WWFStern

This article, which I wrote, originally was published Here.

Anybody who knows me will attest to the following: Never has skepticism had a more faithful follower. Quite literally, I’m skeptical about everything. In fact, I’m even skeptical of a notion such as “Murder is immoral.” After all, I can conceive of no laboratory test that could be conducted which would demonstrate the immorality of murder (morality cannot be quantified, measured, gauged or tested via scientific instrumentation). With such a high degree of skepticism, naturally I look upon extraordinary, supernatural claims with a great deal of suspicion. And, as any individual familiar with the Bible will agree, that particular tome is chock-full of extraordinary, supernatural assertions (for example, the Jesus resurrection tale and the Lazarus corpse-to-companion tale). Considering that the events of the Bible happened millennia in the past, how possibly could they be substantiated now? Theists have the answer.

Christians claim that the Bible is inerrant. By virtue of its inerrancy—indeed, by definition—all the fantastic stories in the Bible must be true, resurrections included. The presence of the stories in an inerrant book is sufficient to substantiate them. This answer is satisfactory for about 12 seconds. Thereafter, one recalls the gross inconsistencies, historical inaccuracies, scientific impossibilities and internal incoherence contained within “the truest book ever composed.” A book containing grotesquely egregious inconsistencies, by definition, cannot be inerrant. Inerrancy also eludes any tome that has its historical facts wrong, or its scientific principles scrambled. Indeed, I intend to demonstrate here that the Bible is so unreliable on even the most mundane of matters that it surely cannot be trusted with respect to extraordinary, supernatural claims.

Prior to pontificating any further, I turn the stage over to Tom Flynn, writing in the December 2004 / January 2005 issue of Free Inquiry. In the following passage, Flynn explains some of the basic inconsistencies in the much-cherished Christmas story. It seems that Matthew and Luke simply can’t agree on anything.

The popular image of shepherds and wise men side by side before the cradle? Matthew says wise men. Luke says shepherds. Neither says both. The star in the East? Only in Matthew. “Hark, the herald angels sing” ... but only in Luke. Matthew never heard of them.

But then, only Matthew heard of Herod’s slaughter of the innocents ... That’s right, the indiscriminate killing of every male baby in Judea — with one significant exception — did not merit Luke’s attention. On the other hand, no Roman historian chronicles this atrocity either, not even Flavius Josephus. Josephus reviled Herod and took care to lay at his feet every crime for which even a shred of evidence existed. Had Herod really slaughtered those innocents, it is almost unimaginable that Josephus would have failed to chronicle it.

Matthew says Joseph and Mary lived in Bethlehem, moving to Nazareth after their flight into Egypt ... But Luke says Joseph and Mary lived in Nazareth all along; Jesus was born in Bethlehem only because Joseph and Mary had traveled there to enroll in the census... Roman records mention no such census; in fact, Roman history records no census in which each man was required to return to the city where his ancestral line originated. That’s not how the Romans did things.

Unfortunately for biblical literalists, the Bible’s indisputable fallibility does not end there. We are provided with conflicting genealogies tracing the ancestral lineage between David and Joseph. In the genealogy according to Matthew, there are fewer than 30 generations separating David and Joseph. In the genealogy according to Luke, there are more than 40 generations. According to Matthew, the relevant son of David is Solomon. According to Luke, the relevant son of David is Nathan. According to Matthew, Joseph’s father is Jacob. According to Luke, Joseph’s father is Heli. The lists have little crossover. Again, these are the mundane, little details that the Bible has all fouled up. One also must wonder why the scribes bothered to list Joseph’s two ancestral histories. After all, Jesus was born to a virgin. As Richard Dawkins, in The God Delusion, rightly points out, “… if Jesus really was born of a virgin, Joseph’s ancestry is irrelevant and cannot be used to fulfill, on Jesus’ behalf, the Old Testament prophecy that the Messiah should be descended from David.”

I submit that, considering the Bible’s gross inconsistencies on mundane, ordinary details, Jesus’ alleged life must also be treated with extreme skepticism. Although I believe it’s probable that Jesus, as a man, actually existed, I doubt very much the narrative commonly accepted among Christians. It’s notable that Jesus’ alleged life has nearly all the hallmarks of the classic hero myth, on which many religious characters were modeled. In The God Delusion, Dawkins writes, “… all the essential features of the Jesus legend, including the star in the east, the virgin birth, the veneration of the baby by kings, the miracles, the execution, the resurrection and the ascension are borrowed – every last one of them – from other religions already in existence in the Mediterranean and Near East region.” In trying to adapt Jesus’ life to conflicting mythologies, the aforementioned contradictions were created. Dawkins continues, “… Matthew’s desire to fulfill messianic prophecies (descent from David, birth in Bethlehem) for the benefit of Jewish readers came into headlong collision with Luke’s desire to adapt Christianity for the Gentiles, and hence to press the familiar hot buttons of pagan Hellenistic religions (virgin birth, worship by kings, etc.).”

One of the most convincing bits of evidence demonstrating that the Jesus life with which we are familiar might be fabricated comes from Saint Paul. One of the earliest associates of the Christian church wrote voluminously about Christianity … but didn’t seem to know one thing about Jesus’ life as we know it. The enlightening film The God Who Wasn’t There broke down Jesus’ crucial life events and then showed just how many Saint Paul apparently never had heard of. Even the things Paul did know about, such as the crucifixion, resurrection and ascension, didn’t happen in the real world, but rather in a realm of myth. There’s very little evidence that Paul ever seriously considered the notion that Jesus walked the same ground as he did. Another meaningful bit of evidence relates to secular historians. No such historians, who lived at the same time as Jesus did, ever made mention of the man. Yes, secular historians did mention Jesus after he was dead. However, none mentions him while he was alive and, allegedly, working amazing miracles.

With respect to Jesus, my conclusion is as follows: Jesus probably lived, but his life was nothing like what is portrayed in any of the Gospels. His life, as recounted differently in each Gospel, was a construction to fulfill the scribes' varied agendas. His life simply was wedged into the writer’s mythology of choice.

And finally, to biblical veracity. Letting my arguments speak for themselves, I will close with a question to which I hope I’ve given readers the answer. If the Gospels are demonstrably contradictory, historically inaccurate, and fallible on the most mundane and ordinary of details, why should one believe them when it comes to their most incredible, extraordinary claims? In the final analysis, it seems inerrancy has come up bankrupt.

Joan of Bark

Also, if the Bible was consistent, we wouldn't have 1000+ Christian denominations all claiming to be following it religiously whilst disagreeing with each other on what it really says.

The Bishop

I'm not sure what your grounds for accepting Jesus's existence, if you accept the "crucifixion in mythic realm" argument. Since Paul was the earliest Christian writer, and as you say the only details of Jesus's life that he wrote about were the crucifixion and resurrection, and consequently the other accounts of his life (which as you pointed out are highly doubtful) came after this and could have been derived from this, then all reasons for believing in Jesus's existence simply fade away, don't they?

I myself, however, do not accept that Paul was writing about any kind of mythic realm when he wrote about Jesus's death and resurrection, and the simple fact that he doesn't write about other details of Jesus's life is not sufficient reason for claiming that he doesn't know at least some of them (Jesus being a Galilean who went to Jerusalem, Jesus's mother being Mary etc). He was writing pastoral letters, not a Gospel. I think the very fact that the nativity stories take two different approaches to shoehorning a rural Galilean fishing community carpenter into a Royal descent and birth in Bethlehem, is compelling evidence that Jesus was a Galilean and consequently a real person.

I don't myself have any real Inerrancy quarrels that derive from the New Testament. My Inerrancy quarrels derive entirely from inerrancy leading to Young Earth Creationism - a position which, if I were a theist, I would regard as denigrating God - as if God could not Himself create a Universe and then have the patience of waiting 13 billion years for its fruition in sapient life. And Creationism itself, which denigrates humanity's supreme gift of having been able to find out its own origins - a privilege granted to few organisms in the whole Universe, surely?

EarlOfLade

HUH?

Did you just call the NT inerrant but not the OT?

The Bishop

Er, no. I didn't say the NT was inerrant, what I said was I don't really have any arguments with "The NT is inerrant" people, since their views are not particularly threatening the education of children and the advancement of science and humanity. Half the time, the NT definition of "inerrant" completely knocks the supports from the YECs in any case.

EarlOfLade

But that is the same as saying that the NT is inerrant.

If you have no problems with people claiming the NT is inerrant, you are supporting their notion.

The Bishop

As George W. Bush might argue!!

WWFStern

Inerrancy with respect to either Testament is untenable. As I wrote, the Christmas stories presented do not complement each other; rather, they conflict and contradict. Joseph's genealogy is hopelessly scrambled between Luke and Matthew. John doesn't agree with Matthew and Luke with respect to Jesus' place of birth. When accounts flatly contradict, they cannot both be correct. Either one is right and the other is wrong, or both are wrong. Both cannot be right. Hence, the bankruptcy of inerrancy.

Johnny Skeptic

Inerrancy is no doubt a fraud, but regarding the genealogies in Matthew and Luke, James Holding and Glenn Miller have come up with explanations that saitisfy their fans. Holding's web site is at tektonics.org. If I recall correctly, he says that sometimes writers skipped some names when they wrote about genealogies. Farrell Till is an excellent source for discrediting Biblical inerrancy. I would like to know what good either genealogy is since there is no evidence that either genaology is true.

Bob K

Having seen them but not remembering all their details, there are genealogies in the OT, and these conflict with the NT genealogies as well as with themselves.

Perhaps someone herein can provide details and/or links inre the OT genealogies.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, ...

... ("Meanwhile, back at the ____, ..." is a figure of speech that usually leads to a humorous saying, such as, making fun of the "Lone Ranger" radio/tv series, in which to catch Big Baddie and his backup group, the Not Nice Persons, the Lone Ranger usually--John Kerry-like--says, "I have a plan," and the 'plan' usually involves a disguise and some problem that results in the forewarning by an announcer announcing, "Meanwhile, back at the _____, Tonto/the Lone Ranger, ...", and so, as the parodies go, "Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Tonto, not knowing his great friend the Lone Ranger was disguised as a door/pitchfork, shot him in the knob/stepped on his prong!"), ...

... perhaps The Bible ought to be renamed The Bable.