make of it, since the same writer refers to "the pillars of the earth" (9:6, 38:6) and "the pillars of the heavens" (26:11). The idea that the earth rests on a foundation or pillars is also expressed at 1Sa 2:8 and Ps 75:3, 104:5. In addition, premise (7) of the Argument from the Bible declares that the Bible contains no conflicts with modern science or errors of a factual nature. We have already seen Biblical errors in the form of unfulfilled prophecies and contradictions. But the claim can also be challenged by appeal to dozens of other examples. Here are just a few of them:
(1) The Bible [16] implies that the earth is flat or that all of its inhabited surface can be seen at one time from a single vantage point, which conflicts with what we know. Related to this is the Bible's frequent reference to "ascending to heaven", [17] which implies that the Biblical authors erroneously thought of the earth as a flat plane beneath a celestial dome.
(2) The Bible (1Ch 16:30; Ps 93:1, 96:10, 104:5) declares that the earth does not move, whereas we know for a fact that the earth does move.
(3) The age of the earth according to the Bible (computed from Ge 1, 5, & 11 and Lu 3:23-38) cannot be much over 6000 years, yet scientists have determined that the earth is 4.6 billion years old. The evidence that it is way over 6000 years old comes from many different fields and is overwhelming.
(4) According to Ge 1:16-17, the earth was already in existence when the sun and the stars were created, yet scientists have determined that the stars existed billions of years before the earth and that the sun also existed prior to the earth (which revolves around the sun).
(5) The Bible (Ge 1:11-19) has fruit trees and other plants created one day before the sun, but that is impossible. The earth without the sun would have been an inhospitable place for such plants as fruit trees. They could not have survived under such conditions for one minute, let alone a whole day.
(6) According to Ge 1:20-25, birds were in existence before reptiles and insects (things which "creep upon the earth"). But science has established that there were reptiles on the earth 150 million years before there were any birds and that insects go back another 100 million years before reptiles.
(7) The Bible (Ge 1:21-24) places whales in existence before "creeping things", but scientists have determined that the origin of whales is relatively recent, in geologic time, compared with such "creeping things" as reptiles and insects.
(8) According to Ge 1:12,21, there were fruit trees on the earth before there were any animals, but the fossil record proves that there were many animals on the earth hundreds of millions of years before there were any fruit trees.
(9) According to the Bible, there were no carnivores prior to the Fall (Ge 1:29-30; Ro 5:12,14,17; 1Co 15:21). But science has shown that carnivorous animals have existed for hundreds of millions of years. For example, some fossilized dung contains fragments of bone, teeth, and hair. The strontium content of some bones is that known for carnivores. And some fossilized teeth are sharp, as opposed to flat, etc. Even the fact that prehistoric humans had hunting tools disconfirms the Biblical account. Finally, from facts about the bodily makeup of such animals as spiders, fish, reptiles, felines, etc., it is clearly false that there was once a time when such animals were herbivorous.
(10) Genesis 1 describes the various species of animals on earth as being specially created in a short span of time. But science has excellent evidence that the various species of animals, incl. humans, have, instead, evolved over a very long span of time. [See "By Evolution, Not Creation", above.]
(11) According to Ge 1:21-25,31, the time span from the first appearance of fish on our planet to the first appearance of mammals was one day. But science has established that the actual time span was over a quarter of a billion years!
(12) Genesis describes magical things and events, such as magical trees (2:9, 3:24), a woman being created from a man's rib (2:21-23), a talking snake (3:1-5), etc. But we know that there never were such things or events.
(13) According to the Bible snakes eat dust (Ge 3:14) or will eat dust (Isa 65:25). But the fact of the matter is that snakes do not eat dust.
(14) Chapter 5 of Genesis has humans living more than 800 or 900 years. But we know that humans do not live anywhere near that long.
(15) Genesis describes a worldwide flood that covered all the mountains on earth (7:19-20), but such a flood is impossible. Among other problems, there is nowhere from which such an enormous quantity of water (at least a half-billion cubic miles) could have come prior to the flood and there is no place to which it could have gone afterwards.
(16) The Biblical story of Noah's Ark must be false since it conflicts with what we know about the behavior and needs of various animals and their current distribution around the planet. It maintains that eight people cared for (what must have totaled) at least a million different animal species on a closed boat for over a year. That is impossible! It is also impossible that all the species presently distributed around the world migrated within the past 4000 years from Mount Ararat in Turkey.
(17) The Bible takes the story of Adam and Eve to be factual. [18] But scientists have excellent evidence that the story is factually incorrect. Apart from the inaccuracies regarding time, the fossil record shows that humans were not specially created but evolved from non-human primates.
(18) According to the Bible (Ge 11:6-9), the various languages of the earth originated all at once at the Tower of Babel. But linguists have shown that languages have evolved over time at many different geographically separate places on earth.
(19) According to Ge 17:17, Abraham's wife bore a child at age 90, and according to Ge 19:26, Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt. But such events are physically impossible. This is also true of dozens of other alleged miracles throughout the Bible. We know they are mythical rather than factual because they are contrary to natural law.
(20) Taking the numbers supplied at Ex 12:37 and Nu 1:45-46, it could be computed that the Israelites' total population was about 3 million. Combining that with Dt 7:1, it may be calculated that the total population of Palestine was over 21 million. But scientists know that the population of Palestine was never anywhere near that figure.
(21) Le 11:6 claims that hares chew the cud, which is known to be erroneous. Le 11:13,19 (and Dt 14:11,18) claim that the bat is a bird, which we know is false. And according to Le 11:20-23, there are four-footed birds and four-footed flying insects, but we all know that birds have two legs and insects have six legs. Also, according to Nu 22:28-30, an ass (or donkey) spoke, but we know that never happened.
(22) According to Joshua 10:12-13, the sun stood still in the sky. The author probably thought of the sun as going around the earth, but even if we take it to mean that the earth suddenly stopped rotating on its axis, objects would have been hurled off by the centrifugal force, which didn't happen. Hence, the account is erroneous.
(23) According to Psalm 19:6, the sun goes all over the heavens and nothing can escape its heat. But that is false. Today we know that some parts of the universe are totally unaffected by our sun.
(24) The Bible contains many exaggerations. Consider, for example, the number of quail described in Nu 11:31-32. Even allowing that they came out of the sea (which we know did not happen), it has been computed to amount to 780 square miles of quail piled three feet deep. That is certainly an exaggeration. Also, we know there did not exist armies of 800,000 and war deaths of 500,000, contrary to 2Ch 13:3,17. And contrary to 2Ch 9:23-24, not all the kings of the earth visited Solomon, for at least those in China and in the Western Hemisphere did not. And it is not the case that 27,000 soldiers died when a wall fell on them or another 185,000 awoke one morning to find that they were dead, contrary to 1Ki 20:30 and 2Ki 19:35.
(25) The Bible (at least the KJV) treats such fictional animals as unicorns, cockatrices, dragons, satyrs, and fiery or flying serpents, as though they really exist. [19]
(26) According to Jonah 1:17, 2:10, a man lived for three days inside the belly of a fish (or a whale, according to Mt 12:40), but that is impossible.
(27) According to Mt 2:9, a star moved in the sky until it was directly over the town of Bethlehem, but we know that that is impossible.
(28) According to Mt 2:16, Herod had every child in the region killed who was under three years old, but there is good historical evidence that such an event never occurred.
(29) According to the Bible, [20] the cause of mental illness and various infirmities is possession by devils. But today we know that mental illness and infirmities have a different cause.
(30) According to Mt 17:27, Jesus prophesied that Peter would find a coin in the mouth of the first fish he catches in the sea by hook. It seems incredible that the prophecy was fulfilled. (The Bible does not inform us whether or not it was.)
(31) According to Mt 27:52-53, dead bodies emerged from graves and wandered around in Jerusalem and were seen by many. If such an event had ever occurred, there would have been some mention of it outside the book of Matthew. But there is no such mention by anyone else, anywhere. That is good reason to deny that the event ever happened. [It is also reason to suspect that Matthew embellished many of his accounts.]
(32) According to the Bible, the author of its first five books was Moses and the author of Psalms was David. [See references on this elsewhere.] Yet there is hardly any Biblical scholar today who would accept either of those claims. Apart from inconsistencies in style and content within those books, Moses' own death and burial and subsequent events are recorded in Dt 34:5-9.
Many other examples of the above sort could be cited. It seems quite clear that premise (7) of the Argument from the Bible, according to which the Bible contains no conflicts with modern science and noerrors of a factual nature, has been refuted.
7. Ethical Defects
According to premise (8) of the argument, the Bible contains a perfect morality and no ethical defects. But that claim seems incompatible with the fact that God is described in the Bible as killing people for no good reason. We have already mentioned the many children killed in the Great Flood, in Sodom and Gomorrah, and in the ten plagues on Egypt (especially the last). Here are some additional examples of people whom God killed:
1. A man who refused to impregnate his brother's widow (Ge 38:7-10).
2. Two men who offered God incense that he had not authorized (Le 10:1-2).
3. A group of about 300 people who opposed Moses politically (Nu 16:1-35).
4. Another group of 14,700 who sympathized with the first group (Nu 16:49).
5. More people who complained about the food and other matters (Nu 21:4-6).
6. 24,000 more because of some who worshiped Baal (Nu 25:3,9).
7. The Amorites who besieged Gibeon (Jos 10:10-11).
8. Seventy men who looked into a box (1Sa 6:19).
9. Another man who, with good intention, touched the box (2Sa 6:6-7).
10. A man who refused to use his weapon against another man (1Ki 20:35-36).
11. Forty-two children who called Elisha "baldy" (2Ki 2:23-24).
12. 185,000 Assyrian soldiers (2Ki 19:35).
God also killed all of Pharaoh's horsemen in the Red Sea (Ex 14:26-28). He could instead have simply made their horses lame, which would have been far more effective than removing the wheels from the chariots so that the horses had to drag the chariots slowly along the ground (Ex 14:25). That would have also spared the horsemen.
In addition to killing people directly, God also ordered several people killed (despite his commandment not to kill). Here are some examples of people who died by God's order (and in some cases with God's help):
1. Three thousand of the Levites' brothers, friends, and neighbors, who had become unruly (Exodus 32:27-28).
2. All the men, women, and children in all seven of the tribes who were the Israelites' neighbors (Dt 2:34, 3:6, 7:1-2,16, 20:16-17). [Some Biblical verses imply that the Israelites numbered 2-3 million, which would make the total population of their neighbors more than 14 million. What God was here ordering, then, if we could go by those verses, was a kind of Holocaust.]
3. All the men, women, and children of the cities of Jericho, Ai, and dozens more cities and towns (Jos 6:21, 8:24-26, 10:26-42, 11:10-23, 21:44).
4. All the Amalekites, including children, and even animals (1Sa 15:3,18), [where Saul was severely punished for sparing some of them].
5. All the members of the house of Ahab and ministers of Baal within Israel, the latter accomplished through deception (2Ki 10:11-25), though approved by God (10:30).
6. All the citizens of Jerusalem, including children, who did not grieve and lament over sins committed in it (Eze 9:4-6).
It seems quite unethical for God to order the execution of so many people, whatever their offense might have been, especially in the case of the children, who were presumably innocent.
Closely related to the above is the extravagant use of capital punishment among God's chosen people. God ordered people put to death for such minor offenses as the following:
1. Consulting a witch (Le 20:6; Dt 18:11).
2. Blasphemy or merely having a different religion (Ex 22:20; Le 24:10-23; Dt 13:1-15, 17:2-5, 18:20; Jos 23:7,16; 1Ki 18:40).
3. Gathering sticks or kindling a fire on the Sabbath (Ex 31:14-15, 35:2-3; Nu 15:32-36).
4. Eating the wrong food (Ex 12:15,19; Le 3:16-17, 7:22,25-27, 17:10-16).
5. Being a disrespectful or disobedient child (Le 20:9; Dt 21:18-21).
It seems unethical to have laws that harsh. The laws of the ancient Israelites are hardly the model of morality that advocates of Dominion Theology (or Reconstructionism) make them out to be. It would have been impressive if the Bible had gone against the prevailing cultural norms and had forbidden slavery and the oppression of women. But it did not do that. The Bible condones slavery. [21] It also contains many rules that are discriminatory against women. [22] It is hard to find anything in the Bible that stands out as ethically noble from our point of view today.
In addition, according to the Bible, God also deceived people and caused evil. Some examples of that are the following:
1. He created communication problems between people (Gen, 11:7-9).
2. He sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and certain citizens for the purpose of vengeance (Judges 9:23-24).
3. He sent another evil spirit to torment Saul (1Sa 16:14).
4. He put a lying spirit into the mouths of all his prophets (1Ki 22:22-23).
5. He admitted creating disaster ("evil" in the KJV) (Isa 45:7). [See also Amos 3:6.]
6. He permitted people to have "statutes that were not good and laws they could not live by" (Eze 20:25).
7. He sent certain people a powerful delusion so that they would believe a lie (2Th 2:11).
God also apparently ordered stealing by having the Israelites plunder the Egyptians (Ex 3:22). He ordered the plundering of cities far away from Israel and the enslavement of their people (Dt 20:10-14). [The seven neighboring tribes were to be dealt with still more harshly, as indicated above.] He also ordered 32,000 female virgins to be taken as war plunder (half to go to the soldiers and half to the people) and 32 of them to be for himself (Nu 31:18-40). All of this is highly unethical, to say the least.
Even Biblical doctrines are unethical. A good case could be made that Adam and Eve were victims of entrapment and did not deserve their punishment. And the idea that children are born into the world somehow inheriting Adam and Eve's sin also implies an injustice. As for Jesus's alleged sacrifice for humanity, that too seems unethical. If people deserve a certain punishment, then they ought to receive it. That is what justice is. To knowingly punish the innocent is always morally repugnant. Furthermore, the exclusivist threat of "accept Christ or else be damned for eternity" is unethical. People ought to be provided some way of "opting out" of the entire system. I would say that the most unethical Biblical doctrine of all is that of eternal damnation. [23] It is hard to understand how anyone who interprets the Bible to say that God keeps people alive for purposes of eternal torment, instead of simply annihilating them, could also suggest premise (8) of the Argument from the Bible. And yet there are such.
This sketch of how the argument might be attacked is admittedly in need of filling out, and that is something done elsewhere, as indicated above. But from the little that has been presented, I hope that the reader has become convinced of the total bankruptcy of the Argument from the Bible.
NOTES
[1] Henry M. Morris, Many Infallible Proofs (El Cajon, CA: Creation-Life Publisher, Inc., 1974), Chapters II and V.
[2] Ibid., Appendix A.
[3] There are dozens of excellent sources for the purpose. Two recent ones are the following: C. Dennis McKinsey, The Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 1995) and A. J. Mattill, Jr. The Seven Mighty Blows to Traditional Beliefs, Second Edition (Gordo, AL: The Flatwoods Free Press, 1995).
[4] Shmuel Golding, The Light of Reason, volume II (Jerusalem: The Jerusalem Institute of Biblical Polemics, 1989), p. 36.
[5] Ibid., p. 36.
[6] Josh McDowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict, Revised Edition, Volume I (San Bernardino, CA: Here's Life Publishers, 1979), p. 267.
[7] Ibid., p. 320.
[8] Mt 11:21-22, 15:21; Mk 3:8, 7:24,31; Lu 6:17, 10:13-14; Ac 12:20, 21:3,7.
[1] Henry M. Morris, Many Infallible Proofs (El Cajon, CA: Creation-Life Publisher, Inc., 1974), Chapters II and V.
[2] Ibid., Appendix A.
[3] There are dozens of excellent sources for the purpose. Two recent ones are the following: C. Dennis McKinsey, The Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 1995) and A. J. Mattill, Jr. The Seven Mighty Blows to Traditional Beliefs, Second Edition (Gordo, AL: The Flatwoods Free Press, 1995).
[4] Shmuel Golding, The Light of Reason, volume II (Jerusalem: The Jerusalem Institute of Biblical Polemics, 1989), p. 36.
[5] Ibid., p. 36.
[6] Josh McDowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict, Revised Edition, Volume I (San Bernardino, CA: Here's Life Publishers, 1979), p. 267.
[7] Ibid., p. 320.
[8] Mt 11:21-22, 15:21; Mk 3:8, 7:24,31; Lu 6:17, 10:13-14; Ac 12:20, 21:3,7.
[9] Morris, op. cit., pp. 186-188.
[10] 2Sa 7:13,16; 1Ch 17:12,14; Ps 89:3-4,35-37; Jer 33:17.
[11] Isa 13:20; Jer 50:39-40, 51:26,29,37,43.
[12] Mt 4:17, 10:23, 16:28, 24:34; Mk 9:1, 13:30; Lu 9:27, 21:32; John 5:25; 1Th 4:15,17; Re 3:11, 22:6,7,10,12,20.
[13] The theory that Jesus was not really dead when he was taken down from the cross has been prevalent. See, e.g., Hugh J. Schonfield, The Passover Plot (New York: Bantam Books, 1966). It should also be noted that Muslims deny that Jesus was crucified, mainly on the basis of a passage in the Qur'an (Surah IV:157). They usually conjecture that someone else was crucified in his place.
[14] 1Ki 17:21-22; 2Ki 4:32-35, 13:21; Mt 9:18-25; Lu 7:12-15; John 11:43-44.
[15] See Theodore M. Drange, "Biblical Contradictions Regarding Salvation", Free Inquiry 14 (Summer 1994), pp. 56-57.
[16] Isa 11:12, 42:5; Job 28:24; Jer 10:13, 31:37; Da 4:10-11; Zec 9:10; Mt 4:8; Re 1:7, 7:1.
[17] Jg 13:20, 20:40; Ps 68:18, 139:8; Pr 30:4; Isa 14:13; Mk 16:19; Lu 24:51; John 3:13, 20:17; Ac 1:9-11, 2:34; Ro 10:6; Eph 4:8-10; Re 11:12.
[18] In addition to Ge 2 & 3, see 1Ch 1:1, Mt 19:4-6, Lu 3:38, Ro 5:14-19, 1Co 15:22,45, 2Co 11:3, 1Ti 2:13-14, and Jude 14.
[19] Regarding unicorns, see Nu 23:22, 24:8; Dt 33:17; Job 39:9-11; Ps 22:21, 29:6, 92:10; and Isa 34:7. Regarding cockatrices, see Isa 11:8, 14:29, 59:5, and Jer 8:17. Regarding dragons, see Dt 32:33; Job 30:29; Ps 74:13, 148:7; Isa 13:22, 27:1, 43:20; Jer 9:11, 10:22, 14:6; and Mic 1:8. Regarding satyrs, see Isa 13:21, 34:14. And regarding fiery or flying serpents, see Nu 21:6; Dt 8:15; Isa 14:29, 30:6. Look these up in the KJV.
[20] Mt 8:28-33, 9:32-33, 12:22, 17:15,18; Mk 1:23-27,34, 5:2-13, 9:17-29; Lu 8:27-33, 9:39,42, 11:14-26, 13:11,16,32.
[21] Ge 9:25; Ex 21:2-6,20-21; Lv 25:44-46; Dt 15:12,17, 28:68; Jer 27:8,12; Joel 3:8; Eph 6:5-7; Col 3:22; 1Ti 6:1; Tit 2:9; 1Pe 2:18-21.
[22] 1Co 11:5-6, 14:34-35; Eph 5:22-23; 1Ti 2:9-14; Tit 2:5; 1Pe 3:1.
[23] See Isa 33:14; Mt 13:40-42,49-50, 25:41,46; Mk 9:43-48; Jude 6-7; Re 14:10-11.
[10] 2Sa 7:13,16; 1Ch 17:12,14; Ps 89:3-4,35-37; Jer 33:17.
[11] Isa 13:20; Jer 50:39-40, 51:26,29,37,43.
[12] Mt 4:17, 10:23, 16:28, 24:34; Mk 9:1, 13:30; Lu 9:27, 21:32; John 5:25; 1Th 4:15,17; Re 3:11, 22:6,7,10,12,20.
[13] The theory that Jesus was not really dead when he was taken down from the cross has been prevalent. See, e.g., Hugh J. Schonfield, The Passover Plot (New York: Bantam Books, 1966). It should also be noted that Muslims deny that Jesus was crucified, mainly on the basis of a passage in the Qur'an (Surah IV:157). They usually conjecture that someone else was crucified in his place.
[14] 1Ki 17:21-22; 2Ki 4:32-35, 13:21; Mt 9:18-25; Lu 7:12-15; John 11:43-44.
[15] See Theodore M. Drange, "Biblical Contradictions Regarding Salvation", Free Inquiry 14 (Summer 1994), pp. 56-57.
[16] Isa 11:12, 42:5; Job 28:24; Jer 10:13, 31:37; Da 4:10-11; Zec 9:10; Mt 4:8; Re 1:7, 7:1.
[17] Jg 13:20, 20:40; Ps 68:18, 139:8; Pr 30:4; Isa 14:13; Mk 16:19; Lu 24:51; John 3:13, 20:17; Ac 1:9-11, 2:34; Ro 10:6; Eph 4:8-10; Re 11:12.
[18] In addition to Ge 2 & 3, see 1Ch 1:1, Mt 19:4-6, Lu 3:38, Ro 5:14-19, 1Co 15:22,45, 2Co 11:3, 1Ti 2:13-14, and Jude 14.
[19] Regarding unicorns, see Nu 23:22, 24:8; Dt 33:17; Job 39:9-11; Ps 22:21, 29:6, 92:10; and Isa 34:7. Regarding cockatrices, see Isa 11:8, 14:29, 59:5, and Jer 8:17. Regarding dragons, see Dt 32:33; Job 30:29; Ps 74:13, 148:7; Isa 13:22, 27:1, 43:20; Jer 9:11, 10:22, 14:6; and Mic 1:8. Regarding satyrs, see Isa 13:21, 34:14. And regarding fiery or flying serpents, see Nu 21:6; Dt 8:15; Isa 14:29, 30:6. Look these up in the KJV.
[20] Mt 8:28-33, 9:32-33, 12:22, 17:15,18; Mk 1:23-27,34, 5:2-13, 9:17-29; Lu 8:27-33, 9:39,42, 11:14-26, 13:11,16,32.
[21] Ge 9:25; Ex 21:2-6,20-21; Lv 25:44-46; Dt 15:12,17, 28:68; Jer 27:8,12; Joel 3:8; Eph 6:5-7; Col 3:22; 1Ti 6:1; Tit 2:9; 1Pe 2:18-21.
[22] 1Co 11:5-6, 14:34-35; Eph 5:22-23; 1Ti 2:9-14; Tit 2:5; 1Pe 3:1.
[23] See Isa 33:14; Mt 13:40-42,49-50, 25:41,46; Mk 9:43-48; Jude 6-7; Re 14:10-11.
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