Genealoies part 1

So what are the verses that seem to disagree with each other?

1. The Genealogy of Jesus

Ask a defender this question: “was Jesus a descendant of Solomon?” The Gospel of Matthew 1:6 indicates that Jesus was a descendant of Solomon. But Luke 3:31 says Jesus is the son of Nathan, Solomon’s half-brother.

The defender would most likely respond by saying that one genealogy is most probably Joseph’s and one is Mary’s. The problem is that the two both claim to be Joseph’s.

To this, the defender would say that it was common tradition to ascribe a woman’s genealogy to her husband.

This may be true. But it’s not what the text says. So, either the text is wrong or it requires detailed, hidden knowledge about the culture in which it was written.

Ask the defender to point to one other historical document in which it is known that the genealogy of the wife is ascribed to the husband. It is likely that you will be met with a stammering non-answer.

Ask the defender to point to one other genealogy in the Bible that does this. Again, you'll most likely get nothing.

So why is it that we believe that about this passage? And how did we come to that conclusion? This is a great example of a conclusion that is preordained by the base assumption that "the Bible must be flawlessly accurate." Some defender somewhere came across this passage and couldn't find an explanation for it. So he said "ah HA, now we know that a woman's genealogy can be ascribed to a man." But it is unlikely that there would be any other reason for coming to this conclusion except that preconception.

If this is true, then what else in the Bible requires such hidden knowledge? This means that there are potentially other places in the Scriptures where the text doesn’t mean what it says, but forces the reader to have a very deep understanding of the culture -- an understanding based on nothing, really. That is, an understanding based only on a guess -- since the defenders could not really produce any other reason for believing this hypothesis. It is not as though someone came across another stack of documents that did this and then used those to understand the passage. It is hypothesized only because of the preconception.

In fact, there are some other possible explanations for this that still fulfill the hypothesis. For example, it is possible that Joseph was adopted. In that case, one genealogy would list his biological family and the other would list his adopted one. This explanation is also fairly reasonable. And equally without evidence. Is it right? perhaps. Perhaps not.

But, again, it requires information that is not in the Bible or any other historical document to understand.

This is a rough slope for Biblical defenders. It is sort of oxymoronic. Think about it. In order to show that the Bible is without flaw, I need to show that you cannot understand it by just reading it -- you need some additional body of information (like whether Joseph was adopted) that is not in it. In a sense, it means that in order to show that the Bible is flawless, I need to show that it is somewhat irrelevant. After all, what good is a book that is perfect but not understandable?

Does it matter? Does it really matter who Joseph's grandfather was?

It is a good question. Perhaps not. But let me explain why it might.

First, the genealogy of Christ itself is critical. If those genealogies are wrong, then there is no evidence that Jesus is the Son of David. If not the Son of David, then not the Christ, right?

Of course, the other weird thing here that no one seems to mention is that the Bible claims that Jesus wasn't really the son of Joseph anyway. So his genealogy is meaningless. Naturally, the other elephant-in-the-room question (albeit a very small elephant) is why is this genealogy in here at all? The defenders don't have much of an answer to this that I've ever seen except "God wanted it that way." Oh, but for the critics, this is fertile ground. See, if you step away from the assumption that the Bible is flawless and agree that this is a possible mistake (perhaps a scribal error), then the door opens. If the genealogy itself is unreliable, then that explains a number of things. (Some of these I'd like to cover in a follow up post). For example, the critic may say that this is an evidence that the whole idea of the virgin birth was added later -- after the gospels had long been written. Think about it. The only reason to put the genealogy of Joseph is if you believe that Joseph is the father of Jesus, right? Otherwise, it just doesn't matter. This isn't the only evidence the critics site for this, by the way, but, frankly, it is a decent argument. If Jesus was born of a virgin, they contend, why isn't the genealogy of Mary in here? Oh perhaps that was a breaking of tradition, of course, but in an inspired, God-breathed work, what difference would tradition make?

So from the critic's perspective, this may imply that someone added the genealogies later to "prove" Jesus was the Son of David. And then later still, someone amended them to imply that, while they were there and obviously took a lot of effort to produce, they weren't relevant since Jesus was not really Joseph's offspring anyway. So in the part of the gospels that say Jesus was the son of Joseph "so it was said," the "so it was said" was possibly added after the teaching of the virgin birth started to become popular in the 2nd century (after the writing of John's gospel, since it is not mentioned in there).

It is a logical argument. Of course, that does not make it right. Nor does it make it wrong. But it is one that the defenders have a hard time with, whether they realize it or not. It is a great example of how "un-assuming" the Biblical perfection can make a bunch of other pieces seem to click into place. Again, it doesn't mean it's right. But when you say "assume X is wrong" and a bunch of other pieces start to make sense, it is a persuasive point.

Second, if the genealogies are wrong -- or are right but not knowable without some mysterious piece of information not found in the Bible -- then why would we not believe the same thing about the resurrection? If the "trick" to the genealogies is that we don't really know that Joseph was adopted, then perhaps the "trick" to the resurrection is that we don't really know that Jesus had a twin brother who appeared on the scene after the crucifixion. Of course, there is no reason to believe this. But then, there's no reason to believe that the genealogy in Mathew is of Mary, while the one in Luke is of Joseph (or who knows? perhaps it is the other way around?).

Of course, I'm not really suggesting a "twin brother" theory. All I am saying is that if the gospels are unreliable in one place, then why are they assumed to be reliable in another? Perhaps the "trick" to the resurrection -- the part we don't know -- is that, in the culture, this term would have been used symbolically -- to show victory over evil. Or perhaps it was a "code" to anyone fighting the Romans that indicated that those who die for God would be rewarded.

Naturally, I am stretching here. But the point remains. If the genealogies aren't correct and aren't understandable, then how do we know anything else is?

-- More later.

Quick thought

From a church sign on a Salvation Army church in Canada:
"Most people accept the Christ of the cross, but reject the cross of Christ"

Diversion

Taking a break from the discussion of the Scriptures for a couple of thoughts.

I’m a little confused by the fact that Jesus also seemed pretty unconcerned about “big issues.”

He fed 5,000, but didn’t really do anything to address world hunger. He headed many sick, but only a few by the pool at Bethesda (can you imagine being one of the sick there who didn't get healed?). I wonder why that is.

He healed people, but did not walk through the hospitals healing. He fed thousands, but did not address world hunger. He all but ignored political oppression.

It seems to me that if you read very carefully, Jesus seems to have this near-hesitation about healing. He does it. But in only one case that I can think of (Lazarus) does He go out of His way to do it.

In many cases, He sees to almost be unwilling or unconcerned about it. "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy." And they get healed only when others step in to say "please make them shut up." Or take the guy on the mat at Peter's house. Jesus doesn't even seem to intend to heal him until the Pharisees complain about the fact that Jesus pronounced forgiveness.

It wasn't as though Jesus doesn't seem to want to heal or that He is really unwilling. I'd say the feeling I get is more of indifference.

The Centurion's servant: the religious leaders seem to almost have to drag Jesus along -- not that I think He resisted, but it's not like He saw the Centurion coming from afar and jumped up to meet him.
The 10 lepers: Go show yourselves to the priests.
The pool of Siloam: Go wash off the clay.

It wasn't as though He ever said "no." But there just feels like He didn't go out of his way to say "yes" either.

Even the preaching. It's a story of Jesus trying to avoid the crowds as much as of His preaching to them. Time and time again, He's taking the disciples to sneak away. And when He preaches, it's because He has "compassion for the crowds because they were like sheep without a Shepard," not because He was anxious to impart wisdom to them. It's as though He didn't plan on saying anything, but the crowds just were so helpless and harassed, that He felt like He needed to.

I've wondered why. I think it's because His focus was just different. There's a verse in the King James which reads that Jesus "must needs" go to Jerusalem. I think that was what He was all about. The rest was just window dressing. It's not that He didn't care about the people, but He didn't come to do that. He didn't come to preach or heal, but to save.

If the gospel is just a single line in a book, if salvation is just a matter of “believe in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved”, if it all comes down to a fact that you have to hear and accept, then I suppose you could argue that God must not be a very good publicist.

If it all boils down to one line, one piece of information, one commitment, then shouldn’t Jesus have been born in time square on New Years of they year 1999? Rather than in an obscure village in a remote part of an ancient empire?
I mean, isn’t it almost as though God wasn’t very concerned about getting the word out – at least not quickly.
True, He sent the Apostles. But only a few, and they traveled on foot. What about the people who died on the earth before the gospel “got to them” ?

… Or maybe there’s more than that. Maybe the healing and the preaching and the timing is bigger than we see.
Maybe God is less concerned with the information you have and more concerned with what you do about it. The Great Commission itself doesn’t say “Go ye therefore into all the world and preach the gospel,” it says “Go ye therefore in to all the world and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded.”
That’s a lot different from what we hear today. And maybe this explains why it’s all about the people who bring the gospel, rather than a list of facts. An angel could tell people “believe in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved,” but how could and angel teach those people how to obey all that He’s commanded? How could an add in the newspaper? Or a sign on a billboard?

Perhaps it is the same with all of Jesus' preaching. Sure, it was helpful. But it wasn't about the words "do unto others," it was about the cross that changes lives.
And maybe that was true of the healing too. It wasn't that Jesus was unwilling, perhaps, but that He had something else in mind. After all, what would be the point of healing without salvation? Or what would be the point of teaching without the example?

And, indeed, perhaps we can learn from this too. Perhaps it is not about the physical things we do, or the money we give , or even the people we help, but the spirit of love and renewal and rebirth with which we do it.
And perhaps it is not about filling our churches or getting people to sign doctrinal statements but about living inspired lives.

I've often wondered what would happen if we, like St. Francis, "preached the gospel always, even using words when really needed".

What if someone came to us and said they wanted to become a Christian. And rather than getting all exited and getting them to hurry up and pray before they changed their minds and walk down an aisle on Sunday morning... what if we said "no".
What if we said "you're not ready -- you don't understand what it means".
What if we said "consider the cost.... it is a narrow way you must come... to follow means to pick up your cross daily... to find your life, you must first loose it".

I wonder what the effect would be if we reacted more like the way Christ seem to sometimes (at least to me). If we said "oh? well... if you reeealllly want to be a Christian, then I guess I can help". It seems like we're so far to the other end of the extreme sometimes -- almost begging people or threatening them.

I wonder if we did this, if we would win more souls or fewer? Or perhaps the same? And I wonder if our churches would be more or less devoted.
Perhaps, you value what is hard to get? And you treasure what you really understand.

paradoxes and contradictions

If I were writing a book on this, I'd not jump to this topic so quickly, because this is the meat of it. I'd pull the readers in with 210 pages, restating things and telling them things they already had known long ago -- what publishers call "filler," and politicians call "campaigning" -- then I'd smash the symbol here.

For real discussion to exist, for the critic to really make ground, I think the critic needs to meet the defender on the defender’s home turf.

If the critic can find even one place where the Bible clearly disagrees with itself, then the strict and total defense of Biblical absolutism is lost. And the defender is left to defend the Bible on less solid ground.

It seems to me that where a lot of Biblical criticism falls down, and where a lot of defenders spend probably way too much of their time is focusing on the other categories. Whole books are written on criticism and Biblical defense that don’t even touch this area. But it is the most important. These books basically say "assume that the Bible is without error. Now I'll prove that the Biblical issues can be explained". Look, if you assume that the Bible is without error, you don't need to explain the issues. It's like the Catholic belief that the Pope is infallible. Why do they think that? Because there's a Papal decree saying it. But.. huh?
But it's the same thing. These books will quote the Bible to prove the Bible is inerrant. Huh?

What’s more, if the Biblical critic can win here, he can then go back and pick up the other areas. If the defender concedes that there may be some factual areas where the Bible might be wrong, then it throws the gates open to talk about theological areas where the Bible might be wrong.

This is monstrously huge.
Let’s face it, there are a lot of places where the Bible seems to offer challenges to the defenders on theological matters. There are theologians who spend their lives banging their heads against the wall, trying to explain how two seemingly inconsistent sections of Scripture can co-exist without contradiction. How could Moses say that an all-knowing God changed His mind? How could God condone of Abraham marrying his sister? How could we be saved by "grace apart from works lest no one should boast," but then have it be that it is "works, and not faith alone that saves you".
Once the defender concedes Biblical fallibility, then all of this Biblical confusion goes away by the simple assertion that one of the sections is probably wrong.

The good news here is that lots of things get simpler. Any of the other categories of criticism become non-issues. The bad news is that some things get way more complex. There is a certain simplicity to believing that there is a flawless set of instructions, given by God, on which we can build our doctrine and even our lives. Take it away and you introduce confusion. As soon as you allow the argument “well, maybe Jesus never said that”, you force people to pick and choose their theology.

So, what would happen if the Bible were to have internal errors? It seems to me that there are three possible things that could mean.

1. The Bible is not in-errant.

OK, let’s start with the double negative! Basically, this means that the Bible is wrong. It may not be all wrong in every place, but it’s not always right either.

Of course, this makes some things a lot simper and some things more complex, as mentioned. Then we would need to ask questions about its reliability. If it’s wrong, then how wrong is it?

Here’s the deal, when people open this one up and say “ok, the Bible seems to have internal factual errors”, then this opens up all the other areas for discussion. Then it becomes valid to say “the Bible seems to contradict itself theologically, so rather than looking for a solution or changing my doctrine, I’ll just assume it’s a contradiction.” Then it makes sense to look at the Bible like any other inspirational document and deny the parts of it that seem inconsistent with our modern thinking. Basically, then it becomes perfectly valid to re-visit the issues above. It doesn't mean the Bible is bad, or without value, just that it is not the source of all truth.

2. The Bible is in-errant, but not really meant to be taken literally.

This is similar to the Roman Catholic view that says the Bible is without error on issues of faith and morals, but not necessarily on matters of historical fact. It’s the view that the events in the Bible are meant to be symbolic. Perhaps there was no flood and no Noah, but the story has some teachings that we can learn from.

Of course there are a couple issues here. First, it seems strange that the Bible would be flawless on theology, but wrong on other things. And it also calls into question what the theology means. If there really is a 40-day flood with Noah, it's simple. God is telling us to get in line. And telling us what happens if we don't. But if the story is just a parable then what does it mean? It leaves a door open.

3. The Bible is in-errant and meant to be taken literally, but it does not mean what it seems to say.

This is a view often taken by Biblical defenders. When pushed against a wall, they will refer to some rather obscure historical tradition that (in their minds at least) makes the issue go away.

For example, take a look at the genealogy of Jesus. There are two, and they differ. Luke and Matthew indicate that Joseph had 2 different fathers (Luke says it was Heli, while Matthew says it was Jacob). Some Defenders say that this is because one of the two genealogies belong to Mary and it was a "common tradition" to apply a woman's ancestry to her husband. Only, these defenders cannot provide any other examples of this, nor could they tell which of the two belong to Mary and which is Joseph's. In addition, it is not what the Scripture says. It may be what it means, but it isn't what it says. So, how can one be sure?

The uncomfortable implication here, though, is that those of us who are not so knowledgeable can never really understand the truth in the Bible.

Throughout history, there have been periods when the laity were discouraged from reading the Bible for this very reason.

There is a forth view, that I didn’t list. Some churches say that the Bible is without error in its original texts, and the problem is that we don’t have the original texts. These things, they say, are simple scribal errors. But the big issue here is that we don’t have the original texts. So how do we know what is in them?

This is a big deal. For example, take the great commission found in the Gospel of Mathew.

And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying,

All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

Mt. 28: 18-19 KJV

This verse is etched in stone on the top of many church doors. It is the verse on which many evangelical churches find their identity. It is the theme verse for whole missionary movements. However, according to the best research we have been able to do, it may have not been in the original Gospel of Mathew. In fact, it most likely was not.

Other verses meet into the same fate. The famous story of the woman caught in adultary, for example, is probably not in John at all, but added later.

I'd like to spend some time zooming in on some of these problematic verses, but that will have to wait until later.

The elephant in the room

While the Bible is not specifically a document about history, it is a document rooted in history. This means that the writers may not have been very interested in documenting the history. But it also means that the historical events in there matter.
In addition, it means that the Bible itself is history. It is open to the same study as any other piece of history.
So open your Bible to the Gospel of John, Chapter 8, verse 3. It is a famous section of Scripture -- the woman taken in adultery ("He that is without sin among you, let him first cast the first stone" ).
If you have a good study Bible, take a close look at the beginning of the section. There will be a small angled bracket at the left -- something like this [
In the margin, there's a note that "this passage is not in the oldest and most reliable texts".

Conservative Christians have this mental picture. No one believes it, but everyone acts like they do. The story goes like this.
Moses took a book out of Egypt. It was a large blank journal-type book-- pages and pages of blank paper.
He opened it and wrote "In the beginning, God created...." and kept writing until he finished Genesis, Exodus, and the rest of the Torah. When he was on his deathbed, he handed the book to Joshua, who then wrote Joshua, and handed it to some historian who wrote Judges. It passed down through David, Issiah, and so forth, and ended up in the temple at Jerusalem. Upon the resurrection, someone -- maybe a converted priest? -- gave the book to Mathew, then it went to Mark, and eventually came back to John so that he could write the book of Revelation. When he put the last "Amen" in, it was on the last line of the last page of the book. The text was framed nicely, and fit the book perfectly. Then, the book was handed to the Pope (or someone) who put it in the basement of the Vatican, where it is today
We don't really believe this. But we sure act like we do.
What really happened is a little more ... well... "messy".

Someone wrote the Gospel of John. In truth, we really don't know who. Tradition teaches that it is St. John, the Apostle. But the gospel itself never says. And it's not like there's a signature. In fact, there were many people producing books that were supposed to have been written by the Apostles. There is a Gospel of Peter, one of Judas, one of Barnabas, and even one of Mary Magdalene. So all we really have is a *guess* -- perhaps a good one, perhaps a right one, perhaps an educated one, but still a guess. In fact, most non-evangelical Bible scholars expect that there are 3 authors, not just one.

After it was written, it was taken to Kinko's to get published. Only, then they realized that Kinkos was closed, so they manually copied it by hand. And then they did it again -- perhaps copying the copy. Someone sent the book around to different churches. The churches also made copies.

Time passed. In fact, 300 years passed. Sometimes Bible scholars take this time pretty loosely. They'll say things like "the early church believed...." If you asked "when?", they may say "the 4th century". But that's THREE HUNDRED years. It is like us making a comment on something that happened before Jefferson was born.

So 300 years later, the Roman Emperor Constantine had a problem. The Christians had broken up into several groups (two or three main ones with one or two smaller, splinter groups), and they were fighting.... really, fighting. The emperor had to call out the army a few times.
So the emperor summoned all of the people he considered leaders in the churches and locked them up in a building in a town called Nicaea. This is the group who came up with the famous "Nicaean Creed" ("we believe in God, the Almighty, the maker of heaven and earth..... etc").
One of their side-jobs was to produce/approve/complete/get a set of writings that the churches could all use to standardize this doctrine, so that these fights wouldn't happen any more -- and we see how well that worked ;-)
The Emperor didn't just order them to come up with a set of Scriptures, he offered to pay them for the scribes to copy it. Now, rather than copying from copies, these documents would all be scribed from one set of masters, by a group of professional trained Xerox machines with quills.
And out the other end of this came the Bible -- or at least what we now call the New Testament.

But there are a few problems. Perhaps the biggest is that this was THREE HUNDRED years after the events took place ("before Jefferson was born", right?). And we now know (or we think we do) that the "master" documents those scribes copied weren't right -- or at least they weren't the same as the older texts. Hmmmm. I've never heard that on Sunday morning.

If you look up the verse above in the New International Study Bible, you'll see the note above about the oldest texts. I point this out because the NIV is the center of conservative Christian thought. Take a look at the list of editors sometime. You will see the laundry list of evangelical Christian seminaries represented -- Dallas Theological, Grace Brethren, Asbury, Moody Bible Institute, and so forth. There not one representative from Harvard, Yale, anything Catholic, nor any other "non-conservative" group. This isn't a criticism nor a praise, by the way. It just is.

But think about that. Here are a group of very conservative, evangelical scholars who have devoted their lives to the Bible. All of them (except a couple) go to churches where the doctrinal statement says "Bible is infallible" (or some such words). They had every reason to take the "Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it" approach to the translation. But they couldn't.
I deeply respect there intellectual honesty here. But also, think about what it means. If there was significant enough evidence to convince these guys that certain parts of the Scripture were not accurate (or at least, not original), then the evidence must have been overwhelming, indeed.

So here we are. We think that we know that the Bible approved of by the council at Nicaea -- our Bible -- was not the same as the one written by the writers. This opens a vortex, theologically. Does that mean that the council at Nicaea was right? and the original authors were wrong? Does it mean that the Nicaean group was wrong? And, therefore, that our Bible is wrong?

And of course, if they were wrong about John 8, (and Mt 28; 18-20 -- look it up, it has the same note), then what if they were wrong about John 17? There isn't as much evidence that this was added later. But there are some strange things in it. There is some linguistic weirdness is that you can even see in the English. (For example, Jesus says "come, let us go", then talks for 2 more chapters before everyone gets up to go. That is possible -- believable, even -- but strange. And many scholars think perhaps John 16 and 17 were probably added later).

And if John 16 & 17 were not original, then what about the story of the Centurion's servant, which is different in each of the gospels in which it is told? Were there 2 Centurions? Or is it possible that one story is just a mistaken copy of the other.

Ask any serious Bible expert, and they'll admit to all this (and maybe more). But it's not what we hear on Sunday. On Sunday, the pastor gives us 8 Greek derivations for the phrase "without sin" in the story of the woman in adultery, neglecting to mention that we don't really know which words the original author used or if it was even penned in Greek.

That is the elephant in the room that we keep ignoring -- we just don't know. We say the Bible is inerrant in it's original text, but we don't have that. We can, possibly, put some of it back together by reading the early church writers, but then the best we can do is a patchwork of guesses that may not themselves be original.

more to come

Inconsistencies between our modern knowledge and the Bible

Here are some sub-topics that I promised here. If you haven't read this entry, you may want to. Let me list them and dive into the first, then I'll pick up the 2nd in a follow up post.
This certainly isn't an all-inclusive list, but it does give a pretty good cross-section. I'm listing as the major sub-topics: Inconsistencies between history/archeology and scripture, inconsistencies between science and scripture, and inconsistencies between modern theology and scripture .

• Inconsistencies between history/archeology and scripture

Example: “Joshua fought the battle of Jericho and the walls came tumblin’ down”

But some modern archaeologists would say that there is evidence that the city was destroyed long before Joshua ever got there.

However, there is a problem here.

It’s a common saying that “history changes”. There are plenty of examples of cases where people were convinced that some archaeological discovery proved the inaccuracy of scripture only to find out later that the archaeological discovery was wrong. People have said that clearly Joseph could never have been Prime Minister of Egypt, being a foreigner. And then someone found a record of foreign officials of Egypt during a certain time period. There are cases where people questioned who was the last king of Babylon, only to find out there was an issue with the “king” verses the “prince regent”, which, when understood, explained the whole confusion.

And, to be fair, it cuts the other way, too. For years Biblical defenders have pointed to one or another piece of evidence from history as proving the Bible’s basic accuracy. And then the historical evidence was contradicted by a new discovery.

One of the problems that the Biblical defenders face is that many of our preconceptions about history come from the Bible. Even before archaeologists started unearthing the tombs of Pharaohs, they had an expectation of what they might find based on historical writings, the Bible among them. Sometimes it takes years for these expectations to be invalidated. And when they are, the essential authority of the scriptures is questioned.

But the real issue here is that we aren’t done with archeology. If we had all the answers and they disagreed with the Bible, the critics would have a good argument. Or if we had a special cable channel that would allow you to see into the past and everything we saw supported the Bible, the defenders would have a good “told ya’ so” argument.

But there’s always another discovery around the corner. And even that’s not the last word.

The other issue here is that the Bible isn’t really basically a record of history. It’s basically a religious document. This isn’t a criticism, just an observation.

Look, the Bible isn’t very good at logging history. What did Jesus do the first 30 years of His life? Was He really trained as a carpenter, like Joseph? Or is that just a guess on our part? How many hours did Jesus spend in the tomb before the resurrection? We don’t know, exactly.

It’s very strange. Sometimes the Bible is specific almost to the point of triviality. How tall was Goliath? 7’ 11”, or so. We’re told how heavy his spear was. We know how many people were involved in most of the battles in the Old Testament.

But what was the name of the Pharaoh that “hardened his heart” against Moses and his God? We’re never told. All we’re told is that he “knew not Joseph”. There are hardly any dates ever mentioned in the Bible – using any calendar. Whole decades and even centuries are skipped, with only a reference in a genealogy.

The point is that some details just aren’t important to the authors of the Bible and some are. This selective recording of history is a real problem. (What makes it worse is that what the Biblical authors felt was important is very different from what the contemporary historians thought was important. So the things that were recorded by a Roman or Egyptian historian were very different from the things recorded by the writers of the Bible.)

Again, the point is that the writers of the scripture weren’t interested in writing a history textbook. They were writing a theological document, which incorporated certain stories from the past. The point of the stories wasn’t to record what happened, but to show something about God, working through history.

So I’d say we pretty much have to throw out all these arguments for and against. It becomes a wash.

Let me continue this later with the next couple topics.

Biblical defenders

I have struggled with this a lot. And explaining it will probably take several posts, since I've been thinking about it for a long time. Most time, I'm like this. I'll think about something for 3 years or so, before either getting anywhere or giving up.

Frankly, I am not even sure where to begin. So let me start here.
Let's pretend that people in the world fit into two groups. Let’s say that there are Biblical critics and Bible defenders. Let’s say that the Bible defenders believe that the Bible is in-errant in some variation -- perhaps there are differences in details, but in general, they agree on this. And let’s say that the Biblical critics don’t believe in its infallibility.

You could say that the burden of proof is on the defenders, since they are the ones who are asserting that there is some action needed as an outcome of their thesis. But that depends on the jury. So in reality, it seems like the burden in the West is really on the critics, since there is so much history and tradition based on the Scriptural infallibility. So it seems that the critics are up against it.

The critical arguments can basically be categorized into several groups that can be divided into 3 main categories:

1. Inconsistencies between our modern knowledge and the Bible

2. Inconsistencies between Biblical ideas in different parts of the Bible

3. Inconsistencies between factual data in different parts of the Bible

I guess I would see this in this order from the least provable to the most provable. That is, the fact that the Bible may seem inconsistent with something we believe today may not be easy to substantiate and may not even matter. Someone could believe that the reference is totally symbolic. Or, one could believe that the knowledge today is flawed.

At the next level down, looking for ideological differences in the Bible is more significant than looking for areas that may seem difficult to believe or understand. But it is still filled with issues. Many Bible scholars have spent their lives researching some of these issues only to come up with totally different conclusions.

Looking for factual differences in the Biblical text, though, is most demonstrable.

In addition, each general category has a couple sub-categories. Naturally, there are a million ways one could break this up and this is only one.

I'd like to dig a little deeper into each of these in separate blog entries, since I want to keep each blog entry somewhat manageability short.

But I think this is fairly accurate in how Biblical critics approach things. I think almost every argument against the Scriptures can fall into one of these three areas.
I think a lot of these arguments are just noise, which I'll discuss later. But some are worth looking into.

Keep watching for the rest of the thoughts on this.

Who Am I?

Since my profile isn't very filled out, I thought it was worth a quick blog entry about who I am theologically.

I was raised mostly Catholic. I went to a Catholic high school and spent a lot of time digging into the faith. I am not an expert on the Catholic faith by any means, but I have spent a good amount of time learning about Catholic theology.
I decided to leave the church in my college years to attend a more Biblically focused church. It was a small, independent little church that doesn't exist anymore. They were typical of the little evangelical/fundamentalist churches of the 80's. They panicked about things like whether the high school kids were wearing jeans to evening services and dismissed the elder whose teenage daughter got pregnant.
I was involved in a campus Christian organization at college. And while all of this was and is an important part of my life, much of it has always confused me.
So I've spent a lot of time trying to dig into it. I've read books on apologetics looking for that magic argument that will address some of my concerns. I have spent time studying some of the more mainline philosophers and theologians -- from Karl Barth to Freud to Nietzsche to Schopenhauer.
I consider myself a Kierkegaardian -- which is a bit of a joke, since Kierkegaard himself said something like "to label me is to render me useless."
I currently go to a large evangelical church. Honestly, there are some parts of it that I love. We opened a wonderful community center in the last 3 years, which offers free medical, legal, dental care, free after school sports programs and lots of other things to anyone who shows up.
And honestly, there are some parts I'm not so crazy about. The pastors are great. But among the lay leaders, there are a lot of expectations on how to behave. They have a very pre-defined, generally pop-Christianity way of looking at things. I'm not saying they're always wrong. But it does seem to me that they have not considered the alternatives.

So, that's me.
The blog is a place for me to think on e-paper, and maybe one or two of you will think with me.
Hope we can all enjoy the ride.

Feels like the first time

So, here it is. A project years in the making, now taking on it's latest incarnation.
For the one or two of you that have actually made it this far (I can't in my wildest imagination conceive that there are more than that ), you may wonder what the heck this blog is.

Well, let me tell you.

I don't know.

(sorry couldn't resist that).

For years and years, I have been thinking about theology.Coming from a good Christian church, I've noticed that there are lots and lots of questions that bounce around my brain that no one else seems interested in. Or perhaps, they don't know how to answer. Or possibly, they're avoiding. I'm not totally sure, but suspect it is a combination of all of these.

In any case, this blog is my attempt to capture some of the questions and come up with answers where I can.

So, if you're here looking for canned pop-religion, you're in the wrong place. If you're here looking for close-minded dictatorial dogma, you're in the wrong place. If you're looking to give me, money... well, we can talk ;-)

You may think the questions I am asking are silly. You may think I'm just being dense. And you may be right. But I want to look in all the corners and understand it. I guess, if you can't accept that, then just believe that everyone needs a hobby and this is mine.

If you are not a Christian, you are welcome here. In fact, it may give you some questions or answers of your own. But understand that this will be focused on Christian theology. Perhaps, I am a theological bigot. But, honestly, I have to write about what I know. It would make no more sense for me to write about Islam than it would for me to write about ancient history of the planet Zoton. I simply don't know enough about either.
That said, I do read non-Christian authors and others that the core church goers either don't know about or don't like. Even the title of the blog is a loose nod to Sorein Kierkegaard, who wrote a book called philosophical fragments.

So if you've found yourself here, put your feet up, grab your favorite beverage and open your mind to some explorations. Add me to your RSS reader. Or ignore me. I won't be offended much either way, but I would LOVE to hear any arguments, counter-thoughts, questions and whatever. To that end, I had thought of starting a forum rather than a blog, but two things bothered me. First, I figured it'd be a party with me as the only guest anyway. Second, I would suspect that the only guest that would show up would be a porn site spammer or a person who was just out to be obstinate and find a place to rant. And I didn't want to spend the time policing it.

So we start with a blog and see where it leads. Could be that I'll add a forum later. Or that it will entirely disappear,

But if you're here and find it interesting, drop me a note. I'd love to hear from you.