Letters to a Young Atheologist

Letter 3: Regarding the Validity of the Bible

Dear Mr. Kappus,

Again, I apologize for the delay in responding to you lately. Due to work and other obligations, my time has been quite compressed and has not allowed me to respond to your message more promptly. Anyway, the conversation with the Christian you described is typical, and I'm more than happy to take some time to give you some thoughts on how to respond.

Dear Mr. Thorn,

I'm encapsulating a dialogue I had with my Christian friend, Mr. Dogmass:

Please get back to me with any comments!

There is a question I often pose to believers, which I think is highly pertinent here. The question basically asks: "Do you [as a Christian] accept the teachings of the Bible unquestioningly?" It's a yes or no question, but I have not met a lot of Christians who are willing to answer it directly, with a simple "yes" or a simple "no." Normally, there's some hesitating before an answer is attempted, and even then it's a lukewarm answer at best. (I've found that Christians defending their god-belief are quite hesitant to commit themselves to anything of a certain nature when questioned about their beliefs.)

A "yes" answer to the question [i.e., "Yes, I accept the Bible's teachings unquestioningly"] is the confession that the assertions in the Bible are accepted before they are scrutinized. Thus, he can only "evaluate" them as "true" on the Bible's own terms, which is a self-referential circularity, i.e., unverifiable by nature.

A "no" answer to the question [i.e., "No, I don't simply accept the Bible's teachings unquestioningly, I believe they are verified independently"] is the confession that some 'authority' outside the Bible is appealed to judge the Bible. This can only be interpreted as the believer stepping on the toes, if you will, of his god. For he requires some independent standard to verify the teachings he will attribute to god. In other words, god's word is not enough to stand on by itself, they must be measured by comparison to some standard outside the Bible to be determined worthy of acceptance.

Things get a bit more complicated when the notion of "fulfilled prophecies" enters into the discussion. But not a lot more complicated. The Bible records numerous prophecies throughout the Old and New Testaments. The Bible also either records their fulfillment, or suggests that they have been fulfilled, or are posited as waiting to be fulfilled beyond the scope of history recorded in its pages. In some cases, some apologists actually believe that some prophecies have a duplicitous nature: that a single prophecy can be interpreted in having two intended events of fulfillment. One such case is the famous Isaiah 7:14 case. This verse is translated in the KJV as follows: "Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; 'Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." This was a prophecy directed to Ahaz and an upcoming battle (i.e., an event in the near-future). Christians (beginning with the author(s) of Matthew in the New Testament) concede that this verse had a prophetic intention in the near-future of its recording (i.e., the upcoming battle viz. Ahaz - the "first interpretation"), but also argue that this verse had a long-range prophetic projection that was fulfilled in Jesus' 'virgin birth' (the "second interpretation"). However, we see why this cannot be so. Observe Tim Callahan's criticism of this second interpretation (regarding Jesus' virgin birth) and why this view of Isaiah 7:14 is a sham:

One of the main points I want to emphasize here, though, is the fact that the belief that prophecies have been fulfilled usually rests on belief that the Bible is genuinely true history. Thus, reliance upon the notion of "fulfilled prophecies" to secure belief may well fall under the "yes" answer to my question above. Asserting that the Bible's prophecies were fulfilled can only be backed up by yet more appeals to the Bible, thus the believer still shows himself to be accepting the teachings of the Bible unquestioningly. He accepts the assumption that the events prophesied were actually prophesied before they occurred; he accepts the assumption that the alleged "prophecy" can be shown to be a legitimate prophecy (i.e., instead of a vague forecast whose 'fulfillment' could be ascribed virtually to any future event that seems to fulfill it [e.g., "A star will arise when your fate has been sealed" - well, stars "rise" every evening - too vague, no specifics, the 'prophecy' is fulfilled at dusk every day], or instead of a reasonable guess that requires no supernatural revelation to conclude [e.g., a tribal nation is experiencing unceasing friction from another tribal nation, and the "prophet" predicts that one day there will be a military clash - your donut-baker could predict as much...], etc.).

The believer also assumes that, supposing the 'prophecy' of the event actually did predate the event in question, that some intentional manipulation was not engaged in order to 'fulfill' the prophecy. For instance, I could "prophesy" that on January 1, 2000, I will no longer work for my current employer. That's quite easy to fulfill - I simply resign from my job before that date, and the 'prophecy' turns out to be true. Ascribing such activity as 'evidence' of divine intervention or 'revelation' is as desperate as hoping the tooth fairy heals my cavity before the dentist discovers it and proceeds to drill for fillings!

Does the Bible have any prophecies that resembles the latter? Check it out for yourself. In a section called "That Scripture Might Be Fulfilled" (pg. 129 of Bible Prophecy: Failure or Fulfillment?), Callahan writes:

(Also, regarding the "ass prophecy" of Zech. 9:9, note that Matthew misinterpreted the OT verse in question (Zech. 9:9) as meaning two asses. Because of this misinterpretation, Matthew has Jesus sitting astride them both (Matt. 21:5-7), while John 12:13-15 has Jesus sitting only on one!! Meanwhile, involved in the same "fulfillment" are two more problems: First, Matthew has Jesus instruct his disciples to steal the ass and her colt (two animals, mind you), for Jesus is recorded to have instructed them thus:

This is nothing short of instructing common horsetheiving! This flies in the face of the commandments that Jesus is reported to have endorsed, which means Jesus was a hypocrite at best. Second, John chapter 12 does not record Jesus' instructions to steal an ass and her colt. Instead, John, probably because he felt his savior was above instructing men to steal for him, simply stumbles upon an ass. Note John 12:14: "And Jesus, when he had found a young ass, sat thereon..." Note, John's ass is singular as opposed to Matthew's doublet - an ass and her colt.)

But where is this prophecy recorded outside the Bible? If one seeks a standard outside the Bible to attest to a particular prophecy's fulfillment, why is there no search for verification of the prophecy itself outside the Bible also, in order to prove that the prophecy actually predated the event supposed to fulfill it? Did the citizens of Tyre leave any remaining histories containing the record of such a prophecy against them? What about the Chaldeans? What about the Greeks? What about any other neighbor in the vicinity that could have kept such records?

Thus, appealing outside the Bible to confirm its teachings is, as expected, normally incomplete.

Some believers have attempted to evade giving an answer to the question, "Do you accept the teachings of the Bible unquestioningly?" by arguing that the authority of the Bible is accepted on the authority of the church. But this does not relieve the problem of the original question, it merely postpones the inevitable confession: either the teachings of the Bible are accepted before they are scrutinized, or one has made appeal to some extra-biblical 'authority' to accept these claims. But, to complicate things further, asserting church authority as a means of evading the issue merely creates the obvious question: Do you accept the assertions of the church unquestioningly?

Again, as above, a 'yes' is the confession that the assertions of the church are accepted before they are scrutinized.

Likewise, a 'no' is the confession that some 'authority' outside the church is appealed to judge the assertions of the church.

And arguing that the church finds its authority in the Bible, but that the Bible finds its authority in the church, is no better than any argument that Muslims can give in defense of their god-belief claims. Essentially speaking, they paint themselves into a corner. And, being stuck in that corner, they continue their attempts to convince those who are not stuck in their same predicament to join them in their conceptual captivity. Some are quite clever indeed in making a believable case, but as you can see, a few simple questions are sufficient to prick their otherwise benign little bubble.

Postscript: My friend also says archeological evidence supports The Bible. But all the archeological evidence there is consists of cities/places and people who lived, right? That may support the places/cities and people in The Bible, but it's not evidence for any supernatural events, right?

This is an excellent point, and one that may throw the believer who assumes that unbelievers must reject everything in the Bible. Often there's an unacknowledged bifurcation in the mind of the believer: Either one accepts the Bible in its entirety, or one rejects the Bible in its entirety. Many believers do not realize that there is a "middle ground" in which it is acknowledged that belief in some of the stories in the Bible is also compatible with rejection of the supernatural attributions associated with many of those stories. This point has been made by many critics of Christianity in the past, and it is a point that should not go unmentioned. For example, I can believe that a certain individual named Solomon was at one time King of Israel as described in the Bible, but that does not mean I must also believe that a god exists. Belief that Solomon existed and was king of Judah neither stipulates nor rules out god-belief. But the belief that Solomon's renown wisdom and fortune were bestowed by god or gods does presume the existence of said god or gods. But how can such a belief be verified? Assuming Solomon existed, one would have to prove that Solomon had the wealth ascribed to him in the Bible, which would not be very easy to do, and then a causal connection would have to be shown between Solomon's wealth and the god purported to have bestowed it upon him, which is impossible to prove. Such a notion must be accepted in the absence of proofs, i.e., on faith.

Likewise, archeological discoveries of ancient ruins determined to belong to those places as described in the Bible are not incompatible with atheism. This is consistent with the acceptance of the possibility of the reign of Solomon described above. Just as it is possible that Solomon was king of Judah at one time, it is possible that there were two cities named Sodom and Gomorrah which are now uninhabited. If, for argument's sake, it were a fact that the existence of these two cities (or just one of them) were confirmed by archeological evidence, how would that confirm the claim that Lott's wife was turned into a pillar of salt? It would not.

The Muslim also argues that the Koran has archeological evidence on his side, too. Many stories in the Koran take place in cities and villages whose existence are confirmed by archeological evidence. So what? Does this mean that the entirety of the Koran is true? If we take Mr. Dogmass' position and apply it as a principle to the case of the Koran, Mr. Dogmass faces severe competition in the realm of faith. For indeed he himself would accept as fact the historic existence of the city of Mecca, which is a key archeological reference in the Koran. Does this mean he must accept the Koran as truth? According to his own principle as inferred from what you relate, the answer would be a definite yes. This would commit Mr. Dogmass to contradictory positions.

There is a fallacy in logic known as composition. Observe:

This is the fallacy that is committed when the Bible-believer argues that, because archeological discoveries confirm the truth that a particular place referred to in the Bible indeed truly existed, the truth of the entirety of the Bible is therein confirmed, too. This is no different epistemologically from arguing that the tale of Hansel and Gretl is true because we know that the Black Forest (Schwarzwald), the setting of the tale, exists.

These were just a few thoughts that came to mind.

I'd recommend the following articles as references related to answering your questions:

I wish you the best,

Anton

________________________________

[1] This is strikingly similar to a philosophical problem known to atheologists as the "Euthyphro Dilemma." Read up on this problem in the following web articles:

Plato's Euthyphro dialogue can be found at the following URL: