This is a short introductory essay to defend objective moral values. In philosophy, the term ‘objective,’ is defined as the existence of an object independent of human mind (mind-independency); “the object would “be there,” as it is, even if no subject perceived it.”1 In contrast, the term ‘relative’ refers to the perception of an object by the subject (mind-dependency).
‘Relativism’ espouses true or false moral judgments relative to language, culture or biological makeup.2 For instance, relativism need not consider polygamy as crime, for cultures or people can justify polygamy relative to their thought paradigm. Relativism denies objectivity and appeals to man’s mind.
Alternatively, ‘Objectivism’ espouses truth and falsity as independent of mind, so to claim and appeal to the reality of objective moral facts. Therefore, objectivism will rule polygamy to be a crime by appealing to the existence of objective moral laws (which is discovered and not invented by humans). This is similar to objectivism affirming the objective reality that sun is more massive than the earth.
THESIS
I – A Case for Objective Moral Values:
‘Objectivism’ or ‘we should not be moral relativists’ could be reasonably defended by positing the presence of ‘objective moral values.’ Moral relativism opposes ‘objectivism’ by negating the presence of objective realities.3 But if objective moral values can be postulated to exist, then moral relativism could be reasonably debunked.
(1) Objective Reality is Factual
There are objective realities. The fact that sun is more massive than earth is an objective reality. This fact does not depend on anyone affirming or negating it.
(2) Objective Moral Values are a Reality
It’s morally wrong to not assist a person in need when we are able to. Similarly genocide is morally wrong; it is morally wrong to deliberately and systematically eliminate a group of people. These are universally affirmed objective moral values and do not depend on people’s mind (whether anyone believes or accepts, it is morally wrong to not assist a person and to commit genocide). Thus there are universally affirmed objective moral values.
(3) An Objective Basis is Necessary for Objective Moral Values to Exist
The “objectivism” proposed by Ayn Rand (1905-1982) posits man’s selfishness or man’s survival as the objective foundation to objective moral values.4 But human selfishness cannot be sustained as an objective foundation against an argument that a certain human subjectivity ought to be involved in deciding opposing values of human selfishness.
Would it be objectively true if the Nazi’s argued that it was morally right for them to eliminate the entire Jewish population because the Jews were an economic burden to Germany? The human selfishness of the Nazis was predicated upon the economic crisis in Germany, but in stark contrast, the human selfishness of the Jews was predicated on protecting their own life. So the Randian objectivism would crumble when two opposing cases of human selfishness collide with each other. Thus one ought to subjectively decide between the opposing objective moral values espoused by the two groups.
But ‘God’ can be reasonably posited as the sole objective source for moral values. God, as the greatest conceivable being, transcends humanity and the space-time coordinates. Hence God is an objective reality and the sole objective basis for objective moral laws.
However, proof of God’s existence ought to be reasonably provided, if not, God cannot be posited as the basis of mind-independent objective moral laws. Many arguments for God’s existence have been reasonably and plausibly posited, such as the Teleological Argument,5 Cosmological Argument,6 Moral Argument7 etc.
Since objectivity, objective moral values, and an objective moral value giver (God) can be posited, a reasonable conclusion is that there are objective moral values. Hence, we should not be moral relativists.
II – A Case for an Immoral World:
Moral relativism would stimulate an immoral world without any restraint whatsoever. When moral values are predicated on human mind, morality would be a slave of the dogma that controls that human mind. If one’s dogma is cannibalism, he would appeal to moral relativism to justify his devouring of his neighbor. Since moral relativism promotes an immoral world, we should not be moral relativists.
CONCLUSION
Two mutually contradicting statements cannot be true within the same context, at the same time and for all people. So objective and relative moral values cannot both be true for they contradict each other. The presence of objective moral values and the case for an immoral world portrays that moral relativism exists by ignoring or suppressing the truth of objective moral values. Therefore, we should not be moral relativists.
ENDNOTES:
1http://www.iep.utm.edu/objectiv/#SH2a
2http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/relativism/
3http://www.iep.utm.edu/moral-re/#H3
4http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ayn-rand/
5 J.P Moreland, Scaling the Secular City – A Defense of Christianity, (Michigan: Baker Academic, 1987), p43-76.
6 Ibid, p15-42.
7http://www.reasonablefaith.org/moral-argument#ixzz2mPz3C86b
This article was posted at http://rajkumarrichard.blogspot.in/2013/12/should-we-be-moral-relativists_28.html
’ll attach a list at the end of things I’ve learned in research that go unaddressed by Christians who say you just have to have faith.—define faith for me? and I look forward to the research Adam
What are examples of the other side of the argument that you have researched? Are they what I have attached at the bottom?- Nagel, Hotchens, silverman,dawkins, shurmer, Krauss, Harris…..etc
I think it’s pretty obvious how Smalley destroyed Turek’s arguments in Unbelievable. Just listen to the following week’s show where Justin reads listeners’ reactions.–Can i base my opinion on what actually came out of David and Frank though ? Ill listen to the source and make my decision, the comments I listen to,but alot of it was trying to “reword” both of them.
Go to Itunes to find a Christian and an Atheist podcast. Then look at the episodes that discuss Turek’s book.–Is that the name of the podcast ? I dont understand
.
I didn’t say you were misquoting him. I say that because his reputation in the atheist community is quite low so you are not going to be taken very seriously—Ok, so you think im basing my opinion on popularity polls? So majority vote dicatates truth, not facts or reason ?
. And it’s not just because he is on the other side. It’s is arguments. The way he bashes evolution reveals his ignorance of what evolution is– Such as?
It shows he’s more about rhetoric than substance.–such as?
I know that’s not his mission statement. That’s what it should be–why? because you dont like what he says? you still havnr shown evidence for his intentional misleading, whats this commnent based on ? hostility?
. I guess you must have misunderstood what I said. And if you knew me personally, you would know I am not a feelings type of guy–ok
I am really very intellectual.–ok
Yes, feelings come after you learn the truth. But, Turek is all about emotion when he speaks. It’s part of his rhetoric technique.–but again, he has talked about not basing reality and truth on feelings, your making this claim again and not supporting it
Turek wanted to keep God out of it because he was not winning the debate–?, wow, no, he was trying to only stand on reason and logic on the laws of logic. Now , if you say your an intellectual, you should have spotted this. David couldn’t argue from this, thats why he was getting upset.
. Turek is a master at moving the goalposts in arguments when he feels he is not winning.–such as?
As I already mentioned, the links mean you must assume the reliability of the Bible–why would i assume? I do believe in the integrity and reliability of the Bible based on evidence (as do most scholars)
. After much study of the Bible, I can no longer do that. It doesn’t match up with science or archaeology.–how so ? Support this?
Talk to me instead–ok, im asking you to support some claims you made so we can discuss
I hold all documents to the same standard. The Bible has been researched and has failed when being compared to science, and history and archaeology—How did you come to this conclusion ? This really goes against the majority in the scholar world
. The teachings of the Old Testament were borrowed from civilizations before it. It is not original. The destruction of the Canaanites is a perfect example of how people created warrior gods and created religions around them when they were successful–false gods ” Yea, how does this disprove the Bible’s accuracy ? This is the whole reason he ordered the Canaanites to be driven out (along with the child sex slavery, sacrificing of children, bestiality…to name a few) Ill be happy to discuss the book of Joshua with you.
. I’ll list more examples below.–sure
As far as research of what pastors teach? Uh, yeah. Just go to church or download sermons. I heard it for 35 years before leaving the faith–ok, which ones? this again is an assertion that all Pastors do this and all people believe this. You must have everyone of the worlds sermon and theology on recordings and transcriptions? Ill tell you what..start with my pastor and show me this? http://medinaeast.graceohio.org/ ( this is not a very intellectual comment to make David to be honest)
“I do appreciate you researching the links”–ok, thanks? – do I hear some hostile feelings–not at all confusion is about it. I do see very clearly hostility on your part against Frank though (all your unsupported claims of him being intentionally deceiving)
The rest are things I’ve come across and documented as the other side of Christianity. I have over 30 pages. I doubt that I’ll get all of that on here. But I’ll put down some of the highlights.–cool, looking forward to it
It’s not just one of these arguments that got me to leave Christianity. It’s all of them combined that chip away at your faith as you research and learn and ready over time. Then you have to be honest with yourself about what you have found–I agree, this is what led me to Christianity. But, are you asserting that this process is a atheism only method? This is kind of what Frank was trying to tell David. He couldn’t except the fact that Christina beliefs arent based on “blind faith” as Dawkins and Hitchens have been propagandizing. Jesus, said “come let us gather and reason together”. Not” Come let us be fools together”
. I listed my sources and many times page numbers. I put the evolution stuff in at the beginning since I am the one who brought it up about Turek. Then there are things about the brain works and other science stuff along with critique of the Bible—Ok, discussion points sure
. I am not saying that this may all be true. I am saying that I haven’t gotten Christian responses to these points other than you have to have faith. I am open to discussion. cool Adam, I am to, pick one of those for me where people only give you ” you gotta have blind faith” Because I agree with you, thats junk !
Adam, Im curious. You used to agree with Frank, now you dont just disagree, but you have anger and attack him….why ? I can see not agreeing , but there is emotion tied to you personal comments about him. If you feel he is intentionally misleading and dishonest…..where/what is this opinion based on ?
There is related content at:
[1] http://philochristos.blogspot.com/2017/05/all-morality-is-relative.html
[2] http://www.str.org/node/42543#.WTaQD7pFyhc
This article assumes that mankind is going to lean towards the most evil choices. Which of course is consistent with what the Bible says, but not consistent with reality. The most religious parts of the U.S. have the highest crime rates while the most atheist countries in Europe have the lowest crime rates and happiest populations in the world (just read Phil Zuckerman’s research and books).
Penn Jillette has said that he has murdered and raped as many people he has wanted to as an atheist, which is zero.
The veil of ignorance argument puts an end to the discussion of needing God as a reason to make moral decisions.
So moral relativism is objectively true… or objectively false?
It assumes that you need God to even think about being moral in the first place, which is incorrect. And it assumes God is the standard for morality. Pretty relative to me. Morality is what is agreed upon by society. Gay marriage used to be immoral. But now that is obviously changing has Christianity loses its influence and science explains things. I would much rather base my morality on science as it reveals things the biblical arthors never even knew about.
But if you want to go by what the Bible says is moral, the godless countries are even better at it than the Christian ones are.
False. But I’m curious, why do you think the Christian metaphysic assumes that? See http://www.str.org/node/42543#.WTNVQ4UpCaM
Also, you’re stating that science will lead to only subjectively true “facts” (…objectively real fiction…). Why do you trust science then with respect to recognizing the irreducible preciousness of “Everyman“?
Neither 100% crime-rates nor 0% crime-rates constitute the ontological topography with respect to the particular interpretation of reality under review. In the good/better and in the worse/bad, in our best moments and in our worst moments, we are irreducibly precious. Whether we perceive it or not. You are appealing to Peaks in the topography of Peaks/Nadirs as the substance of the question on the table. However, it’s irrelevant. It doesn’t address the question: [A] Moral relativism is objectively true (…the proper interpretation of reality…) — or — [B] Moral relativism is objectively false (…an ultimately misguided interpretation of reality…).
As a moral relativist you’ve also now gone further and claimed science can recognize the objectively real fiction that is morality. First, how? Secondly, does that help you make moral (…fictional / subjectively true and valid…) decisions?
I never actually said what I was. But we’ll have to agree to disgree on the rest.
I referenced your statement, “…Pretty relative to me. Morality is what is agreed upon by society….”
Yeah, but how much of that is reality? I do believe there is basis for objective morality, but it’s open to change as we discover truth. That is why we are all outraged by what Christians did to nonbelievers during the Inquisition. Or Hitler did to the Jews. I think a lot of it is innate and influenced by society. I disagree it’s innate because of a god or religion. I think it’s obvious how society influences a person’s morality. Which is more or less saying public opinion and expectation plays a big role in this. And that changes from society to society and century to century. You cannot count out how evolution explains our development, which is where science comes in. That is based on truth. Science has shown how development of the brain in the womb impacts greatly a transgender person and how there are gay males who’s brains resemble more that of a female than a male. Yet, we still want to insist that they not like or be with same sex partners. So, a rational person could consider the facts and the truth, as revealed by the latest science research on gay sex or marriage, and change their minds on it being wrong. Or, stick with a 2,000 year old book that we don’t even have the original documents for and has been doctored whose authors knew nothing what we know today of science and how the world works to base our morality.
I grew up in a church that thought you were going to Hell if you used instrumental music during worship. But as the denomination started losing its young people, the open minded people of this tribe did some studying and realized this was a false interpretation of the scriptures and now a lot of these churches have instruments as one way to retain its members.
We have to search for truth and based our morality on that.
Instead of going back and forth on points we won’t agree on, here is my position. When I was a Christian I believed in heaven and hell. In my journey through deconversion, I came upon good reason to believe these two places were not real. If you have good reason to believe there is no such thing as hell, you are free to look at other perspectives with fresh eyes and discover there are those out there that are more loving than what the Christian story provides. Would you decide differently on some things if you were convinced that there is no afterlife and as a rational person, realize the Bible doesn’t have the power to hold you captive to what it say?. And now you no longer have to find arguments and reasons to support your conclusion?
So, yes, I believe that we have to anchor our beliefs on something firm. And maybe this entails a combination of things and reasons. I just don’t believe Christianity is the best of the choices provided knowing what I know now about it.
I think we agree that moral facts exist as immutable truths even if Man does not exist to perceive them, based on what you’ve said. You noted also, “I do believe there is basis for objective morality, but it’s open to change as we discover truth.” I think you are saying that those immutable moral facts exist, and do not change (…they are objective realities as per the author’s essay…), but that what changes is our knowledge of those facts, our discovery, and not those facts themselves. I don’t see that we disagree there. With respect to the landing zone for our process of discovery we find that reason, appetites, will, and reality converge in the following:
End quote. (David Oderberg, “All for the Good”)
Reason’s proper termini? The Christian metaphysic just is the reply to that question. Aristotle’s famous doctrine that all practical reasoning must find a terminus presses in. This is why “Dirt-To-Man” by ANY path in ANY Non-Theistic paradigm suffers the fate of remaining eternally open-ended and as such annihilates morality. That is why intellectually honest Non-Theists affirm the finally or cosmically illusory nature of morality. Whereas, “Dirt-To-Man” by ANY path in the Christian metaphysic necessarily retains the convertibility of the transcendentals and thereby lands in the lap of irreducible Self-Giving. Paradigmatically speaking, such is a radically different explanatory terminus than we find in ANY Non-Theism. THE GOLDEN THREAD OF RECIPROCITY is affirmed by natural theology, is perceived by reason, is seen by Non-Theism, but Non-Theism must foist a metaphysical impossibility as irreducible self-giving trades on irreducible indifference and the convertibility of the transcendentals is finally illusory.
To continue, one of the reasons we can for the sake of argument just grant the Non-Theist his Monism “in Christianity too if he insists” is just to show the point: all vectors fail to find rational and moral “ontic-closure” unless and until they “land-in” that which is necessarily irreducible — and that necessarily leads us out-of any virtue-pointing-arrow in the self-referencing (…Self-Reference in Trinity is on all fronts an entirely different metaphysic…). As discussed at http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2014/05/a-second-exchange-with-keith-parsons.html that is not “enough”. Also, you’ve fallaciously defined the Christian landing zone as defined by Carrots/Sticks, by Reward/Punishment, which is revealing in that it shows you never had a good grasp on the Christian claim, as in:
There again we must follow through to the irreducible contours of ultimate reality. Reason in her proper role as truth-finder is not *obligated* to chase after the ultimately illusory “qua” Truth. Only in love’s ceaseless self-outpouring vis-à-vis Being in totum in and by and of a thoroughly Trinitarian metaphysic do we find the *singularity* wheren the irreducibly rational is ontologically seamless with the irreducibly moral. Therein the rational leads our discovery into the moral even as the moral leads our discovery into the rational. Whether said *discovery* takes nanoseconds or gigamillennia makes no difference.
(…again as per http://www.str.org/node/42543#.WTUm0xPytLU etc…)
This article assumes that mankind is going to lean towards the most evil choices.—so whats a crime’s standard ? your importing a judgment here, by what standards are these made by ?
“The most religious parts of the U.S. have the highest crime rates while the most atheist countries in Europe have the lowest crime rates and happiest populations in the world “your judging a religion by its abuse and not by its truth. your arguing sociology in place of morality . these are two separate issues
“The veil of ignorance argument puts an end to the discussion of needing God as a reason to make moral decisions.”–Then please submitt to use the standards of good and evil without God? who sets them ?
Just research what Humanism is. That will answer all your questions here.
Is something good because God says it is or is God good because being good is an objective standard outside of God? If something is good because God says it is, then it’s arbitrary. If God is good because good is an objective standard, then why do you need God?
This question can go both ways. Not just to the atheist.
This is the Euthyphro’s Dilemma .
misunderstanding in the question is all this is
https://www.gotquestions.org/Euthyphro-Dilemma.html
http://crossexamined.org/gods-love-euthyphro-dilemma/
I am glad you referred to Frank Turek’s material. He was someone I read and listened to consistently until I researched the other side myself and found how off he was on things. If you want an example of how he can’t stand up to the fallacy of his arguments, just listen to the Unbelievable? podcast where he debates David Smalley. Then listen to The Dogma Debate podcast where Smalley hosts Turek and they debate more. Than, listen to the podcast A Christian and an Atheist where they go through his book I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist and the atheist on the podcast rips his arguments to shreds. So, be careful when you quote him. His job is making believers feel good about themselves. Not having any real effect when it comes to talking to talking to atheists.
Your links make a lot of assumptions and really doesn’t address the questions without those assumptions. You can not simply use the Bible when talking to an atheist and assume that is going to have any real impact. The atheist already has reasons not to trust the Bible. Have you studied the ancient cultures of the time when the Bible was written and seen how the Bible is a product of its time? Not what Christians have been told it is by their pastors.
I do appreciate you researching the links. But some of them are the exact ones I used to go to when I was a Christian that I later realized were misinformed and wrong when doing my own research outside of what the Christian apologists would say.
” am glad you referred to Frank Turek’s material. He was someone I read and listened to consistently until I researched the other side myself and found how off he was on things. If you want an example of how he can’t stand up to the fallacy of his arguments, just listen to the Unbelievable? podcast where he debates David Smalley. Then listen to The Dogma Debate podcast where Smalley hosts Turek and they debate more.’– i have, ( biut i didnt on the second one, but i will) , but these are not examples of why you think he fails, you need to be more specific. Examples of particular points/counter points. I could say ” if you want examples of how Turek slammed the other side check out his debates with Michael shurmmer, David Silverman. These really dont support any specific points though
“So, be careful when you quote him. “–good advice for everyone. always check the resources, but this doesnt support your claim anymore or less.
“His job is making believers feel good about themselves”–hoe did you come to this conclusion? He states as his mission statement to come to a truth claim. he has talked many times against basing your opinions on feelings. SO this is a bit ignorant coming from someone who used to follow him ?
“Your links make a lot of assumptions and really doesn’t address the questions without those assumptions.”–such as?
“You can not simply use the Bible when talking to an atheist and assume that is going to have any real impact. The atheist already has reasons not to trust the Bible.’–correct, i believe in the opening Theme song for “cross examined” there is a sound bite where Dr Turek says” If i believe this book, does that make it true? So again, for someone who used to follow him, this is a blatant misdirection on your part ?
“Have you studied the ancient cultures of the time when the Bible was written and seen how the Bible is a product of its time?’–well, I have read historians on interpreting ancient writings in their culture, sure. Have you ? This is the same standard they use for all of antiquity, are you implying they dont?
” Not what Christians have been told it is by their pastors.”-So your asserting that a) all pastors are ignorant to the historical culture and language from which they teach from b) Christians are all unaware of this and continue to accept this c) this is the policy and subscription in which Christianity is taught from. Can you give us the evidence for this claim ? Support this?
“I do appreciate you researching the links.’–mmmm, ok i guess, thanks?
“But some of them are the exact ones I used to go to when I was a Christian that I later realized were misinformed and wrong when doing my own research outside of what the Christian apologists would say.”–such as?
“I am glad you referred to Frank Turek’s material’–I am to, thanks
“He was someone I read and listened to consistently until I researched the other side myself and found how off he was on things.”–well shame on you for not researching the other side of an argument, i do, and that has what helped me confirm the Christian worldview as the best explanation for reality.
“If you want an example of how he can’t stand up to the fallacy of his arguments, just listen to the Unbelievable? podcast where he debates David Smalley. Then listen to The Dogma Debate podcast where Smalley hosts Turek and they debate more. ‘—I have, and it really helped me in being confident of the Christina worldview, but you need to be more specific about what particular points and answers in these two debates you are referring to. I could just as well say ” for example of how Frank destroyed atheism, check out the debates with David Silverman and *. this doesnt really support WHY I think he did.
“listen to the podcast A Christian and an Atheist where they go through his book I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist and the atheist on the podcast rips his arguments to shreds.”– I have heard a couple of these before, but send me the link, ill check it out.
“. So, be careful when you quote him.’–good advice for everyone, but because you disagree with it, doesn’t mean im misquoting him, or trying to enforce misconception. if you think that, you need to offer support of my intent.
“His job is making believers feel good about themselves”—Now if you used to follow him, you know this is not his mission statement. he says in every podcast on Cross examined ” if your looking for NPR, stop right here to get the truth, or thats our intent anyway” He also stated many times about the flaws of basing worldview and truths on Feelings. I feel a little hostility behind your remarks ?
On the Unbelievable debates, i feel David really stumbled . He couldn’t stay on topic. He cant or refused to distinguish between epistemology and ontology. He only wanted to state “you dont need God for reason”, but never gave a really good reason why. Frank had to correct him many times about the differences of “how and Why” we know.
“Your links make a lot of assumptions and really doesn’t address the questions without those assumptions”–such as?
“You can not simply use the Bible when talking to an atheist and assume that is going to have any real impact.”-agreed, the “unbelievable” podcast your referring to i believe had Frank say 2 times “Lets leave God out of it” But David wanted to keep bringing it in, to criticize it.
“Have you studied the ancient cultures of the time when the Bible was written and seen how the Bible is a product of its time?”–yes I have, and ? Are you asserting because it was written in a different time and culture, it cant be true? Cant be tested? cant be researched? do you hold this standard for all historical documents? what is the expiration date when truth expires then ?
“Not what Christians have been told it is by their pastors.”-this is what Pastors teach ? All pastors? this is what all Christians believe? Can i see your research on this?
“I do appreciate you researching the links”–ok, thanks?
“But some of them are the exact ones I used to go to when I was a Christian that I later realized were misinformed and wrong when doing my own research outside of what the Christian apologists would say.”–such as?
“I am glad you referred to Frank Turek’s material.”- I am as well, very insightful and honest man
I’ll attach a list at the end of things I’ve learned in research that go unaddressed by Christians who say you just have to have faith.
What are examples of the other side of the argument that you have researched? Are they what I have attached at the bottom?
I think it’s pretty obvious how Smalley destroyed Turek’s arguments in Unbelievable. Just listen to the following week’s show where Justin reads listeners’ reactions.
Go to Itunes to find a Christian and an Atheist podcast. Then look at the episodes that discuss Turek’s book.
I didn’t say you were misquoting him. I say that because his reputation in the atheist community is quite low so you are not going to be taken very seriously. And it’s not just because he is on the other side. It’s is arguments. The way he bashes evolution reveals his ignorance of what evolution is. It shows he’s more about rhetoric than substance.
I know that’s not his mission statement. That’s what it should be. I guess you must have misunderstood what I said. And if you knew me personally, you would know I am not a feelings type of guy. I am really very intellectual. Yes, feelings come after you learn the truth. But, Turek is all about emotion when he speaks. It’s part of his rhetoric technique.
Turek wanted to keep God out of it because he was not winning the debate. Turek is a master at moving the goalposts in arguments when he feels he is not winning.
As I already mentioned, the links mean you must assume the reliability of the Bible. After much study of the Bible, I can no longer do that. It doesn’t match up with science or archaeology. But don’t just send me links. Talk to me instead.
I hold all documents to the same standard. The Bible has been researched and has failed when being compared to science, and history and archaeology. The teachings of the Old Testament were borrowed from civilizations before it. It is not original. The destruction of the Canaanites is a perfect example of how people created warrior gods and created religions around them when they were successful. I’ll list more examples below.
As far as research of what pastors teach? Uh, yeah. Just go to church or download sermons. I heard it for 35 years before leaving the faith
“I do appreciate you researching the links”–ok, thanks? – do I hear some hostile feelings
The rest are things I’ve come across and documented as the other side of Christianity. I have over 30 pages. I doubt that I’ll get all of that on here. But I’ll put down some of the highlights. It’s not just one of these arguments that got me to leave Christianity. It’s all of them combined that chip away at your faith as you research and learn and ready over time. Then you have to be honest with yourself about what you have found. I listed my sources and many times page numbers. I put the evolution stuff in at the beginning since I am the one who brought it up about Turek. Then there are things about the brain works and other science stuff along with critique of the Bible. I am not saying that this may all be true. I am saying that I haven’t gotten Christian responses to these points other than you have to have faith. I am open to discussion.
Evolution (Bill Nye, Jerry Coyne, Francis Collins)
Evolution is a theory accepted among the scientific community. Theory in science means it’s pretty much something you can take to the bank. Like the theory of gravity. DNA research, etc. supports the theory of evolution. Evolution explains the reason of suffering better because you don’t have to wonder why an all-powerful, loving God would allow the suffering. It also means there would not be an Adam or Eve.
Evolution and Belief: Confessions of a Religious Paleontologist by Dr. Robert Asher
-pgs. 144-149 graph 148 examples documented between 2000 and 2010 of transitional species found in the fossil record
Thinking Athiest podcast – 2/12/14 – Why Evolution is True with Dr. Jerry Coyne.
-the idea that there are no transition fossils is one of the biggest misconceptions about evolution
-Carbon dating only goes back 50,000 years but is often misused creationist when they claim it doesn’t prove things millions of years ago. Scientist never claimed this. Dating is done other ways
People in all religions get the same comfort in their religion through prayer and music and is not unique to Christianity. Community is a big benefit in Christianity but is also found in other religions as well.
The idea of life after death among the Jews wasn’t developed until the 6th century BC in captivity. The idea of a judgment day got God off the hook for allowing bad things to happen in this life. (The Reason Driven Live by Robert Price)
Not the Impossible Faith – Richard Carrier
Unlike what is preached at churches, Romans were not looking for drunken orgies but instead flocked to religions like Christianity which had moral codes. Instead of having to give sacrifices or money, Christianity’s cost was limits on sexuality, which was an easy trade off what the social gains.
The spread of Christianity had nothing to do with proof of a resurrection. It was because it spoke out against the elite. Something that society was prime for.
The Evolution of Adam by Peter Enns
-Four different sources for the Torah – J, E, D, P.
-The first five books of the Old Testament were written in four different styles of Hebrew reflecting four different time periods each type of Hebrew was used meaning one person like Moses would not have written them
The Bible Tells Me So by Peter Enns
-No evidence of an exodus
-The exodus out of Egypt would have been a 26 mile wide camp circling the desert for 40 years yet there has been no archaeological evidence found of that like would be expected from something that huge over that long of a time period.
Jesus the Zealot by Reza Aslan
-No synagogue in Nazareth
-No cliff in Nazareth
-No Joseph – just a myth to cover up a teen pregnancy
-Pilate was one of the cruelest governors and was eventually removed by Rome because of his brutality and executions. It would be out of character for him to even give Jesus a hearing much less hesitate executing someone who claimed to be a king other than the Roman Emperor
-Crucifixion was punishment for lower class peasants.
-Give unto God what is God’s and give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s was understood at that time to mean to give the coin that was shown back to Caesar and take back the land given to the Jews by God
-Misnah rules out the Sanhedrin trial of Jesus since this kind of trial was not established until after 70AD
-Jesus would not have been literate or educated as only the rich were which rules out him being able to teach leaders at the age of 12
-James believed you still had to keep the law. James sent “false teachers” to Paul’s churches causing Paul to defend his apostleship and telling them not to believe any Gospel preached to them. He told them to imitate him
-The letter of James was a response to Paul as it emphasized actions over faith
-James and his followers died when Jerusalem was destroyed allowing Paul’s Christianity to take over
-The Romans were Hellenized and much more apt to believing a God dying for the world vs. the Jewish expectation of a Messiah saving them from Roman Rule
-Jesus clearing out the temple would have been reason enough alone to crucify him. Since the temple and government were intertwined (Jews offered sacrifices for Caesar so were allowed to operate), any treasonous act against the temple was one against Rome too.
-The temple was several football fields in length and could not have been cleared by one person
Forgery Bart Ehrman and other Bart Ehrman books
-NT was written in Greek and Jesus and disciples spoke in Aramaic. They were uneducated as evident by what was said of them being unlearned in Acts. It would be impractical to think they would first learn Greek then write in Greek.
-Paul’s letters were not collected together from the churches until the end of the 1st century though in 2 Peter there is mention of Paul being hard to understand when Peter was killed way before then
-In the ancient world it was believed that the earth was the center of the universe, hell was below, and heaven was directly above. Just like is reflected in the Bible.
-The idea of the Trinity in 1 John was added by a scribe during translation
-Mark was the first Gospel but the others used Mark and added to it by unknown authors to fight theological challenges, not who the church attributed them to at the end of the 1st century. Each book contains more supernatural elements the further away it gets away from the time of Christ.
-The Greek the New Testament letters were written in is consistent with 2nd century Greek and not the type of Greek used in the 1st century when the attributed authors lived.
Bart Ehrman on the Unbelieveable Podcast on 4/9/16 in a debate
-The 4 gospels we have became officially recognized by Irenaues (who was a heresey hunter) around 150 AD because they were the ones that supported his view of Christainity. They were given the names of Matthew, Mark, Luke, etc. because they represented Christianity from Rome (Mark), Jersualem (Matthew), Paul (Luke) and John because he was an apostle. These were what the proto-orthodox Christians believed which were later voted on.
-Ehrman explains how the gospel of Matthew Presbeius refers to is not the one we have
The documentary Hellbound
-Hell was not a concept that was original with the Jews but was adopted from other cultures
The Believing Brain by Michael Shermer
-Societies that have less control of their future are more religious
-It takes more work for our brain to be skeptical than to believe. When feelings are involved our brain decouples facts from experience.
-Confirmation bias blinds religious people from questioning their beliefs
-Out of body and near death experiences can be explained by the brain research
The scientific research project the God Helmet
-MRI scans show how parts of the brain light up with religious music and speaking in tongues. Spiritual experiences were simulated to observe the parts of the brain that responded to them.
The Thinking Atheist Podcast – I Saw a White Light – June 18th 2013
-Out of body experiences and Near Death experiences are scientifically explained by the lack of blood to the optical nerves, brain, etc. These experiences can also be brought on by certain types of drugs. It is very much like lucid dreaming and memories of the past that have been forgotten are often brought up. This happens in all cultures. In America there may be a Christian experience but in others it could be a Buddhist experience.
Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker
-Goes into great detail to show how violence is, and has been, on the decline in every culture and human nature. Not getting worse like the Bible says it will in the end times.
-There is no such thing as evil. Whether it was Hitler or Jeffery Dahmer, there are reason why they did what they did such as their childhood, personality disorders, etc. that had disastrous effects on humanity. But not simply because of evil.
Reasonable Doubt Podcast
-(guest Robert Price) September 21, 2009 episode
-the book of the law and Deuteronomy was found under Josiah’s reign possibly implying that there wasn’t a lot of the Law written down at this time allowing the Jewish leaders to write the law like they wanted. Evidence of this by how people in 1-2 Samuel did not know how to worship and the book of Deut. Goes against some of the laws in Ex. through Numbers
-episode 83 – There is no evidence of language crossover between Hebrew and Egyptian like there should be if a people spent 400 years in another country.
The Evolution of God by Robert Wright
-The Old Testament laws were made during the time of Josiah. This is because it was a time of crisis and there was threat of invasion so it was beneficial to rally around one God who needed to be sacrificed to. This also consolidated the king’s power. This included going back and writing stories into history such as Elijah at Mt. Carmel where Yahweh was one God, not many. This ties back to Joshua supposedly purging Canaan of multiple gods.
-the Genesis family tree favors Persian names and show how the Torah related to other nations for peace
-The name Elohim from Genesis is from source P of the Torah and is an international name for God. It was a way of making “God” equal with other nations after 2nd Isaiah spoke of eliminating them.
-The latter half of Isaiah is written in a different language is was written much later. Thus the name 2 Isaiah
Deceptions and Myths of the Bible by Lloyd M. Graham
-The name Adama and Heva are found in other ancient cultures (Babylon, Hindu) where the Hebrew story is almost word for word
-No evidence of a worldwide flood
-400 deluge myths, each with their own Noah, ark, and Ararat
-Ishatar from Babylon was crucified, buried and resurrected. There are also 16 other “saviors” who were crucified throughout history.
-The concept of the Trinity is a pagan concept. Mithraism had it
-There was a Jesus cult among the Nazarites prior to 1 AD
-The city of Jericho in the time of Joshua would have fit in the Roman Colosseum
-The city of Ai was destroyed before 2000 BC and not rebuilt until 400 years after Joshua
-The Babylonian tablets tell a similar tale of the Canaan conquest about the king of Akkad plundering city after city, perhaps the source of the Hebrew story
-Daniel is assumed to be contemporary with Nebuchadnezzar yet part of his story was written in Aramaic, a language not adopted by the Jews until centuries later
-The scriptures call Belshazzar a king, but the historical Belshazzar was never king but only regent for Nabondius
-The Siamese had their Samson who pulled down the pillars of a pagoda killing himself and his enemies.
-The Greeks had their Samson and Delilah
-The excavation of Ezim-geber showed no evidence of a navy ship yard like the Bible claimed Solomon had
-Proverbs 22:17-23:11 is a nearly verbatim translation of the Egyptian book, The Wisdom of Amenemope, written around 1000 BC
Dan Barker Godless
-Philo of Alexandria was a historian in Jerusalem during the time of Jesus. He reported nothing about Jesus though the events of the Gospels would have been a big deal.
-The Jesus story could have been patterned after a story found in the Jewish Talmudic literature about the illegitimate son of a woman names Miriam (Mary) and a Roman solider named Panders, sometimes called Joseph Pandera.
-Apologists say the story of Jesus was written in a narrative style unlike the poetic style of other myths and legends but the very first account of the resurrections is written in a poetic, legendary style.
The Myth of Nazareth – Rene Salm
-The town of Nazareth was not mentioned in the Jewish scriptures, in the Talmud, or in the writings of Josephus
-The Greek gospels often wrote “Jesus the Nazarene” instead of “Jesus of Nazareth”
-There is no archeological evidence that the Israelites were ever outsiders to the land of Canaan.
-No Hellenistic coins have been found at Nazareth
-Archaeology says there were no people living in the Nazareth basin seven centuries before 1 AD. This is based off the fact that the coins, oil lamps, and shards found are from a later time. Not the time the Bible claims.
-No one has detected any evidence of a large public building (aka synagogue) in Nazareth dating earlier than the first Christian structure there which was erected in Byzantine times.
-Tombs are an important indicator that a village was established. Tombs in Nazareth are shown not to have popped up until the end of the 1st century AD. After the first Jewish Revolt (70AD).
-No one lived on the hillside of Nazareth or in the area while the settlement was Jewish until the 7th century AD
The Case Against the Case for Christ – Robert Price
-Acts shares several features of novels written in the second century such as travel, aretalogy (tales of miracles), depiction of fabulous and exotic peoples and religious propaganda such as what Paul came across in Athens.
-The Greek of 2nd Peter is too complex for a Galilean fisherman
-No taxation census ever required individuals to register where their ancestors lived.
-Saul was sent to Damascus by the Sanhedrin to arrest Christians even though the Jerusalem authorities had no authority there.
The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man By Robert Price
-Pharisees did not establish synagogues in Galilee until after the fall of Jerusalem post AD 70. Archeology shows no evidence of them during Jesus’ day.
-Matt. 1:11 has King Jeconiah in Jesus’ ancestary though the prophet Jeremiah said he would never have an heir take of the throne
-no mention of the town of Nazareth outside the Gospels until the third century
-The temple was 34 acres (34 football fields)
Deconstructing Jesus by Robert Price
-There is no archaeological evidence of there having been synagogues in the first century. Nor does the pious Pharisees movement seem to have existed there until after 70 AD
-The use of the term “rabbi” for scribes, and teachers seems to have become current only toward the end of the first century AD. Yet in Mark Jesus is called Rabi
-The gospel pronouncement stories fall in the same literary type as the Greek chreia, a brief introductory setting leading up to a pithy and/or humorous saying by the sage, who thus outwits his critics
-Justin Martyr and Firmicus Maternus tried to discount parallel and prior Christ like stories as Satanic counterfeits. These include the same rituals has communion and baptism
-The gospels match certain features often found in that of ancient romance novels
-The gospels showing of Pilate being desperate to give Jesus up to please the crowd is at odds with the historical Pilate known in history
-The Jesus story shares the same elements as people like Jesus be-Ananias, Simon bar-Giora, Carabbas, Theudas and the Egyptian, Jesus ben-Sapphiah, Jesus bar-Abbas, Elymas bar-Jesus, Jesus Justus, and the martyred Samaritan messiah
-The gospel life of Jesus corresponds in most particular ways with the worldwide paradigm of the Mythic Hero Archetype drawn from comparative studies of Indo-European and Semitic hero legends: mother is a royal virgin, father is a king, unusual conception, hero reputed to be son of god, attempt to kill hero, hero spirited away, reared by foster parents in a foreign country, no details of childhood, goes to future kingdom, becomes king, for a time he reigns uneventfully, he prescribes laws, later loss favor with gods or his subjects, driven from throne and city, meets with mysterious death, often at the top of a hill, no children succeed him, his body is not buried, he has one or more holy sepulchers
The Christian Delusion edited by John Loftus
-The Gilgamesh and Noah flood hero stories are similar because the Hebrew story descended from the Sumerian story.
-Floods are a common occurrence in ancient Mesopotamia while Israel is dry. People familiar with floods would have told stories about floods.
-the geographical setting of Noah’s story points towards Mesopotamia in origin
-Babylonia was the dominant civilization of that time. The historical trend is for a dominant culture to influence a lesser one through culture and myths
-Genesis 11 says Abraham came from Ur of the Chaldees. He estimated to have lived between the twenty third and sixteenth century BC. Yet the Chaldeans as a people came into existence around the eighth to seventh century BC.
-Genesis 26 says Isaac went to Gerar to meet Abimelech king of the Philistines. Archaelogy tells us there was no city of Gerar and no king of the Philistines during Isaac’s time period.
-Genesis 12, 24, and 37 include the use of domesticated camels. Archaeological evidence shows that camels did not become domesticated until eleventh century BC. Way after the time of the patriarchs.
-Circumcision was practiced by the Egyptians and Canaanites, both who of Abraham would have associated with. Only during the Babylonian captivity during the sixth century would it have set the Jews apart since the Babylonians of that time did not practice circumcision.
-the story of Moses’ birth closely parallels that of the legendary king Akkadian king Sargon.
-Jericho was either uninhabited or a small village during the period of the Canaan conquest (1550-1200 BC)
-Almost all of the roughly thirty cities Joshua was supposed to have conquered were either uninhabited at that time or destroyed by other means, or never destroyed.
-The idea of conception by gods was a common element in theme in biblical times. Ex. Perseus, Adonis, Parthenogenesis, Augustus Caesar, Romulus and Remus
-There is no other account of the massive slaughter in Bethlehem even though Josephus detailed Herod’s crimes and atrosicitis . Many which was less than the killing of babies.
-Roman census was done for taxation purposes at one’s permanent residence. Not their ancestral hometown
-Luke 2:1 says Caesar Augustus ordered a worldwide census though there is no evidence of a simultaneous worldwide census under him
-Luke 1:26 says Mary and Joseph lived in Nazareth which was under the rule of Herod Antipas and not the Romans. It applied to the rule of the Roman governor Quirinius which included Bethlehem, but not that was outside the control of the Romans
-Matthew and Luke said Jesus was born during the time of Herod the Great. Herod died 4 BC. The date of Quirinius’s census was 6 CE. A ten year difference.
-No historical evidence for any Roman census in Judea before 6 AD
-Daniel 11:45 predicted that Antiochus IV would die in a location between Jerusalem and the Mediterranean Sea, but he died in Persia.
-211 words in the letters of Paul were commonly used by second century writers. Not first century
-The symbol of the Christian substitutionary atonement had a preceding parallel in Hittite law.
-There was a copy of Acts circulating in the second century that’s over 10 percent longer than the one now in the Bible.
Why I Became an Atheist by John Loftus
-No historical evidence that Nineveh became monotheistic and righteous in following the Hebrew God.
-The city of Dan as mentioned in Genesis 14:14 and Deuteronomy 34:1 was not the name of that city until the time of the judges, three centuries after Moses.
-The Edomite kings listed in Genesis 36 mention kings who lived well after Moses.
-No archeological evidence that any constituents of later Israel were ever in Egypt
-Not a single campsite or sign of occupation has been identified in Sinai even though archaeology has detected the smallest of such sites elsewhere around the world
-The livestock used to support Israelites would have been too numerous for the Israelites to manage and feed
-It would have taken a week to cross the Red Sea
-The external material evidence supports almost nothing of the biblical account of a large-scale concerted Israelite military invasion of Canaan. Evidence is more consistent with nomads of that time rising up and becoming a nation over time
-Jericho was destroyed in 1550 BC and was uninhabited at the time of the conquest. There were not walls around Jericho at this time
-The city of Ai was uninhabited from 2400 BC to between 1200 and 1000 BC and had no fortifications
-In Numbers 21 Israel destroyed cities in the region of Arad including Arad. But Arad wasn’t founded until the tenth century BC, 300 years later
-In Deuteronomy 2 Israel destroyed Heshbon. But Heshbon did exist until 250 years later
-In Numbers 21:30 Israel sieged Dibon which was a city 400 years after the conquest. There are no Late Bronze Age residues there which would have been if it existed during the time of Numbers
-The conquest narrative were written by someone with a geographical perspective from around the seventh century BC. The geography described didn’t exist until much later than the time of the conquest
-The quote from the book of Enoch in Jude 14 would not be accurate because the book of Enoch was written in the second century BC, not by Enoch
-the language style of 2 Peter is too different to be written by the same author of 1 Peter.
-The church did not exist when Jesus spoke of it in Matt. 16
-4 gospels were all that was allowed to be accepted as evidence by Irenaeus’ argument that there should be 4 gospels because there are four regions of the world, four winds, and four faces of the cherubim
-The symbolic meaning of the number 7 go backs to the lunar calendar in Mesopotamia
-Creation out of nothing is a viewpoint that wasn’t developed until late antiquity rather than biblical times
-The origin of languages at the Tower of Babel is counter to how linguists view language development
-No known geological data to support those who defend a universal flood
-The flood would have required 8 times more water than we now have
-The Greek word translated virgin when referring to Mary meant young woman, not virgin, in the original Hebrew
-Savior-gods Krishna, Osiris, Dionysus and Tammuz were born of virgins centuries before and were known to the Gospel writers. Most of them were crucified and raised from the dead. Justin Martyr acknowledged this too
-The idea of a future resurrection for all the saved derives from pagan Zoroastrianism
-It was not custom among the Jews to use spices in caring for the dead
-There are many firsthand accounts of several people seeing at once the apparition of a person recently deceased (Allison, Resurrecting Jesus, p. 270)
-We have no idea where the town of Arimathea is
-The notion of life after death wasn’t accepted until the second century BC in the days of the Maccabean crisis
The End of Biblical Studies by Hector Avalos
-“The Most High” and “the LORD” are two different gods. The Most High is probably the name of a god pronounced Elyon. The LORD corresponds to the Hebrew name we pronounce as Yahweh
-Ugaritic texts confirmed that some of the names for Israel’s deities probably derived from pre-Israelite cultures
-We have empirical proof that complex narratives can arise in short spans of time
-There is no contemporary textual evidence for the existence of David or a Solomon
-We have letters between kings as far from each other as Egypt and Mesopotamia, but not between Solomon and even his closest neighbors. Even though the Bible describes Solomon as a great king of the time
-There is no independent historical or archaeological evidence for a kingdom of Saul
-The fictional story of King Arthur that was believed to be true was more complex in terms of numbers characters, events, and places yet was proved false. But there was a national agenda for the story to be true
-The gates of Gezer, Hazor, and Megiddo speak nothing about Solomon
-The use of supposedly unreliable witnesses in stories of extraordinary events is on oe the most persistent literary devices in the world.
-We cannot trace the story of Jesus’s resurrection any earlier than New Testament manuscripts of the third century AD
The Bible Unearthed by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman
-Moses and Aaron were identified as fourth generation descendants of Jacob’s son Levi, while Joshua was declared to be a twelfth generation descendant of Joseph
-Archaeology completely disproved the contention of a sudden, massive population movement at the time of the Exodus
-Camels were not domesticated as beasts of burden earlier than the late second millennium and were not widely used in that capacity in the ancient Near East until after 1000 BC
-The camel caravan in the story of Joseph was carrying products that were lucrative in the Arabian trade in the eighth and seventh centuries BC
-The Philistines had not established their settlements along the coastal plain of Canaan until after 1200 BC
-From Assyrian sources we know there were no real kings and no state in Edom before the late eighth century BC
-The great war waged in Genesis 14 provides geographical information relevant only to the seventh century BC
-The first pharaoh named Ramesses came to the throne only in 1320 BC, more than a century after the biblical date
-Not a single campsite or sign of occupation from the time of Ramesses II and his immediate predecessors and successors has ever been identified in Sinai
-Archaeology has shown that there were no kings of Edom for the Israelites to meet
-A seventh century BC background is evident in some of the peculiar Egyptian names mentioned in the story of Joseph. Zaphenath-paneah, Potiphar, Potiphera and Asenath were used occasionally used in earlier periods but achieved their greatest popularity in the seventh and sixth centuries BC
-All the major places that play a role in the story of the wandering Israelites were inhabited in the seventh century. In some cases they were only occupied at that time
-The seventh century BC is when Israel had growing conflict with Egypt
-In the Bible, no Egyptians are reported outside the borders of Egypt and none are mentioned in any of the battles within Canaan. Yet contemporary texts and archeological finds indicate that they managed and carefully watched over the affairs of the country
-The formidable Canaanite cities described in the conquest narrative were not protected by fortifications
-The ancient Canaanite city of Megiddo disclosed evidence for strong Egyptian influence as late as the days of Ramesses VI, who ruled toward the end of the twelfth century BC. Long after the supposed conquest of Canaan by the Israelites
-The only independent mention of the name Israel in this period (the victory of Merneptah) announces that this otherwise obscure people, living in Canaan, had suffered a crushing defeat
-In Jericho, there was no trace of a settlement of any kind in the thirteenth century BC, and the earlier Late Bronze settlement, dating to the fourteenth century BC, was small and poor and unfortified
-The Bible reports that Joshua defeated Hazor, Aphek, Lachish and Megiddo. But archaeological evidence shows that the destruction of those cities took place over a span of more than a century
-No significant evidence for a tenth century BC occupation of Jersualem
-There is no archaeological evidence of the wealth, manpower, and organization required to support a large army like described of Israel in the Bible during David’s time
-No compelling archaeological evidence for the historical existence of a vase united monarchy, centered in Jerusalem, that encompassed the entire land of Israel
-No archaeological evidence that the north and south kingdom grew out of an earlier political unity
-No archaeological evidence that Jerusalem was anything more than a modest highland village in the time of David, Solomon, and Rehoboam
-The reported invasion of Samaria by Ben-hadad of Damascus did not take place during the reign of Ahab but later in the history of the northern kingdom
-Scholars point out that the literary form of the covenant between YHWH and the people of Israel in Deuteronomy is similar to the of early seventh century Assyrian vassal treaties that outline the right ans obligations of a subject people to their sovereign.
-Deuteronomy shows similarities to early Greek literature. In expressions of ideology within programmatic speeches, in the genre of blessing and cursing, and in the ceremonies of the foundation of new settlements
Acts and Christian Beginnings: The Acts Seminar Report edited by Dennis Smith and Joseph Tyson
-The premise of the book is that there is sufficient evidence to say Acts was written in the second century to counter the teachings of Marcion
-The book of Acts is more consistent with the landscape and time period of the 2nd century than the 1st century. It was written to fight the false teacher Marcion
-Luke created the speeches in Acts following the model utilized regularly by ancient writers to enhance their narratives
-The themes of the speeches are arguments that fought the 2nd century teachings of Marcion. Such as the emphasis the prediction of the Hebrew prophets on the coming of the Messiah.
-Miracle stories as a literary genre were common in the ancient world and functioned as the means to promote emperors, philosophers, and other religious leaders as individuals marked with the power of the divine.
– The citations in Gamaliel’s speech are historically backward. Judas is to be dated in 6 BC., while Theudas led a rebellion in 44 BC. The rebellion under Theudas had not yet occurred at the time when Gamaliel supposedly gave this speech
-The prison break stories are paralleled to similar stories in Greek literature
-The Mishnah, a test reflecting Jewish practices that was compiled in the late second century, describes stoning differently than how the Jews stoned Stephen.
-The fact that Stephen dies through stoning by a riotous Jewish mob underscores the non-Roman/barbaric nature of the deed, since Romans regarded stoning as an improper resort to violence, employed only by barbarians and rebels
-Roman law would not have allowed the high priest in Jerusalem to remove people forcibly from Damascus and bring them back to Jerusalem for execution.
-The term “Christian” is rare to nonexistent in first-century writings
-The practice of laying on of hands to appoint leaders was a practice more commonly associated with the late first century to early second century.
-As a title for a Christian leader, “presbyters” is a term used in the late first and early second centuries.
-A favorite device of ancient storytelling is divine guidance that intervenes a person from going where they planned through a dream or vision. It is also a favorite of religious myths for divine guidance in relation to travel narratives
-Troas was the starting point for the journeys of one of the best known literary characters, Odyssesus
-The sea journey of Paul is the same type of narrative typical of sea journey stories in Greek and Latin epic literature
-No evidence that anyone saw the book of Acts before 150 AD
Age of Reason by Thomas Paine
-some of the Proverbs ascribed to Solomon did not appear till two hundred and fifty years after his death
-many of the religions we are skeptical of, for good reason, were found by one man who had a vision by themselves do what they say cannot be confirmed such as the apostle Paul being blinded on the road to Damascus then having the greatest influence on Christian doctrine. These religions include Islam and Mormonism
The Unauthorized Versions by Robin Lane Fox
-Pilate did not know Hebrew or Aramaic and it is highly unlikely that Jesus spoke Greek. An interpreter would have been needed but the Bible does not mention one
-Luke’s Gospel links Jesus’s birth with Quirinius and with King Heord, but in AD 6 Herod had long disappeared. He had died soon after an eclipse of the moon which is dated by astronomers to 12-13 March 4 BC, although a minority of scholars date it 4 BC instead.
-The Gospel assumes that Quirinius and King Herod were contemporaries they they were separated by ten years or more
-If Quirninus or the Roman census if correct, according to Matthew, Herod was not king and Matthew’s stories of the Wise Men, the Massacre of the Innocents and the Flight in to Egypt are all chronologically impossible.
-A Roman census would not have taken Joseph to Bethlehem where he and Mary owned nothing and were assumed to have needed to lodge as visitors at an inn
-The census was their base for at least two types of tax: a poll tax and a tax on property of various kinds. There was not even a legal need for Mary to go and register with her betrothed husband. One household member could make the journey for all.
-Basically, it was not a journey which a Galilean, a man of Nazareth, would have been required to make
-Stories of a past exile and conquest are known among other Mediterranean peoples (Romans had a story of their flight from Troy to Italy, and the Greeks told tales of the conquering Dorians)
-Stories of a trickster like Jacob are well known in other cultures (Odysseus in Greece or the heroes of South American Indian myths
-Recent scholarly studies have argued convincingly that the story of Abraham being in a sleepy trance when making a covenant with God was not an old story at all: it was added on to manuscript J’s story of a promise, probably no earlier thatn 620-550 BC. The story of a covenant with Moses on Sinai is also best explained as an invention of the sixth century
-Our Bible’s first clear account of a bodily resurrection and eternal life for saints and sinners is in a text as late as the 160s BC. This is the book Daniel which is agreed among scholars to be written
-The title ‘Gospel According to…’ is known from fragments of Gospel texts on papyrus which date to 180-200 AD. A gap of one hundred and twenty years between these fragment sand the Gospels’ composition
-A verse at the end of 2 Timothy is historically incorrect. From Rome, Paul tells Timothy that he has left Trophimus ‘sick at Miletus’: however, we know from Acts that when Paul left Miletus, Trophimus accompanied him to Jerusalem, where his presence played a crucial role in Paul’s arrest (Acts 21:29, referring to this visit), and, after leaving Jerusalem, Paul never went to Miletus again. More proof that 2 Timothy was not written by Paul.
-The first epistle of Peter assumes that Christians in Asia are being persecuted by pagans, not Jews, which is highly unlikely before AD 64 when Peter was put to death
-A close examination of 2 Chronicles 10-36 as history recently concluded that only eight and a half verses were based on any historical fact independent of our Kings’ narrative
-In Acts 5:36 the speaker, Gamaliel, is made to allude to events which occurred after his own death
-In Acts, we hear speeches from the Christian speakers but rarely rebuttals from the other sides of the stories
-From the age of David and Solomon we have not royal inscriptions and no solid external evidence for the widespread court culture of literacy or ‘enlightenment’ which critics of the sources of Samuel and Kings have sometimes assume.
-The change from middle to late Bronze Age is earlier than any date for Joshua which is implied by the biblical narrative
-The city of Gibeon did not exist during the time of Joshua
-None of the major phases of destruction at an early Canaanite site can be confidently ascribed to Israel
-The Arad shrine was said to illustrate the biblical text on Solomon’s building in 1 Kings 6-7 and the bits of ivory were cited for 1 Kings 22:39. However, the ivories have now descended from Ahab to the later eighth century (when Amos 6:4 know of ivory beds in the north), and the Arad temple has been down dated drastically, to long after Solomon.
-Scripture upholds Jehu as the long-predicated scourge of wicked Omri’s dynasty, but the Assyrian evidence fixes the date to 843 for Jehu’s surrender, a date which neatly refutes both the Greek and Hebrew chronologies for the reigns of Ahab and his sons
-There is no evidence of any conquest of Egypt in Isaiah’s lifetime, and although Nebuchadnezzar is known to have fought the Pharaoh in 568, there is no evidence that he set up his throne or established his rule in the land like Jeremiah indicates.
-Stories in Daniel could not have been written in his alleged life time because Nebuchadnezzar’s music is played on instruments with Greek, not Hebrew names. Putting it no earlier than the third century BC
The Human Faces of God by Thomas Stark
Jonah is set in the 8th century BCE. Its vocabulary and theological caoncerns reflect a post-exilic date of composition (6th to 4th centuries). Loc 383
The afterlife was not something the Old Testament characters believed in. One example is because neither Job nor the writer of Ecclesiasts expect any recompense or restitution beyond this life. Loc 508
The apoplectic tone of Jesus originated with the martyrs during the reign of Syrian king Antiochus IV Epiphanes in the 160s BCE. Loc 591
Antiochus IV was a fierce persecutor of the Jewish people, who desecrated the Jerusalem temple by converting it into a temple for Zeus. This incident, which took place in 167 BCE, is referred to as the “abomination that causes desolation” in Dan. 11:31. The prophecy continues to describe the events of Antiochus’s career, culminating with a predication of his death. The relevant factor here is that the author predicts that Antiochus would be killed in the land of Israel, “between the sea and the beautiful holy mountain. There he would come to his end, with no one around to help him” (Dan. 11:45). The problem is that Antiochus IV did not die in Israel. In fact, he did not die anywhere near Israel. This tells us that the prophecy of Daniel was accurate right up until about 164 BCE. The author was engaging in what is called “prophecy post eventum” or “prophecy after the fact.” But this inspired hope of Israel’s independence. Loc 822
The author’s intent was to inspire hope that what had not yet taken place would happen just as surely as had all the rest. In order to explain why the prophecy given to Daniel had not taken place in circulation until the time of Antiochus IV, the author has the angel Gabriel instruct Daniel to “keep these words a secret and keep the book sealed until the time of the end” (12:4). Loc 853
The evidence in the text itself leads directly to the conclusion that the prediction of the location 60of Antiochus’s death was mistaken. This factor in combination with late linguistic features in the book of Daniel, and not any anti-super naturalist bias, is what leads critical scholars to date the final form of the book in the mid-160s BCE. Loc 870
It was perhaps Augustine’s late conversion from allegorical school to the literalist school that helped eventually to make literal interpretation the predominant hermeneutic in the Western church. Loc 1209
The terms “higher criticism” and “lower criticism” are the inventions of fundamentalists. Loc 1441
The story of the flood depends upon much older traditions, such as the Epic of Gilagmesh. The laws of Moses depend upon the earlier Code of Hammurabi. The vision of the “one like the Son of Man” in Daniel 7 borrows closely from the Ugaritic cycle. Loc 1988
El is the generic term for god but El Elyon – God Most High – is the king over all gods in the region of Canaan. Upon Elyon’s mountains is where the councils of the gods are said to intervene. Loc 2455
Yahweh, one of Elyon’s sons, is given Israel as an inheritance. Loc 2469
The LXX and the MT both reflect time periods after Israel had become monotheistic. Loc 2469
The expressions “there is no on besides me” is a common Semitic idiom for the idea of superiority. Loc 2524
Every nation in the ancient Near East had a tribal deity, a god who took care of his or her people, fought on their behalf, in exchange for their unconditional allegiance. Loc 2564
The Genesis 6 account of sons of God and daughters of men closely parallels other ancient myths about the heroic children of gods and humans. Loc 2607
As Israel grew in strength as a nation, developed a monarchy and a military power, we see evidence that Yahweh received a promotion in Israel’s mythology. Loc 2681
In Job God is depicted as the head of the pantheon, presiding over the divine council of gods. This image is reminiscent of numerous Near Eastern and Greco-Roman epics in which the gods deliberate over the righteousness or prowess of a man or group. Loc 2723
The idea that oppression by a foreign nation was the punishment of an unhappy patron deity is a common one throughout the ancient Near East. Loc 2769
The archaeological record indicates that other ancient cultures, cultures that certainly practiced child sacrifice, also allowed for the substitution of animals in a child’s stead. Loc 2990
The divine name Baal originally was just a generic Semitic term for “lord”. It was frequently applied to Yahweh and only began to be equated in every case with a distinct Canaanite deity in the eighth century, with the ministry of Hosea. This is reflected in the names for Saul’s son and grandson. In the book of Chronicles their real names are preserved: Ishbaal and Meribaal. The first name means “man of Baal” and should be understood as “the Lord’s man”, not as an indication that Saul’s son worshiped a deity other than Yahweh. But the Deuternonmistic Historian (who wrote the book of Kings), was not favorably disposed towards Sau’s dynasty, changed the names of these two sons of Saul to Ishboshet and Mephiboshet. Loc 3168
The ideas of heaven and hell as the habitats of a disembodied afterlife became predominant in Christianity only after it few apart from its early apocalypticism and began to embrace more and more the Greek doctrines of the dualism of body and soul and of the soul’s immorality. Loc 3785
All ancient Near Eastern peoples attributed their military victories to the strength and favor of their particular tribal or national deities. Sa-Moon Kang analyzes battle accounts from Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Syro-palestine, and Egypt and concludes that the motif of divine intervention in battle was a “universalistic idea that appeared whenever a new empire was established. In this sense the political military entity was the expression of divine rulership”. Ancient tribes, such as Israel, regularly sent worshipers out in front of the army as a representation of the divine presence. “The visible symbols of divine participation in battle were the divine standards or statues” (like the Ark of the Covenant). Loc 4043
Lori Rowlett compares the rhetoric in Joshua to Assyrian war literature. When Joshua is wildly outnumbered, Yahweh orders him not to fear because victory is assured. Joshua is not to trust numbers, as the enemy does, but in the strength of his deity. The same polemic can be seen in the Assyrian literature. Loc. 4055
Many of the conquest accounts depicted in the biblical narratives are in fact contradicted in both archaeological and internal textual evidence. Loc 4309
In Numbers 20, the Israelites head east across the Negev and arrive at Edom where they are refused passaged by the king of Edom. Yet the archaeological record indicates that at this period, there were only a meager number of nomadic tribes in the region of Edom. Israel could not have been denied access by the king of Edom, since Edom did not attain statehood until the 7th century BCE, 600 years afterwards. Loc 4309
In Numbers 21, Israel destroyed all the cities of northern Negev. Contrary to this, excavations in the 1970s found that no Late Bronze Age occupational levels exist in this entire region. Loc 4322
At the time the Israelites are said to have destroyed Arad, it had already been in ruin for over 1300 years. Loc. 4322
In the account in Deuteronomy 2, Sihon refused to give Israel safe passage through Amorite territory because Yahweh intervened to prevent him from accepting. From 1968-1976, the site of Hebron was excavated by a group of archaeologists who also happened to be Seventh Day Adventists. They found no evidence of any Late Bronze Age settlements. The city of Hebron was no founded until the Iron II period – at the earliest, 250 years after the events depicted in Numbers and Deuteronomy. Loc 4337
Same for the Moabite city of Dibon that was excavated by a group of Southern Baptists. Loc 4337
British archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon excavated Jericho in the 50s and concluded that the wall of Jericho had been destroyed by the Egyptians 200 years before the supposed Israelite conquest. Loc 4353
Ai was entirely unoccupied during the conquest. Loc 4367
Gibeon did not exist at the time of the conquest Loc 4379
The ideology which lies behind the text of Joshua is one like that underlying other ancient Near Eastern conquest accounts – namely, imperialistic. Loc 4503
For the story of David and Goliath. A careful look at the text shows that the story in ch. 17 is an independent block – a tradition that origianated independently of the main body of the book of Samuel, later grafted in by someone other than the author. We are told that after defeating Goliath, David brought Goliath’s head with him to Jerusalem. But at this time the people of Israel had no relationship to Jerusalem; it was still under the control of the Jebusites. Loc 4963
Israel continued to be dominate by other countries after the exile instead of regaining their power. Out of this experience of cognitive dissonance, apocalypticism developed. The apoclypitc worldview was a way of interpreting the reality of Israel’s suffering. The apopcalypic worldview developed as an answer to that vexing question. “It was not because God was punishing them. It was the enemies of God who were punishing them. These were cosmic enemies. They made people suffer for keeping God’s laws.” Loc 5310
It was at this period in Israel’s mythology that Satan came to be seen as a great enemy. Prior to this point, the Satan was an agent of Yahweh whose task was to ensure that God’s people were truly righteous. Now, he came to be identified not as an agent of Yahweh, but as Yahweh’s most ancient enemy. Loc 5323
It was also at this time, in response to the heavy persecution of Torah-abiding Jews by the likes of the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes, that belief in an afterlife found its way into some stands of Jewish theology. The traumatic experience of martyrdom gave rise to the hope and resurrection and vindication of those who had died for their faithfulness to Yahweh. Loc 5344
Having emerged at about the time of the Maccaben revolt in the 160s BCE, the notion of the resurrection of the faithful was still relatively very young at the time of Jesus. Loc 5407
Outside of fundamentalist circles, scholars are virtually unanimous on the pseudonymous and late status of 2 Peter. It certainly could not have been written by the apostle Peter. This is obvious because the Greek in the epistle is very specialized and reflects advanced familiarity with Hellenistic and Hellenized Jewish literature, whereas the historical Peter was an uneducated fisherman from Galilee.
Because of Jesus’ conviction that he was the last prophet before the imminent end of the world, Jesus was able to equate allegiance to himself with allegiance to God. As with other apocalyptic sects of his day (such as the Qumran community), believed that his brand of Judaism was the only brand that could save the people of Yahweh from the coming destruction and judgment. Loc 7291
Israel has incentive to encourage biblical stories because of tourism money – Archaeologist and biblical historian Paul Tabor (ACU grad)
The books of Genesis and Esther are based on Babylonian myths that the Israelites adopted during captivity and were written during that time. The scholar Robert Price in his books claims to name the exact story Esther is based on
A study done on prayer in the 2000s did not show any difference between those in hospitals who were prayed for versus those who were not prayed for whether they knew they were being prayed for or not. In fact, those who were not prayed for healed faster.
Killing Jesus by Bill O’Oreilly – Women were equal to men despite what apologists claim
p. 147 – Women often played pivotal roles in society, so it would not have been unusual for her to follow Jesus and the disciples. The pages of Jewish history are full of heroic matriarchs such as Rachel, Sarah, Leah and Rebecca. Miriam worked with her brothers, Moses and Aaron, to lead the exodus from Egypt. And of course the prostitute Rahab helped bring about the Israelite victory over Jericho. Women in Jesus’s time were considered equal to men, though separate in their worldly responsibilities. They were allowed to choose their marriage partner, enter into contracts, buy and sell property, and speak at weddings. It was forbidden for men to beat or mistreat women, and in the case of rape, it was understood that such an act occurred against a woman’s will and that the man was presumed guilty. In fact, women were treated better in the time of Jesus than they are in a great many places in the modern world.
The Magic of Reality by Richard Dawkins
p. 208-209 – some archaeologist claim to have found evidence that a large earthquake shattered the region where Sodom and Gomorrah are believed to have stood 4,000 years ago. If this is true, the biblical story could be a story made up to explain what happened.
Jericho is in an earthquake prone place. The biblical story of the walls falling down could easily be an explanation of an earthquake that actually caused the walls to fall down at one point in time.
Atheist Talk Radio Podcast – 10/10/10
Unlike the claim of Christianity, the Torah was not more advanced in how to treat slaves, criminals etc. The Hittites required the payment of a fine instead of eye for an eye.
God: The Failed Hypothesis – Victor Stenger
If the universe were not expanding but a firmament, as described in the Bible, then the second law would have required the entropy of the universe was lower than its maximum allowed value in the past. Thus, if the universe had a beginning, it would have begun in a state of high order necessarily imposed from the outside.
In response to William Lane Craig’s kalam cosmological argument
-Quantum mechanics, which also is now confirmed to great precision, tells us that general relativity, at least as currently formulated, must break down at time less than the Planck time and at distances smaller the Planck length. It follows that general relativity cannot be used to imply that a singularity occurred prior to the Planck time and the Craig’s use of the singularity theorem for a beginning of time is invalid. Planck time is the time right after the big bang and is the shortest time possible.
Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism – John Shelby Spong
p. 41 – Most of Moses’ religious ideas can be linked with the dawning universalism of a most unusual pharaoh named Amenhotep IV, who ruled Egypt from 1375 to 1358 BCE and later changed his name to Ikhnaton.
This book gives a very good layout of how each Gospel was written to combat specific issues from a human point of view causing multiple issues in accuracy
Ch. 7 of this book lays out a case that Paul himself had homosexual urges that would have been totally unacceptable in his position and religious culture, thus why who wrote so much about the sinful nature and sinful urges
Resurrection: Myth or Reality – John Shelby Spong
Spong is big on Midrash which is the Jewish way of saying that everything to be venerated in the present must somehow be connected with a sacred moment in the past. It is the ability to rework and ancient theme in a new context. It is the affirmation of a timeless truth found in the faith journey of a people so that this truth can be experienced afresh in every generation. It is the recognition that the truth of God is not bound within the limits of time but that its eternal echoes can be and are heard anew in every generation. Is the means whereby the experience of the present can be affirmed and asserted as true inside the symbols of yesterday.
Pgs. 8-9
The presence of mythological narratives in the Christian story – The dominate myth was the story of the virgin birth, a theme that has been repeated countless times in almost every religious system, from Zoroaster to Romulus and Remus. The cosmic ascension was already seen in Buddha and Osiris. – p. 40
First century people wrote with certain presuppositions that where then universally assumed to be true. With the march of knowledge and science, however, those assumptions have been abandoned and are regarded today as relics from a world of premodern ignorance. This planet Earth was no thought of as a planet at but all but as a flat space at the very center of the created order. A blue canopy called the sky was believed to separate the earth, the realm of the human, from heaven, the realm of the divine. Their cosmology was based on their earth-bound observations. God lived beyond the blue canopy, they assumed, watching over the earth, employing the stars as peepholes through which, even in the dark, divine eyes could see and judge human behavior. Not infrequently it was assumed that this God from beyond that sky would intervene in human history to perform a miracle, heal a sickness, win a battle, call a prophet, or establish rules for human conduct. For this God to come to earth to sojourn among humans was neither so commonplace as to be mundane nor so unusual as to be unimaginable.
p.41
The 3rd day was full of symbolic meaning for the Jews. It represented new beginnings. A person was officially dead after three days in Jewish culture. The resurrection story was part of the Jerusalem tradition which was secondary to the Galilean tradition. (Matthew vs. Mark) p.225
Spong believes the historical Jesus might have died during Passover but is not what the Gospels are based on. He believes the disciples came to grip with his death as a failed leader then used Midrash to create the gospel as symbolic. The Feast of Tabernacles was the time they did this because of the following reasons:
-The triumphal entry is more consistent with the Feast of Tabernacles in the fall, than the Passover which is in the spring. Fig tree trees were in full fruit at that time. Not during the Passover when Jesus would have curse the fig tree. The singing of” Hosannah to the one who comes in the Name of the Lord” is a regular part of the feast of Tabernacles. The Feast of Tabernacles was originally seven days but then changed to eight days. Which is the length of the holy week – Sunday of the entry to Sunday of the resurrection. – p. 259
-Psalms 118 that is quoted during Palm Sunday was associate with the Feast of Tabernacles – p 267
-The book of Zechariah, Malachi 3:1 and Psalm 118 are referred to as predicting the death of Jesus. These are set in the context of the festival of Tabernacles. From these scriptures you get the following elements of the passion story:
-the ride of the king into Jerusalem on a donkey
-the waving of palm branches
-the shouts of hosanna
-the payment of 30 pieces of silver
-the cleansing of the temple
-the people looking upon the one they have pierced
-the Lord suddenly coming to his temple
-the nations gathering to receive waters of live, which was a synonym of the Spirit
p.272
Life after death did not appear as a major category in Hebrew thought until concept of individualism was formed around the sixth century BCE. It did not gain much shape or power until about two centuries before Jesus’ birth, and then it grew out of the pain of oppression and the heroic, sacrificial deaths of Jewish folk who put devotion to their understanding of God’s truth ahead of their personal safety. Every New Testament writer seems to have believed something different about the afterlife. There is no hell in Paul’s writings. Paul mentions only the hope of life in Christ or the absolute annihilation of life in a timeless death. Most of the hellfire references in the New Testament are Matthew’s gift to Christianity. Pgs. 283-284
Liberating the Gospels by John Shelby Spong
Ch. 16 – Judas was a later invention. It does not flow with the context of the last supper which is something that would be expected if it was later added. For example, after Judas leaves the discussion goes to who is the greatest among them instead of questions about what just happened. Judas is similar to Judah who was one who betrayed his brother for money. King David (the anointed like Jesus) is betrayed by someone who later commits suicide. In the earliest texts written of Jesus by Paul, Paul says Jesus appeared to the 12. Not the 11.
No record of the Romans ever releasing prisoners during Passover.
Gospels and midrash
-Joseph of Arminetha was created so there was a Joseph at the beginning and end of Jesus’ life
-Jesus taken up to the sky like Eijah.
-tongues of fire on the apostles like fire with Elijah’s chariot. These were left to the apostles (and the Spririt) like Elisah was granted a wish from Elijah.
A New Christianity for a New World by John Shelby Spong
Pentecost was originally a Canaanite holy day marking the early what harvest. P. 99
Evolution means there was not fall of humanity. Just that we are incomplete and still evolving. Thus, making an atonement irrelevant.
Global Christian evangelism has mostly failed since the dominate religions in countries before missionaries arrived, like Buddhism and Hinduism, are still the religions of the day there.
Christianity caught on so fast in Africa because there was not unifying , widely held religious system. The primary missionaries brought a fundamentalist mentality to their conversion work that appeared to meet African needs for religious certainty in a significant way. P. 176
Nailed: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed at All by David Fitzerald
The first century is considered one of the best documented periods in ancient history (but no secular records of Jesus) Loc 224
Roman records show that the first such universal census as described in Matthew did not occur until during the reign of the emperor Vespasian in 74 CE Loc 239
First century writers, philosophers, historians who lived during Jesus time who did not mention Jesuse: Epictetus, Pompoinus, Mela, Martial, Juvenal, Seneca the Younger, Gallio, Seneca the Elder, Plutarch, Justus of Tiberias, Philo of Alexendria, Nicolaus of Damascus. Loc 411
Seneca the Younger (3 BCE – 6CE) records eclipses and other unusual natural phenomena, but makes no mention of the miraculous Star of Bethlehem, the multiple earthquakes in Jerusalem after Jesus’ death, or the worldwide (are at the very least region-wide) darkness at Christ’s crucifixion that he himself should have witnessed. – Loc 418
Justus of Tiberias (died CE 101) was personal secretary to King Herod Agrippa I (who supposedly met the apostle Paul)I and wrote a history of the Kingdom of Judah covering the entire time Jesus lived. He doesn’t say a single thing about Jesus. Loc 437
Nicolaus of Damascus (late first century BCE to early 1st century CE) was tutor of Cleopatra and Mark Antony and personal friend and historian to King Herod the Great. He wrote a world history in 144 books up to the end of Herod’s reign, relying heavily on Herold’s personal memoirs. Nicolaus would have been an eyewitness when the wise men came to Herod’s court and so badly troubled the king that he summoned all the chief priests and scribes for an emergency meeting to learn more about this rival messiah. Loc 446
Philo of Alexandria (BCE 20 – CE 50) was the greatest Jewish philosopher of the Greco-Roman world. He was certaintly interested in fringe religions, and not afraid to talk about them. He wrote a great deal on other Jewish sects of the time, such as the Essenes and the Therapeutae, but nothing on Jesus, or on Christianity either, even though his home of Alexandria was supposedly one of early cradles of Christianity. Loc461
Other historians and commenters after Jesus who never mentioned Jesus starting at Loc 484 (Kindle):
Pausanias – 2nd century
Aelius Aristides – 117 -181
Marcus Cornelius Fronto – 100-166
Maximus of Tyre – 2nd century
Athenaeus of Naucratis – CE 200
Lucuis Flavius Philostratus – 170-244
Diogenes Laertius – 3rd century
Sextus Empiricus – 3rd century
The name Jesus of Nazareth never appears in the Talmud until the last layers of Jewish Rabbinic literature in the 6th or 7th centuries. Loc 519
Ancient writers of the time of Jesus wrote about lesser interesting messiahs of the time but not of Jesus. Loc 548
Eusebius mentions that Philo of Alexendria wrote a book on Pilate’s persecution of the Jews (Historia Ecclesiastica, book 2, ch. 5) – one more book where Jesus certainly should have been mentioned, but wasn’t, since neither Eusebius nor anyone else ever cites this book for historical documentation of Jesus and his famous execution under Pilate’s watch. Loc 577
3rd Century Roman historian Cassius Dio spent 22 years chronicling 983 years of Roman history in 80 volumes. The 35th thru 60th books are complete with the exception of book 55 which covers years 12 BCE to 9 CE. This is where we would expect to find mention of the events described in the book of Matthew. Loc 586
The work of the Roman historian Tacitus has a gap under emperor Tiberius between med 29 CE and mid 31 CE, including all of the year 30 when Jesus may have been crucified. Loc 595
All critiques of Christianity from the early centuries of its existence have been lost. They survive only in brief excerpts quoted in books written by their Christian detractors. Loc 623
The Testimonium Flavianum in Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews that mentions Jesus has strong indications that the entire passage is an interpolation, including its non-Josephean vocabulary and misuse of terms. Loc 673
Many commentators, including Doherty, G. A. Wells and Peter Kirby, have noted that without the Testimonium passage, the two passages flanking it flow seamlessly into each other. Loc 683
The passage does not appear until the 4th century. Loc 683
Origen quoted extensively from Josephus but never mentions this passage and says our source about Jesus comes from the gospels. Loc 692
The term ‘charlatan’ is not something Josephus’ Roman audience would be familiar with. Loc 768
Virtually everything we know about the early centuries of Christianity come from Eusebius. There are over two dozen complaints from his contemporaries that survive that accuse Eusebius of lack of integrity, poor scholarship, deliberate misrepresentations in his histories, and hypocrisy. Loc 701
Eusebius’ famous documentation of Constantine’s battlefield vision was written after Constantine’s death and was different than what he said about Constantine when Constantine was alive. Loc 720
In 310, two years before Constantine’s great victory where Eusebius said he had a vision of the cross, Constantine claimed to have had a divine vision prophesying victory from Apollo. Loc 729
The mention of James the brother of Jesus refers to the sons of Damneus. This Jesus was forcefully made high priest by King Agrippa and his brother, James, was killed by Ananus. Loc 795
Constantine’s mother Helena went to the Holy Land, paying a great deal of money as she went, which resulted in the discovery of Jesus’ Tomb. This same discovery also led to later findings of Pieces of the True Cross and Holy Relics, such as the nails used to crucify Jesus. Helena’s trip inspired many others to follow in her footsteps. Loc 739
No one who had actually lived in Palestine would have made the mistakes that the author of Mark does. For instance, as Earl Doherty observes, Mark 7:31 tells us Jesus departed from the region of Tyre and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis, a trip 50 miles out of his way. Loc 969
In John 21 referring to the 153 fish caught, the number 153 just happened to be a sacred triangular number to the ancient Pythagoreans. Loc 990
Mark’s Jesus uses traditional pagan magic techniques (spit and magic words) to heal the blind and deaf. Loc 1026
Luke’s historical inaccuracies – Loc 1252
-Paul meeting Agrippa and Berenice, and even that Agrippa’s close friend Flavius Josephus would have mentioned
-anachronistic events that actually happened long after the time he claims the did, such as those described in Gamaliel’s speech in Acts 5
-Luke betrays unfamiliarity with basic facts of Judaism and Palestinian geography when he naively repeats Mark’s numerous mistakes without comment, and has Paul saying things like “I have belonged to the strictest sect of our religion and lived as a Pharisee” (Acts 26:5). If Luke was really acquainted with Judaism he would have known that even a Pharisee would admit that the Essenes were a far stricter sect.
Like his boss, the emperor Tiberius, the real Pontius Pilate was an arrogant, ruthless despot. Philo of Alexandria described him as “naturally inflexible and stubbornly relentless”. He committed “acts of corruption, insults rapine, outrages on the people, arrogance, repeated murders of innocent victims, and constant and most galling savagery”. Josephus described him as” extremely offensive, cruel and corrupt”. Pilate had no problems killing the natives, nor did he ever lose much sleep over whether they were innocent or not. Under his command, scores of innocent Jews were massacred, such as recorded in Josephus’ Antiquities vole 18.2
Justice Cohn says that any Jew who dared remind the governor of his duty toward the emperor, or to hint at more fervid patriotism would not be let live another hour. Loc 1306
When Pilate was recalled to Rome in 36 CE, it was not because of any reluctance to kill enemies, but yet for another notorious slaughter. Loc 1317
Cohn writes that there is not a single instance recorded anywhere of the Great or Small Sanhedrin ever acting as a investigatory agent of the Romans. Loc 1317
Nothing in Jewish Law or ritual would support the contention that by entering the king’s place or a courtroom would make a Jew become unpure. Loc 1317
Robert Price says that if the Sanhedrin had asked Pilate for the death penalty, it would have been death by stoning, at the Torah required. Loc 1327
The Jews never had a custom of freeing prisoners on Passover and there is no evidence that the Romans had no such customary pardon either. Loc 1336
Pharisees were a major presence in the Galilee area after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. 40 years after the time of Jesus. Not when the Gospels claimed. Loc 1415
It is natural that stories set in the Greek isles would involve a great deal of sea-going. Mark did this by inventing the sea of Galilee. No one ever referred to this small river-fed lake as a sea before Mark did. Loc 1433
Mark has Jesus embarking on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee, in what he describes as the “country of the Gerasenes”. But this is another of Mark’s geographical errors. Gerasa was more than 30 miles from the shore. Loc 1462
Jesus road to Emmaus to story appears to be taken from the ancient Roman legend of Romulus, who also appeared alive again after his death to his follower, travelling along the road, in a radiant new form before he returned to Heaven. Loc 1471
Celsus accused the early Christian scribes of unscrupulously altering texts left and right. Loc 1539
Origen stated “ the differences among the manuscripts have become great, either through the negligence of some copyist or the perverse audacity others. Loc 1548
Much of the ancient world’s classic literature was discarded or even put to the torch by the Christian West. As it was, nearly all the works of the Greek philosophers were lost to Dark Age Europe until the Crusades. Loc 1574
A large number of the 720 texts of the NT are not even complete books, much less complete Bibles, and a considerable number are not in the original language. Loc 1649
The reliability of a textual tradition is not determined by the number of root manuscripts we have, but by how closely they support one another. Loc 1659
Justin Martyr is the first Christian who quotes from a Gospel and this is not until the 150s. Often his quotes don’t match anything from our Gospels. Loc 1676
Christianity was not the only (or the first) religion to have a “Lord’s Supper”. Paul uses a term from the pagan mystery cults, kuriakon deipnon, “the Lord’s Supper”, for the ritual he claimed came exclusively to him. Loc 1851
Many, if not most of the mystery faiths throughout the Mediterranean world included communal sacred meals, often involving bread and wine. Loc 1851
There appear to be astrological motifs in the names of some Apostles and their stories in the Gospels. For example, “Thomas” was not a personal name in the NT times; it was the word for “Twin” as wells as the Hebrew name for the constellation Gemini. And the disciples James and John were nicknamed “Sons of Thunder,” just like the Roman Twins Castor and Pollux, one mortal and on the son of the Thunder god Zeus. Loc 2276
Just the mere fact that Jesus is “the Son of God” is a huge indication that he is a new creation based on the classical pagan model. It’s only when the other Mediterranean gods like Zeus begin having demigod sons with mortal women that God suddenly announces that he has a demigod son too. Loc 2391
The image of the faith as an unstoppable juggernaut is nothing but the invention of one fourth-century branch of Christianity. After over three centuries of bitter fighting, a single faction emerged as the “one true faith”. These victors wasted no time in rewriting the history of Christianity to portray themselves as the true “Orthodox” church who had kept a firm hold on the correct dogma. Loc 2409
Today, thanks in part to discoveries like the Nag Hammadi manuscripts, we know that the real growth of Christianity was nothing like the tidy, rosy pictures writers like Luke and Eusebius painted as official church history. Loc 2418
A letter from Pliny the Younger to the Emperor Trajan, written around year 111, also proves how unknown Christians were to most people, even in the early second century. In it Pliny freely admits he has no experience with Christians. In fact, he says he knows nothing about how they are to be punished or even charged (10.93. 1-2) Loc 2436
Christian writers used words like “all” and “everywhere” quite freely when they described their religion’s success, but in actuality, though we have a wealth of material documenting life in the Roman Empire – inscriptions, pagan histories texts and papyri – Christians are scarcely to be found before 250. The two fullest histories, written in the early third century, make no mention of them whatsoever. Loc 2455
According to Richard Carrier, throughout Palestine, vast amount of material evidence unmistakably document Jewish occupation and there is considerable evidence of pagan inhabitants – but there is no material evidence of any Christian population until centuries later. Loc 2473
Rome’s destruction was Christianity’s salvation. Traits that had long made Christianity so uninviting to the Roman elite, including disdain or “worldly” learning and culture, condemnation of wealth and materialism, and a focus away from this earthly life of suffering – all appealed to the poor and disenfranchised, a target demographic growing every day. Loc 2501
The change from paganism to Christianity created enormous windfall profits for the Emperor. Loc 2520
-If Jesus had been real –last chaper
There would not be the strange absence of biographical information about Jesus from Paul and everyone else in the earliest generations of Christian writers. Loc 2554
The Jesus movement would have begun in the Galilee and in Judea around Jerusalem, radiating out from there instead of divergent sects appearing scattershot all over the far corners of the empire in places like Alexandria, Greece, Rome and Asia Minor. Loc 2564
These same early Christian communities would be more homogenous. Loc 2564
There would not be early Christian communities who had no concept of Jesus dying for sins. Loc 2564
The writer of Philippians would not have had to insert a reference to the cross in 2: 5-11. Loc 2573
The list of witnesses to the risen Christ in 1 Cor. 15 would not conflict with the Gospels. Loc 2583
Paul’s problematic dynamic with the Jerusalem Pillars would be very different if he actually thought they had been family and disciples of Jesus. Loc 2583
The issues in the early church would have been resolved during Jesus times. Like circumcision, etc. Loc 2592
Paul would not have had reason to explain the Lord’s Supper. Loc 2601
And more listed in this chapter of the book
Inquiring Minds Podcast
Ep. 5. Research shows that the religious zeal of a person is based on genetics. It doesn’t matter which religion.
Godless in Dixie Blog
6/20/16 – Since women in Jewish society had lower status, they were the ones who attended to burial tasks so it would make sense that women would be the first to allegedly see a risen Jesus. This would not meet the “embarrassment” criteria of the Gospels that apologists claim.
Jesus Liked: He Was Only Human by CJ Werleman
Jesus observed all of the Jewish holidays and ceremonies, including the Festival of Lights that had not been invented for some 150 years after his death Loc 652
That authors of the Gospels were highly educated Greek speakers. Jesus’ disciples were peasant class, illiterate, Aramaic speaking goat herders and fishermen. A that start of the 1st century, it is estimated that less than 10% of the Roman Empire could read or write, and the vast majority of those who could, could do so only at a very rudimentary level. Loc 662
Origen once complained: The differences among the manuscripts have become great, either through the negligence of some copyists or through the perverse audacity of others; they either neglect to check over what they have transcribed, or, in the process of checking, they make additions or deletions as they please. Loc 755
Origen in retort to Celsus: Some believers, as though from a drinking bout, go so far as to oppose themselves and alter the original text of the gospel three or four or several times over, and they change its characters to enable them to deny difficulties in face of criticism. Loc 755
The Egyptian god, Horus, was said to have been born to his virgin mother, Isis. Attis, the Phrygian god, was said to be the son of the virgin Nana, who conceived him by putting in her bosom a ripe almond or pomegranate. Dionysus, the Grecian God, was said to be, according to one version of the myth concerning him, the son of Zeus born of the virgin goddess, Persephone. Jason, who was slain by Zeus, was said to have born another son of the virgin Peresephone, and to have had no father, either human or divine. At the time when Christianity arose, all these gods were worshipped in various parts of the Roman Empire. It is well documented that religions that have their origins in this part of the world, borrowed mythology from on another. Loc 897
The story of a ‘threatened child becomes a great leader’ is commonplace amongst ancient literature and myth. It is the theme of Romulus and Remes, Sargon the Great, and Hercules, among others. Loc 913
According to John, Jesus is near enough to have a conversation with his mother, but we know for certain that women were strictly forbidden to enter the crucifixion fields. Loc 2249
There is also no evidence in a geological analysis of an earthquake like described in Matthew. Loc 2271
The tribe of Benjamin ceased to exist before the time of Paul. Loc 2491
Attis of Phyrigia – born of the virgin Nana on Dec. 25th, crucified, placed in a tomb and after 3 days was resurrected.
Dionysus of Greece – born of a virgin on Dec. 25th, was a traveling teacher who performed miracles such as turning water into wine. Loc 2555
Point of Inquiry podcast 3/6/17 with Lawerence Krauss
-The universe is not fine tuned for life. Life fine tunes itself to the universe depending on where it is. Just like evolution
The Jesus Dynasty by James Tabor
-Israel has lots of tourism dollars at stake to keep the story of Jesus alive
The Myth of Perscution by Candida Moss
For the first 250 years, there are only about 6 martyrdom accounts that can be treated as reliable
There Was No Jesus and There Is No God by Raphael Lassater
Biographies were also written about nonexistent people like Romulus, Numa, Coriolanus, Hercules and Aesop
Everyone’s Agnostic Ep 142 with Matthew Oneill
Romans did not allow people to watch the crucifixions because they did not want to encourage opposition to them
Imagine There’s No Heaven: How Atheism helped create the modern world by Mitchell Stephens
The more man is willing to doubt and find natural explanations for the world, the less power the idea of a supernatural has
Kings need the gods – to explain why they are entitled to rule, to explain their exalted status – democratic leaders have an alternate, reasonable, natural justification for their power: the will of the voters. P. 33
I think i posted this before, but
“He was someone I read and listened to consistently until I researched the other side myself and found how off he was on things. If you want an example of how he can’t stand up to the fallacy of his arguments, just listen to the Unbelievable? podcast where he debates David Smalley.”–I have, I thought David stumbled. He couldn’t differentiate between epistemology and ontology. He got off track a lot and emotionally frustrated. But what points exactly drew this conclusion for you?
“If you want an example of how he can’t stand up to the fallacy of his arguments, just listen to the Unbelievable? podcast where he debates David Smalley. Then listen to The Dogma Debate podcast where Smalley hosts Turek and they debate more. .’–These arnt examples on points though, be specific. I cant say “if you want examples listen to his debates with Hitchens, Lowder and silverman,these arent supports for my argument, just opinions.
“han, listen to the podcast A Christian and an Atheist where they go through his book I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist and the atheist on the podcast rips his arguments to shreds’–again, specific points? I have heard these discussions (im not sure if your referring to a specific one though) I have heard them from Jeff Lowder (along with his answers to “Stealing from God” by Dr Turek as well. These have all just strengthen my theist belief. SO be specific on which points.
“So, be careful when you quote him. -I didnt misquote him, your asserting that because you dont believe in his view, that it is false and Im stating propaganda fallacies. you need to support that with evidence.
“”His job is making believers feel good about themselves’-‘-no, his mission statement he claims is to discuss truth. He has stated many time about the dangers and fallacies about basing reality on feelings. For someone who used to follow him, you should no better. This is a ad-hominem remark plain and simple. Unless you can prove “intent” here.
“Your links make a lot of assumptions and really doesn’t address the questions without those assumptions. “–such as?
“You can not simply use the Bible when talking to an atheist and assume that is going to have any real impact. The atheist already has reasons not to trust the bible-correct, So lets stick with reason and logic. Most Christians know (most, not all) atheist already have a
Misconception about theism , so this tactic never works (also discussed by Frank)
“Have you studied the ancient cultures of the time when the Bible was written and seen how the Bible is a product of its time?’–Yes I have, do you hold the belief that if something was written in past time, truth expires? Whats the date on this expiration ? IS this a standard for all historical documents you hold? Cant the Bible be tested like all other documents?
“Not what Christians have been told it is by their pastors.’–they all do this? all Christians believe this? can you show me support for this comment/assertion/statement ? start with my church http://medinaeast.graceohio.org/
“But some of them are the exact ones I used to go to when I was a Christian that I later realized were misinformed and wrong when doing my own research outside of what the Christian apologists would say.”–such as?
“I am glad you referred to Frank Turek’s material.’-me to, honest and intelligent man
I posted a lot of my research for you to look at but it appears to have been taken down. Not the first time it’s been done to me here