Month: October 2022

By David Madison

06/17/22

Here’s the link to this article.

Confusion and incoherence in Jesus theology

One of the handiest tools for showing that Christianity is wrong—that its theology is confused and incoherent—is the Bible itself. I have seen so much resistance among church-goers to reading the Bible, even casually (say, just one chapter a day), let alone studying it carefully, thoughtfully, critically. Is this hypocrisy, or just laziness? If the devout really, truly believed that the Bible is their god’s word—more than a thousand pages of his wisdom and guidance—why don’t they obsess about reading it? 

For many of us who have left Christianity, there is no mystery about this neglect. My constant appeal for years to my Christian acquaintances has been: please read the Bible. When my book was published last summer, Ten Things Christians Wish Hadn’t Taught, I gave copies to some of my devout—openly, aggressively devout—friends. What was the response? Silence. They didn’t want to think about it, and they certainly didn’t want to read the Jesus quotes that I discuss in detail in the book. They want to trust their priests and ministers, and draw comfort from the ceremonies and rituals, while Jesus in stained-glass gazes down on them. No thought required.

What can we do to jar these worshippers out of their complacency? Probably nothing, but this is my third article in the series, A Pop-Quiz for Christians, trying to get them to wake up and smell—not the coffee—but the confusion and incoherence at the core of Christian theology. Just a little Bible study can do the trick—as well a casting a brief glance at science. Pop-Quiz Number 1 is here; Pop-Quiz Number 2 is here.

Now, Pop-Quiz Number 3, with just one question about science at the outset.

Question 1: What was the astronomer Carl Sagan referring to when he mentioned “The Pale Blue Dot”? How was the image obtained, and what are the implications of his comments for theology? 

Question 2: 

(1)  What is the primary message of Mark’s gospel? (2) How would you explain the lack of ethical teaching in Mark? (3) How do you incorporate the theology of Mark, Chapter 13 into your understanding of a loving God?

Question 3:

The author of Matthew’s gospel wrote quite a few things that New Testament scholars—and theologians too—find embarrassing. Explain why this is the case with Matthew 1:22-23; Matthew 2:13-15; Matthew 27:52-53.

Question 4:

Read carefully Luke 24:13-35, the story of Jesus appearing, after his resurrection, to two disciples who were walking on the road to Emmaus. Discuss the elements in the story that don’t look like history—and the factors that rule out its status as history. 

Question 5:

Read carefully John 20:24-29, the story of Doubting Thomas, also a post-resurrection story of Jesus. Again, discuss the elements in the story that don’t look like history—and the factors that rule out its status as history. How do these stories conflict with the apostle Paul’s understanding of resurrection? 

ANSWERS

Answer, Question 1:

In 1990, the Voyager Spacecraft 1, when it was 3.7 billion miles from our sun, took a photo of Planet Earth. It was dubbed a Pale Blue Dot, but it is almost undetectable in the vastness of space. This provides dramatic illustration that the ancient concept of the cosmos—the one that prevailed when the Bible was written—is false, i.e., earth at the center of creation, with a god residing close overhead. Carl Sagan commented:

“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives.” Moreover, the inhabitants of this planet came up with “…thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines…” But most important—and of relevance especially to confident Christian theology:

“Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.”  (emphasis added)

Christian theologians have tried, over the centuries, to modify and improve the Bible concept of God, but as our knowledge of the cosmos advances, that task has become increasingly difficult. Well, no: impossible. Our continual appeal to Christians is: show us where we can find reliable, verifiable, objective evidence for the deity you believe in and worship. So far, they have not delivered. 

Answer, Question 2:

The primary message of Mark’s gospel is the imminent arrival of the kingdom of God. In Mark 1:14-15 we read: “…Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the good news of God and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’” And at his trial, in Mark 14, Jesus promised those present that they would see him coming on the clouds of heaven. In this gospel Jesus is presented as an apocalyptic prophet, i.e., he proclaims that the end of the age is near. Recent studies have suggested that Mark was influenced especially by the apostle Paul’s belief that the arrival of Jesus on the clouds was “any day now.” For this reason the author of the gospel might have felt little need to add ethical teaching—since the world was about to be transformed. Later, when Matthew copied most of Mark’s gospel, he added what we know as the Sermon on the Mount, perhaps to make up for this deficiency. 

The full terror of the apocalyptic message is presented in Mark, Chapter 13. As the kingdom arrives there will great calamity and suffering, and it’s about to happen. There is the warning at the end of the chapter to remain alert, keep awake. There are indeed Jesus cults within Christianity even now that look forward to the upheaval that their Jesus will bring. But I’m pretty sure that, outside these extremist groups, most Christians are stumped by Mark 13. They’re certainly not comfortable with it, because it doesn’t fit with their image of Jesus as lord and savior. There is too much in Mark that drags down the faith, which is the subject of an article I published here on the DCBlog in 2018, Getting the Gospels Off on the Wrong Foot: The Strange Jesus in Mark’s Gospel.

Answer, Question 3:

The author of Matthew’s gospel had an approach to scripture that many contemporary Christians would find bizarre: he simply ignored the context of the ancient stories, and landed on words he was sure had predictive significance. In Matthew 1:22-23, the author quotes Isaiah 7:14 to prove that the virgin birth of Jesus had been predicted hundreds of years before. Here’s basic homework for Christians: read all of Isaiah, chapter 7, and decide for yourselves: does it have anything whatever to do with Jesus? Matthew also made a mistake: he consulted the Greek translation of Isaiah 14, which incorrectly translated the original Hebrew, i.e., which reads young woman, not virgin.

Mark told his story of Jesus without a virgin birth; in his gospel Jesus is designated “son of God” at his baptism—and John’s gospel omits it as well. But apparently Matthew was persuaded that the virgin birth of other sons of gods—it was a common idea in the ancient world—was worth attaching to his Jesus story. Interestingly, when Luke wrote his virgin birth story, he ignored Matthew’s Isaiah quote. He might have thought it was inappropriate—just as we do. 

And speaking of Luke’s birth story, when we compare it with Matthew’s, we find more evidence that Matthew just made stuff up. Luke’s birth story includes details about the baby Jesus being presented at the Jerusalem Temple, and praised by a prophet and prophetess. Then this: 

“When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth.The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom, and the favor of God was upon him. (Luke 2:39-40)

This cannot be reconciled with Matthew’s bizarre report that Mary and Joseph fled to Egypt to protect Jesus from Herod, which is found in 2:13-15, and nowhere else in the New Testament. Why in the world would Matthew tell such a story, which is extremely unlikely? If Herod had been hunting for the baby Jesus, his parents could have hidden out among the peasantry in their own country. But, once again, Matthew had been hunting in the Old Testament for a text he could apply to Jesus; he landed on Hosea 11:1: “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.” The text in Hosea plainly says that the child called out of Egypt was Israel, and much of Hosea 11 is a complaint about the disobedience of Israel; Matthew cared nothing at all about context. Luke omits mention of this detour to Egypt—as Joseph and Mary were on their way home to Nazareth! —because it is just too absurd.

Perhaps Matthew’s most ridiculous make-believe episode is a truly dangerous one for the credibility of the Christian faith. He reports (27:52-53) that, at the moment Jesus died on the cross, 

“The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised.After his resurrection they came out of the tombs and entered the holy city and appeared to many.”

This is magical thinking, i.e., the death of Jesus brought many people back to life (sounds a lot like Harry Potter, right?), but not only that, these newly alive dead people toured Jerusalem on Easter morning. None of the other gospels report any such thing, nor do any of the historians of the time. Matthew just drops this bit of nonsense into his story, without any follow-up: did these zombies head back to their tombs a few hours or days later? Even conservative scholars have conceded this is a tall tale, but that inevitably raises the question: Is the resurrection of Jesus itself a tall tale? Especially since the Jesus resurrection stories are so incoherent and contradictory. 

Answers, Questions 4 and 5:

These two questions can be considered together. Luke’s account of the disciples on the Emmaus Road, and John’s story of Doubting Thomas are found only in those gospels. Why would that be, since they are both so amazing? The former appears to be a literary creation based on a couple of verses in the fake ending of Mark’s gospel (16:12-13): “After this he appeared in another form to two of them, as they were walking into the country.And they went back and told the rest, but they did not believe them.” In another form: in Luke’s story, Jesus is unrecognized when he walks with the two disciples, and later, when he’s having a meal with them, at the moment when he is recognized—poof! —he vanishes. In John’s Doubting Thomas episode, we’re told that, “Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’”  (John 20:26) Robert Conner has pointed out, in his book, Apparitions of Jesus: The Resurrection as Ghost Story, that the gospel authors borrowed elements from contemporary ghost folklore as they created their resurrection accounts. Which brings us to another fundamental problem with these solitary episodes in Luke and John: they were written decades after the supposed events, and cannot be verified by contemporaneous documentation. 

We can suspect, moreover, that the apostle Paul would have been shocked by these stories. He would have said No Way! A newly alive dead Jesus who sat down to eat with disciples—and who invited Thomas to stick his finger in his sword wound? In I Corinthians 15, Paul is emphatic that it is spiritual bodies that are resurrected, not dead flesh that was put into the ground—or a tomb:

“So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable.It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.It is sown a physical body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body.”   (vv. 42-44) Paul, in all his letters, never mentions the story of the Empty Tomb on Easter morning, probably for two reasons: (1) it hadn’t been invented yet by the later gospel writers, (2) a revived body walking out of a tomb wasn’t at all what Paul meant by a spiritual body.

Conner has noted another curiosity: In Mark’s gospel, Jesus predicts his death and resurrection three times (8:31; 9:31; 10:33-34), but when the women who had gone to the tomb reported the resurrection to the disciples, Luke reports (24:11): “But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.” When the Emmaus Road disciples told the others that they’d seen Jesus, “…they did not believe them.” Conner is stumped—as we all should be: Why were the disciples so clueless? Why didn’t they wait at the tomb to see this happen? How was such an important event not witnessed by anyone? The Doubting Thomas episode seems to have been designed to encourage belief without evidence, which has been the approach (the gimmick) of religious leaders forever, across the spectrum: “Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’” (John 20:19) 

This gimmick still works today, i.e., so many folks believe in their Jesus under the influence of priests and preachers (“…just take our word for it!”), without bothering to actually read the gospels, study them carefully, and above all, question everything. My goal with these Pop-Quizzes is to encourage Christians to do just that. When this happens, the confusion and incoherence in Jesus theology are not hard to spot. 

David Madison was a pastor in the Methodist Church for nine years, and has a PhD in Biblical Studies from Boston University. He is the author of two books, Ten Tough Problems in Christian Thought and Belief: a Minister-Turned-Atheist Shows Why You Should Ditch the Faith (2016; 2018 Foreword by John Loftus) and Ten Things Christians Wish Jesus Hadn’t Taught: And Other Reasons to Question His Words (2021). His YouTube channel is here. He has written for the Debunking Christian Blog since 2016.

The Cure-for-Christianity Library©, now with more than 500 titles, is here. A brief video explanation of the Library is here. 

By David Madison

10/07/22

Here is the link to this article.

…except those who are okay with supernatural evil

I was a Bible nerd even in my high school days, and continued to be one in college, when I made the decision to go to seminary. What a thrill that was: to study the Bible and God at the graduate level. But early in my seminary years I learned a troubling lesson—from my theology professors themselves: it is impossible to come up with a coherent theology of the Bible. For the simple reason that the Bible’s ideas about god are an incoherent, uncomplimentary mess.     Theologians themselves know that there are a thousand and one embarrassing Bible verses, so many of them relating to what Bible god is like and wants. This is one of the reasons that Christianity itself has fractured into thousands of different brands: so many disagreements about its god.

Many of the embarrassing Bible verses are, in fact, about how bad, vicious, and vindictive Bible god is. This is no surprise, since the original Yahweh was a tribal deity in competition with others, and had to protect his turf. Christian apologists face the challenge of making this god look good, despite the plain meaning of the texts. They don’t want this god either. They work hard to make their idealized, supposedly refined concept of god conform to Bible god (David 

Hayward’s cartoon nails it).

I suspect many of the devout Christian laity don’t read the Bible because, after dipping into it here and there—yes, even in the New Testament—they are shocked by what they find. Since their early years in Sunday School and catechism, they have been nurtured on images of their god carefully curated by preachers and priests; the bad Bible god is kept out of sight. Well, except for fanatical Christians who want their god to get even for all the sin in the world.

There are so many ways Bible god falls far short of what we would expect of a god who deserves to be worshipped. Dan Barker has provided invaluable help on this, e.g., with his 2018 book, God: The Most Unpleasant Character in All Fiction (to date, 508 reader reviews, 74% Five Stars). But I also highly recommend his essay, “Supernatural Evil,” in John Loftus’ 2021 anthology, God and
Horrendous Suffering.

God so loved the world? Well, not quite—in fact, far from it, when we can see how much damage Christian theology has caused the world. Just in terms of inhibiting human understanding of how the world works. Barker opens his essay with a description of what happened in Lisbon, Portugal on 1 November 1755. 

“The fall air was crisp and clear, and the sea was calm. The bustling metropolis was brimming with visitors and residents who packed dozens of churches for the Feast of All Saints. Around 9:45 a.m., while worshippers were praying, the city was rocked by a massive earthquake, ten times as strong as the one that destroyed San Francisco in 1906. Most of the churches were demolished, immediately killing thousands who were trapped inside.” (p. 388)

There were more earthquakes and tsunamis too, 

“But that wasn’t the worst. The fires that broke out grew into a roaring inferno that blazed for days through the rubble, incinerating trapped survivors, impeding rescue efforts, and destroying many structures that had withstood the quakes.”  (p.388)

How can this not be a serious challenge to belief in an idealized, refined concept of god: on a holy day, thousands of people were crushed to death in churches where they’d gone to pray. This brings to mind another horror 189 years later: when German soldiers were retreating from France in 1944, they massacred 643 civilians in the village, Oradour-sur-Glane. The men were herded into barns that were set on fire, while 247 women and 205 children were locked into the church and machine-gunned to death. 

Anyone whose mind had not been sabotaged by Christian theology has to wonder if this deity—in whose churches these victims died—isn’t weak and negligent, or simply wasn’t paying attention. Historian Barbara Tuchman, is her analysis of the Black Plague in the 14^th century, noted that the suffering had been so massive that traditional explanations, e.g., god was punishing sin, were no longer convincing. They just didn’t work. If god wasn’t involved at all, Tuchman notes, “…then the absolutes of a fixed order were loosed from their moorings.” (p. 129, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14^thCentury)

But Bible god plays a major role in keeping people trapped in bad theology. Barker points out that clerics at the time preached that sin was the cause, that god had gone into full punishment mode. Pope Benedict XIV urged churches in Italy to pray earnestly to avoid similar disasters. Sin was behind it all: “When England learned of the disaster, they immediately banned masquerade balls, presumably because they led to great sinning.” (p. 389)

Barker notes that the disaster “…sparked a huge debate about the problem of evil. The Age of Reason was beginning to flex its muscles against the Age of Faith.” (p. 389) There were thinkers who indeed sensed that the fixed Christian order was loosed from its mooring; Barker quotes Voltaire, who “would have none of this. He mocked those callous explanations: ‘And can you then impute a sinful deed to babies who on their mothers’ bosoms bleed?’ Was Portugal more evil than other countries? ‘Lisbon is shattered,’ he wrote, ‘and Paris dances.’” (p. 389)

But Bible god fuels the anger of preachers who hate sin. Barker includes a sampling of Bible texts that reinforce the idea that god is a punisher who inflicts suffering, e.g., Jeremiah 49:37, “I will bring disaster upon them, my fierce anger, declares the Lord. I will send the sword after them, until I have consumed them,” and Jeremiah 45:5, “And do you seek great things for yourself? Seek them not, for behold, I will bring disaster upon all flesh, declares the Lord.”

There are three features of Bible god that spoil Christian theology: (1) This god behaves like a furious toddler when it doesn’t get its way. (2) This god keeps a close watch on everything that every person does, says, and even thinks—or so plenty of Bible texts claim. I suspect that many of the devout don’t live as if this is true. (3) This furious toddler gets upset over trivia, instead of over great moral issues. Barker illustrates this in a major section of his essay. 

He illustrates the trivia in his discussion of idolatry, breaking the sabbath, interracial marriage, and general disobedience. Bible god can’t tolerate “his people” worshipping other gods—bowing down before idols—and goes into jealous rages when this happens. Of course, there are religious fanatics today who use this as a guide for behavior, but most of the folks who function in the modern world are far more tolerant. There are so many different religions, so many different ways of worshipping a variety of gods; the basic good practice to follow is “live and let live.” In my hometown—back in the 1940s and 1950s—there was a substantial religious divide: Catholics were adamant that Protestants were wrong, and vice versa, but everyone would have been horrified if the god they worshipped burned down the opposing churches—or commanded them to do so. 

Bible god’s jealousy, by the way, found expression in his defective Ten Commandments: the first three are “all about him.” He insisted on being the focus of attention and respect. Those first three commandments should have been knocked off the list to make room for a few that are conspicuously missing: prohibition of slavery, racism, misogyny, and marching off to war, one of the most grievous human faults.      

In our world today, one of those basic ten commandments—about keeping the sabbath—is almost universally ignored. Bible god would not be pleased. “Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a holy Sabbath of solemn rest to the Lord; whoever does any work on it shall be put to death.”  (Exodus 35:2) And there’s the horrible story we find in Numbers 15: a man was discovered picking up sticks on the sabbath:  

“Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘The man must surely be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp.’So, as the Lord commanded Moses, all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him with stones, and he died.” (Numbers 15:35-36)

Yes, the death penalty. The furious toddler is at it again. This makes sense only in the context of ancient tribal religious practice, as Barker notes: “Keeping the sabbath has nothing to do with morality, but it is such an egregious ‘crime’ against God that it merits the death penalty.” (p. 399)

I once read a Christian apologist’s excuse for Bible god commanding that even children should be put to death when the Israelites conquered the land promised to them by their tribal deity. “Those children,” the apologist argued, “would have grown up to be a corrupting influence on the chosen people.” 

Barker calls attention as well to the ban on mixed marriages, forbidden for the same reason. “After idolatry and breaking the sabbath, the next most common crime associated with ‘evil’ is marrying outside of God’s chosen people. ‘Do not intermarry with them,’ we are warned in Deuteronomy 7:3.” Barker includes a long quote from Nehemiah (13:23-30), his rant against mixed marriages, which includes the words: “And I confronted them and cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair.” Barker calls attention to the damage done by belief in Bible god: “Nehemiah ran around like a deranged street preacher, beating up people, cursing them and pulling out their hair! And for what? For choosing whom to marry. Is this sane? Is this moral?” (p. 400)

Nehemiah’s rage about mixed marriages—his desire to dissolve them—draws attention to another aspect of Bible theology incoherence. In Jesus-script we find condemnation of divorce, which includes the words, “What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” (Mark 10:9) The strong implication of this is that all marriages, wherever and whenever, have been ordained by god: he has done the joining together. This has to be a major theological mistake, given all the bad marriages that have happened. 

Barker provides a comprehensive list of the bad attributes/habits of Bible god. He notes that Richard Dawkins took a lot of heat for his accusation that god “…is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction…” Which turned out to the title of Barker’s book, and in this essay he lists 27 of the faults and flaws of Bible god, including jealous, control freak, genocidal, bully, curse hurling—and scriptural references for them all. 

Apologists will rush to Bible god’s defense: think of all the good Bible verses about god—and of course these do exist. Martin Luther King popularized a verse from the Book of Amos that was his call for racial justice: “But let justice roll down like water and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” (Amos 5:24) However, readers have to step gingerly around so many of the horrible verses about god, including Jesus-script that warns about eternal punishment in fire, and that there will be as much suffering at the arrival of his kingdom as during the time of Noah. Yes, the furious toddler is right there in the New Testament. We end up with theological incoherence, which excludes the possibility of any sound, convincing theology of the Bible.

Theologians and philosophers have long discussed/debated about moral evil and natural evil. Moral evil derives from human wickedness, natural evil from what our biosphere inflicts upon us. But Barker calls attention to what has to be a third category: suffering willfully inflicted by Bible god behaving as a furious toddler: on purpose causing pain and destruction as punishment. In the wake of Hurricane Ian there has been speculation about who or what Bible god was getting even with. Hence the title of Barker’s essay, Supernatural evil:

“If the maleficent God who boasted ‘I create evil’ actually exists—thank goodness he doesn’t— then earthquakes, hurricanes, blizzards, droughts, wildfires, floods, tornadoes and viral pandemics should be understood as neither moral evil nor natural evil but as ‘supernatural evil.’” (p. 407) 

Whenever we bump into religious fanatics who are okay with Bible god, maybe the best practice is to stay as far away as possible from them.

David Madison was a pastor in the Methodist Church for nine years, and has a PhD in Biblical Studies from Boston University. He is the author of two books, Ten Tough Problems in Christian Thought and Belief: a Minister-Turned-Atheist Shows Why You Should Ditch the Faith (2016; 2018 Foreword by John Loftus) and Ten Things Christians Wish Jesus Hadn’t Taught: And Other Reasons to Question His Words (2021). His YouTube channel is here. He has written for the Debunking Christianity Blog since 2016.

The Cure-for-Christianity Library©, now with more than 500 titles, is here. A brief video explanation of the Library is here. 

By David Madison

03/18/2022

Here’s the link to this article.

Would your devout friends get passing grades?

In 1927 Bertrand Russell delivered a lecture at the town hall in Battersea, England. The topic was Why I Am Not a Christian, and this is now the title of a book that includes several of his writings. In 2011 Richard Carrier published a 92-page book with the same title. Russell was one of the great minds of the Twentieth Century; Carrier is one of the top Jesus scholars of our time. I’m pretty sure that Christian book stores don’t carry either of these book—i.e., there isn’t a section, “Books Written by Our Atheist Critics.” Devout believers may boast that their faith is unshakeable, but we suspect otherwise. They might identify with the fellow who cried out to Jesus, “I believe, help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24) Thus they keep their distance from anything that might puncture faith.

But there is great irony here: it’s not just atheist authors that Christians have to worry about. The Bible itself plays a major role in destroying belief in a good, competent god. Seth Andrews has fantasized about running a TV quiz show called Hell If I Know, played by devout contestants whose ignorance of the Bible is exposed (see his new book, Christianity Made Me Talk Like an Idiot!). My fantasy involves giving Christians Pop Quizzes to help them grasp how much they don’t know about their own faith. So this is Pop Quiz Number 2. Pop Quiz Number 1 is here. 

The first question is about science, then the rest are about the Bible.

Questions

Science

1.     What is the primary preoccupation of cosmologists, and what fields do they specialize in? What are they trying to find out? Name two of the tools/instruments that have proved most helpful in their work. 

Religion

2.     Where do we find the Sermon on the Mount? That is, in which of the gospels? Why do you think this famous sermon is missing from other gospels? List five of the teaching in this famous sermon that you disagree with (come on—be honest!).  

3.     Name four of the major differences between the gospel of Mark and the gospel of John. Why do you think they differ so much?

4.     “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name, thy kingdom come…” These are the opening words of The Lord’s Prayer. They are a fundamental part of Christian piety. Try to analyze these words, however, as someone who isn’t so used to them. Identify four possible objections to the beliefs reflected here.

5.     Some scholars have expressed doubt that Jesus existed. They identify as Mythicists, suggesting that Jesus was a mythical figure originally, and that the gospels are fictional accounts created decades after the new sect got its start. As farfetched as this may seem to devout believers, name three issues—found in the New Testament itself—that prompt suspicion that Jesus didn’t actually exist. 

Answers

Question One: 

Cosmologists are applying their brain power to finding out how the cosmos began. They are astronomers and physicists. Important tools in this search have been (1) The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, (2) the European Space Agency’s Planck Mission, (3) The Hubble Space Telescope. The James Webb Space Telescope, launched recently, has the capacity to collect even more data.  

Comment:

Cosmologists know that “God did it” is a non-answer, because it provides no evidence for what actually happened and how—especially the version found in Genesis, “And God said, ‘Let there be light.’” That is a form of magical thinking common in the ancient world: a god speaks and something happens. Cosmologists are looking for actual data upon which to base solid answers. That requires hunting for the data using the tools mentioned above. This important work of cosmologists is far beyond the horizon of awareness of most of the devout, probably because “God did it” is a curiosity stopper. What amazing tools—those mentioned above—these scientists have created to figure out what’s happening in the universe. By looking at a patch of space no larger than the scoop of the Big Dipper—where the naked eye sees a few twinkling stars—the Hubble telescope photographed more than a million galaxies. This is far beyond the imaginings of the ancient theologians who believed that god’s realm was above the Earth and below the Moon. And, by the way, the cosmologists have found no data supporting the god idea. See especially the essay by Sean Carroll, Why (Almost) All Cosmologists Are Atheists.

Question Two:

The Sermon on the Mount is found in the gospel of Matthew, chapters 5-7. The author of Luke’s gospel broke it up, abbreviated it, and said that it took place on a “level place.” It is absent from the gospels of Mark and John. In just five verses in Matthew’s version, 5:28-42, we find several commands that Christians would choose not to obey, which I have bolded:

You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also;and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile.Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you. 

Also, 6:19: Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, and 6:25: Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?

Comment:

The Sermon on the Mount is commonly considered the gold standard for ethical teaching, yet much in it is ignored by Christians. The author of Mark’s gospel probably had never heard of this sermon, and his focus was the imminent kingdom of God that Jesus was soon to bring to earth; John left it out because his major passion was Jesus, the guarantor of eternal life, i.e., belief in that was the key to salvation. We can see that each gospel author had his own agenda, and Matthew felt that Mark—from whom he copied extensively—had to be strengthened. But Richard Carrier reminds us that speeches for heroes in ancient epics were commonly made up; the Sermon on the Mount, he says, is

“…a well-crafted literary work that cannot have come from some illiterate Galilean. In fact, we know it originated in Greek, not Hebrew or Aramaic, because it relies on the Septuagint text of the Bible for all its features and allusions…These are not the words of Jesus. This famous sermon as a whole also has a complex literary structure that can only have come from a writer, not an everyday speaker.”  (pp. 465-466, On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt)

Question Three:

1)    In Mark’s gospel, Jesus is baptized by John the Baptist; in John’s gospel it doesn’t happen. 2) In Mark’s gospel, the words of the Eucharist are spoken at the Last Supper; in John’s gospel these words are omitted. 3) The huge monologues of Jesus in John’s gospel are missing from Mark’s gospel; how could Mark have missed all this Jesus-script? 4) The whole of Mark’s account of Jesus could have played out in just three or four weeks, while John’s gospel presents it as a three-year ministry. 

Comment:

It is commonly understood by most New Testament scholars that Mark’s gospel was written first, and John’s last—maybe forty or fifty years apart. This allowed for considerable theology inflation to have happened during those decades—and John excelled at theology inflation: he even has Jesus present at creation, which couldn’t have been further from the mind of Mark’s author. Again, each gospel author had his own agenda—and imagination. These major differences certainly cast down on the claim that these authors were inspired by a god to write “the truth” about Jesus.  

Question Four:

Yes, it is a major challenge to step back from the Lord’s Prayer to analyze it critically and objectively. 

Comment:

But here’s what can emerge when that happens: (1) assigning to God a human gender label, i.e., father, is a vestige of ancient thinking about God—projecting human traits onto gods, making them in our image—and this has a played a major role in the misogyny that has plagued Christianity: god is male.  (2) placing God “in heaven” also reflects ancient concepts about heaven being a realm located spatially above the earth. Theologians have tried to redefine heaven as a spiritual reality with no specific location, which most of the devout—who are attached to The Man Upstairs—probably find hard to identify with: they want heaven to be up there, otherwise it might just be too mysterious. (3) hallowed be thy name. These are perhaps the most jarring words in this opening of the prayer: why is it necessary to remind a god that its name is holy? What’s the point? This seems to be stroking the divine ego, and also reflects the ancient custom of fashioning gods after tribal chieftains. (4) thy kingdom come. This reflects the theology Mark especially, i.e., there Jesus’ primary role is to usher in the kingdom of God—soon. So it’s no surprise that the Jesus-script in Matthew included asking his disciples to pray for the kingdom to come. Here we are 2,000 years later, and it hasn’t happened.

Question Five:

The indignation index usually goes up when Christians hear the suggestion that Jesus didn’t exist. How dare people say that! But rather than flaming out, isn’t it better to be able to engage intelligently in the debate? 

Comment: 

Here are three factors—among others—that prompt doubt about the historicity of Jesus.  

(1) The gospel authors cite none of their sources. No matter how cherished the gospels are, there is no contemporaneous documentation to validate any of their stories, i.e., letters, diaries, transcripts.  Nobody who lived at the same time Jesus did wrote anything about him that has been preserved. This wildly popular preacher—so the gospels tell us—left no mark at the time. Which is really strange. Jesus is not there where he’s supposed to be. 

(2) The earliest New Testament documents—at least by the dating currently assigned to them (or guessed at) by scholars—proclaim the message of Jesus Christ, lord and savior, with scant mention of Jesus of Nazareth, his preaching and ministry. It’s almost as if there were no story to tell. Why are the epistles largely silent about the peasant preacher from Galilee? Why so little interest? That has caused a lot of anguish among devout scholars. 

(3) Careful analysis of the gospels allows identification of plenty of sources that the authors did use (which fail as contemporaneous documentation), e.g., stories from the Old Testament, borrowings from Greek literature (after all, the gospels were written by Greek-educated authors), and the abundant surrounding religious traditions from which the gospel authors could draw, including miracle folklore. Other gods were said to be born of virgins, other dying-and-rising gods assured salvation for their followers. The gospels are chock full of such miracles, fantasies, and magical thinking. It has proved very hard for New Testament scholars to sift through all these elements to identify the “real Jesus stuff”—if there is any. The gospel writers give no clue—no real data—whatever that they derived their stories about Jesus from eyewitnesses (despite Luke’s claim at the opening of his gospel)—and no contemporaneous documentation is cited. This is not the right way to write history. 

****** 

Of course, it’s rough for devout folks—who have been taught to adore the gospels and love their Jesus—to face these issues head on. Among other things, it requires a lot of homework, both reading the gospels super carefully, super critically, and reading the books that address these issues honestly. At the end of the second paragraph of the Introduction to the Cure-for-Christianity Library, you’ll find the names of several mythicist scholars. 

Okay, I admit it: a Pop Quiz for Christians is a form of entrapment. No preacher or priest, no Sunday School or catechism teacher, ever says, “Please fact check everything I’ve told you. Find out the opposing views.” But every question on my two Pop Quizzes is a challenge: do the research, question everything. “I believe, help my unbelief” isn’t good enough—that’s giving the benefit of the doubt to the ecclesiastical establishment. Find out if unbelief isn’t the better, more sensible, way to go.  

David Madison was a pastor in the Methodist Church for nine years, and has a PhD in Biblical Studies from Boston University. He is the author of two books, Ten Tough Problems in Christian Thought and Belief: a Minister-Turned-Atheist Shows Why You Should Ditch the Faith (2016; 2018 Foreword by John Loftus) and Ten Things Christians Wish Jesus Hadn’t Taught: And Other Reasons to Question His Words (2021). He has written for the Debunking Christian Blog since 2016.

The Cure-for-Christianity Library©, now with more than 500 titles, is here. A brief video explanation of the Library is here.

By David Madison

2/18/22

Here’s the link to this article.

There would be a lot of Cs, Ds & Fs 

There are, of course, so many different kinds of Christians: from snake-handling cults in Appalachia (see Mark 16:17-18) to High-Church Anglicans who hold on to the resurrection as a metaphor—and thousands of varieties in between. James B. Twitchell put a humorous twist on it: “A Baptist is a Christian who learned how to wash; a Methodist is a Baptist who had learned to read; a Presbyterian is a Methodist who has gone to college; and an Episcopalian is a Presbyterian whose investments have turned out well.” (p. 31, Shopping for God: How Christianity Went from In Your Heart to In Your Face, 2007) Based on my own experience as a pastor, I know Christians exist on a scale, from lukewarm occasional churchgoers to those who are committed enthusiasts—they mean it when they tell us they “belong to Jesus.”

But there is usually a reluctance to probe, at least among the Christians I know today. “I know what I believe,” is commonly a cover for not really wanting to investigate. Why disturb the faith comfort zone? In order to get along in most areas of life, Christians usually want to check things out—get the facts—for example, when buying a car or a house. The fundamentals of their faith, however, aren’t given the same scrutiny. I suspect there is more doubt lurking below the surface than people want to admit. Don’t go there! Even study of science might seem risky, especially since some areas of science make the faith look especially vulnerable. After all, Christianity arose in the ancient world when basic understandings of the world—as provided by science—were unknown. For example, a lot of people know very well that heaven really isn’t up there, and clergy efforts to relocate it seem contrived.

With my own Christian acquaintances inmind, I fantasize about a Pop Quiz they should take. I wonder how they’d do, and I fear the worst. Here’s the Pop Quiz I have come up with, with two questions about science, and the rest relating to Christianity belief.

Pop Quiz for Christians

Science

1.     Who was Edwin Hubble, and how did his discoveries change how we think about our world?

2.     Who was Georges Lamaître?  What was his follow-up insight on Hubble’s discoveries?

Religion

3.     What is epistemology, and why is it so important?

4.     What is The Outsider Test for Faith?

5.     What do New Testament scholars mean by “the quest for the historical Jesus”?

6.     List ten theological problems presented by the gospel of Mark, e.g., examples of bad theology.

7.     While John 3:16 is a favorite Bible verse, name the points of bad theology in John 3.

8.     List five Jesus quotes in the gospels that you disagree with and ignore.

9.     How does the story of Jesus ascending to heaven, in the Book of Acts, Chapter 1, jeopardize Christianity?

10.  When did the Vatican announce the Dogma of the Immaculate Concept? What’s it about, and what’s the evidence for it?

Answers

Questions 1:

On 26 April 1920, at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, astronomers Harlow Shapley and Heber Curtis debated about the size of the universe. Shapley believed that the Milky Way galaxy was the whole universe. The distant smudges of light visible in the night sky were solar systems in the process of forming. Curtis believed them to be other galaxies, far beyond our own. Later in the decade, astronomer Edwin Hubble demonstrated that one of the major smudges of light is indeed the Andromeda Galaxy, more than two million light years beyond our own galaxy. Moreover, he identified even more distant other galaxies that are receding; this provided evidence that the universe is expanding. Einstein’s theories had suggested this was the case, although Einstein himself was baffled by the idea. 

Question 2:

It was then Georges Lemaître, a Belgian priest and physicist, who pondered Hubble’s findings and suggested that the universe originated as a “primeval atom” that underwent sudden dramatic expansion billions of years ago. Later, astronomer Fred Hoyle ridiculed the concept by calling it the Big Bang. The term stuck, however, and cosmologists ever since have been accumulating the evidence for the explosion of the primeval atom. 

Comment:

When Christianity arrived on the scene, “heaven” meant a spiritual realm above the clouds, stretching perhaps as far as the moon. That was the Cosmos. So, of course, gods were nearby—a perspective from which they could monitor human affairs. This included the god of the Bible, Yahweh, who was hovering close enough to savor the aroma of burning animal fat, i.e., sacrifices to him offered by the faithful (Exodus 29:18). 

This is the challenge to theology offered by Hubble’s discovery: with hundreds of billions of galaxies in the universe—with perhaps trillions of planets—does it remain credible that there is a personal god who monitors the behavior of every human being? What is the evidence for that? This may be comforting to some—as well as a source of terror. Does the totalitarian monotheism of Christianity (God watches everything you do!) still make any sense at all? Indeed, theologians have their work cut out for them, which would be even more of a burden if every Christian knew and internalized what Edwin Hubble discovered. 

Question 3:

According to one dictionary definition, “Epistemology is the investigation of what distinguishes justified belief from opinion.” By what methods do you determine that your beliefs are true? If I ask, “What is your epistemology?” I expect an explanation: Do your ways of knowing about God hold up to critical scrutiny? Sound epistemology is especially important regarding religious beliefs.  

Comment:  

It should be obvious that “I take it on faith,” or “My priest or preacher told me it’s true,” or “I learned it from my parents” are not sound epistemology. Most of the religions in human history have claimed legitimacy on precisely these inadequate foundations. Epistemology involves the search for reliable, verifiable, objective data that can support beliefs. “I feel it in my heart” is useless as a source of god-information. What you’re feeling is evidence for…what you’re feeling! 

Question 4:

The Outsider Test for Faith is the title of a book by John W. Loftus. He proposes that any devout person should subject his or her own religion to the tests by which they reject other religions. That is, try your very best to analyze your own faith critically, with as much skepticism as you can muster.

Comment:

This should snap believers to attention. Does a Catholic really know why he/she isn’t a Mormon or a Muslim…or a Southern Baptist? Could the differences in these faiths be clearly articulated? This is a major clue that believers rarely think about what they believe—and why. Which is all the more reason to embrace the Outsider Test for Faith. Examine every aspect of your faith as objectively as possible. Yes, the Mormons believe stupid shit, but Catholics and Protestants blindly accept absurdities as well. 

Question 5:

For at least a century now, New Testament scholars have been engaged in the Quest for the Historical Jesus. They’re trying to figure out what can be known for sure about Jesus. Is this ever mentioned in church, Sunday School, or catechism? Looks like a cover-up, doesn’t it? New Testament studies have been in turmoil for a long time because scholars have not been successful in devising a methodology for identifying the authentic words and deeds of Jesus in the gospels. Hence the ongoing, and forever floundering, quest to discover who Jesus really was. 

Comment:

The gospels were written decades after the death of Jesus, and we don’t know the sources that the authors used, other than Old Testament prototypes, parallels in Greek literature, and their own imaginations. Dozens of “real Jesuses” have been proposed by dozens of scholars who pick and chose the bits of the gospels that seem authentic to them. But the Jesus who prevails in ritual and art—the ideal Jesus of the imagination, as Bart Ehrman has called it—is the one accepted by the laity. And the clergy have no interest in puncturing these fantasies, in letting the folks in the pews know about the agonies of devout scholars. Yes, a cover-up.  

Question 6:

In Mark, the first gospel written, 1) the virgin birth isn’t mentioned—why would Mark skip that? 2) Jesus is baptized by John the Baptist for the remission of sins; 3) Jesus suggests to a paralyzed man that sin caused his affliction; 4) he tells his disciples that he teaches in parables to fool people, to keep them from repenting; 5) demons recognize Jesus because they belong to the same spiritual realm—and Jesus transfers them into pigs; 6) God speaks through water vapor, i.e., a cloud; 7) Jesus describes the horrible suffering God has in store for humanity when the Kingdom of God arrives; 8) the disciples are constantly portrayed as clueless; 9) the resurrected Jesus promised that baptized Christians will be able to drink poison, heal people by touch, and pick up snakes;10) verses 16:9-20 of the gospel are a fake ending. How did a fake ending get included in the Bible?

Comment:

No, this is not an unfair request: that ordinary readers be able to identify such problems. If Christians really do believe that the Bible is the Word of God, they should be avidly reading and studying the gospel of Mark—and know it well. None of these ten problems is hard to spot, and there are even more. Four years ago, I published an article here titled, Getting the Gospels Off on the Wrong Foot. I suggested that, if you accept the Jesus in Mark’s gospel, you’re well on your way to full-throttle crazy religion. These examples I’ve cited of bad theology and ancient superstitions in Mark drag down the Christian faith.

Question 7:

John 3:16 itself is marred by bad theology. It states plainly that belief in Jesus is the key to eternal life, which means that most of the people who have ever lived are excluded.

Comment:

As is made plain in verse 3:18, “…those who do not believe are condemned already…”

And verse 3:36, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but must endure God’s wrath.”  This vindictive, revenge theology cancels the feel-good theology that people assume when they hear the words, “God so loved the world…”

Question 8:

List five Jesus quotes that you disagree with. 1) Luke 14:26, Hatred of family is a requirement of discipleship; 2) Luke 14:33, You must give up all your possessions to be a disciple; 3) Luke 12:49, “I have come to set the world on fire and I wish it were already kindled; 4) Matthew 10:35, “I have come to set fathers against sons, etc.” 5) Matthew 5:40, if someone sues you, give him more than you’ve been sued for.

Comment:

The website for my second book includes a list of 292 bad, mediocre, alarming Jesus quotes. These have gone unnoticed because they are not read from the pulpit, and Christians don’t read their Bibles all that much. People are satisfied with the ideal Jesus of their imaginations.

Question 9:

We read in the Book of Acts, Chapter 1, that the disciples watched Jesus disappear above the clouds as he rose to heaven. This can’t have happened, of course, because heaven isn’t a few miles overhead, where God sits on his throne—as the New Testament authors believed. A few miles above the clouds there is intense cold and deadly radiation, The British scholar A.N. Wilson once pointed out that, no matter by what means of propulsion, Jesus would have gone into orbit. 

Comment:

But it is not the fantasy element here that damages Christianity the most—although that’s a major weakness. The inescapable fact is that the newly alive body of Jesus—so Christians affirm—didn’t leave the planet. Which means that he died again, that is, his “having risen” was a temporary event (and, of course, there is no reliable, verifiable evidence that he did resurrect). So we have to assume 1) that Jesus was buried somewhere, and 2) the New Testament covered up what happened to him: the risen lord didn’t stay risen. There is a magnitude of bad theology here that falsifies Christianity. 

Question 10:   

The Dogma of the Immaculate Conception was announced by the Vatican in 1854. It states that when Mary was conceived, her soul was miraculously cleansed of original sin, thus guaranteeing that her son Jesus was also free of original sin. There is no evidence for this: it derives from theological speculation by theologians who believe in original sin.

Comment:

So many times I have seen Immaculate Conception confused with the virgin birth of Jesus, though Catholics don’t make this mistake as often as Protestants do. But any Catholic who is asked to believe that Mary was conceived clean should press theologians who champion this aspect of the Vatican party line: how do they know this? Where is the data to back it up? They had to have their perfect Jesus, but how could that be possible if original sin had been passed on to him by his mother? Voilà: they added yet another unevidenced miracle, i.e., yet more magical thinking. If you want to find an outstanding example of stupid Catholic shit, this is it. It’s no longer 1854: how can anyone these days believe it?

But they do and it’s no mystery: I know Christians who are stunningly ignorant about their own faith: stubbornly, arrogantly, aggressively ignorant. They are unteachable, and are okay with that. Perhaps there are some Christians who would be willing to take this Pop Quiz and see that it’s a wakeup: Christianity is based on far too much bad theology. It’s been oversold. 

David Madison was a pastor in the Methodist Church for nine years, and has a PhD in Biblical Studies from Boston University. He is the author of two books, Ten Tough Problems in Christian Thought and Belief: a Minister-Turned-Atheist Shows Why You Should Ditch the Faith (2016; 2018 Foreword by John Loftus) and Ten Things Christians Wish Jesus Hadn’t Taught: And Other Reasons to Question His Words (2021). He has written for the Debunking Christian Blog since 2016.

The Cure-for-Christianity Library©, now with more than 500 titles, is here. A brief video explanation of the Library is here.