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I am continuing in my extended review of Christopher Hitchens’ book “God Is Not Great,” examining Hitchens’ claim that the New Testament is more evil than Old.

Hitchens first line of attack is to claim the Gospels are unhistorical and that they “cannot agree on anything of importance.” Now it is true that some scholars consider these accounts as mere fabrications, but it is also true that other scholars have examine these accounts, and as D.A. Carson points out in his commentary on Matthew, ” the stories have long been shown to be compatible, even mutually complementary.”

But there is a further and deeper problem behind Hitchens claim, one that rest more with the liberal scholars he relies on then with him.  Scholars, in whatever field are assumed to be people who have studied all the relevant material in reaching their scholarly conclusions.  Yet when it come to biblical scholars critical of the Bible this is not always the case.

This was noted by another biblical scholar, Craig Blomberg, when he wrote, ” it is strange how often the reliability of the gospels is impugned by scholars who believe them to be hopelessly contradictory yet who have never seriously interacted with the types of solutions proposed here.” (cited in The Historical Reliability of the Gospels, pg 150)

Most of the alleged problems raised by Hitchens have been dealt with and answered long ago,  and in fact I answer many of them in my two books,  Christianity and Secularism and   Evidence for the Bible.   

As such Hitchens is simple wrong when he argues that “The contradictions and illiteracies of the New Testament… have never been explained by any Christian authority except in the feeblest terms of “metaphor” and “a Christ of faith.” (pg 115)  This error is followed immediately by another error, when Hitchens claims “This feebleness derives from the fact that until recently, Christians could simply burn or silence anybody who asked any inconvenient questions.” (pg 115)  While vague enough to find some support in history, this statement is really little more than a bigoted slander.   But then this, for Hitchens is what passes as rational argument.   He makes a claim, and then follow it by a slanderous accusation hoping to silence any reply.  It may be an effective debating tactic, but it does not substitute for a rational argument.

From there Hitchens goes to what he calls the other “‘Gospels and narratives of marginal but significant figures”  such as Thomas, Mary Magdalene, and Judas.  (pg 112).  His intent seems to be to cast doubt on the New Testament by pointing to the existence of these other writings.  He does argue that if these had been consider inspired rather than the four gospels in the Bible Christianity would have been far different.   True enough, but as the saying goes, if my grandmother had wheels, she would be a wagon.  

This does, however,  reveal the different presupposition made by many critics such as Hitchens.  They start with the belief that all religions are equally false human creations.  Christianity can’t possibly be the result of God intervening into history, but rather,  it was one of many religious movements of the period, and it was just luck and chance that it happened to rise to dominance.

Thus Hitchens probably does  see the Gospel of Judas, or Thomas, as supporting his assumption and in a small way they do.  His view requires many religions, and these other gospels do show that Gnosticism was a competitor to Christianity in the second century.  But while a minor support for his view, it is hardly a significant one, since in some of the later books of the New Testament one can see the apostles warning against other religious movements, including what appears to be a very early form of Gnosticism. 

There is another key difference between the Gnostic Gospels and the New Testament Gospels. The Gnostic Gospels generally date from the 2^nd century long after the apostles died.  The New Testament gospels were written in the first century and while there is some disagreement, there are scholars who argue they were written by the those they are named after.

Some of Hitchens arguments are just plain silly, such as his claim that virgin birth was a man made account because “parthenogenesis is not possible for human mammals”  Of course it was not possible, that’s what made it a miracle of God.  But for Hitchens, by definition everything must be natural or it did not happen.  That the virgin birth could have been a miracle of God is not really even an option for him.

Hitchens ends by pointing to Bart Ehrman’s views on the New Testament.  Ehrman has gained some notoriety by taking what was already known to anyone who looks at the footnotes in their bible and playing it up as if it were significant.  For a more in depth discussion of Ehrman’ views see my review of his book.

Ultimately Hitchens critique of the New Testament is little more than a rehash of long refuted arguments,  with a generous sprinkling of invective. Certainly nothing to support his claim that it is evil.

This is Elgin Hushbeck, asking you to Consider Christianity: a Faith Based on Fact.

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Continuing in my extended review of Christopher Hitchens’ book “God Is Not Great,” After having dealt with the Old Testament, in chapter seven, chapter eight takes on New, claim it “Exceeds the Evil of the ‘Old’ One.” Hitchens starts by claiming the New Testament is “a work of crude carpentry, hammered together long after its purported events” and that this has been borne out by Biblical scholarship. (p 110)

But not content to make this point, Hitchens follows it with a gratuitous insult claiming, ‘this arguments takes place over the heads of those to whom the ‘Good Book’ is all that is required.” and as an example, refers to a unnamed governor of Texas whom he quotes as saying “if English was good enough for Jesus, then it’s good enough for me.” (p 110)

The quote sounded to me like one of many smears spread by atheists and agnostics to attack believers. Such bigoted smears have a long history and are so entrenched into the culture that some are even taught in schools. For example, I was taught as a kid that Columbus had to battle the ignorance of Christians who believed that the earth was flat. This is a complete myth as was shown by the Historian Jeffery Burton Russell, in his book Inventing the Flat Earth. Still it is not at all uncommon to hear atheist and agnostics continue to perpetuate this and other anti-Christian myths.

As for Hitchens’ quote, I checked the back of the book for a reference and found none. I then read a discussion that I found on snopes.com a great place to check out urban legends, which pointed out that this quote was questionable as it had been attributed to a number of different people. A person in another discussion I read claimed that they had found the exact quote at NewsPaperArchive.com in a article published in 1927, but the article attributed the quote to a person from Arkansas, not Texas, and it was said as a joke. I would have check out this article but NewsPaperArchive.com is a paid site that charges $99 to join. So lacking any specific citation, it would appear that this quote is just another in a long line of myths used to attack Christianity.

As for his other insult that his argument concerning biblical scholarship was “over the heads of those to whom the ‘Good Book’ is all that is required.” (pg 110) there is a problem. If Hitchens qualification of “to whom the ‘Good Book’ is all that is required” refers to those who reject or ignore everything not in the Bible, then this refers to such a small faction of Christians as to be irrelevant. On the other hand if this is meant to refer to Christians in general, then it is simply false.

This brings me to the main problem with Hitchens argument concerning biblical scholarship, it is one sided and outdated. As for being one-sided, it would appear that to Hitchens biblical scholarship consists only of those who are critical of the Bible. Though, in his defense, one of the problems with liberal scholarship, is that it is very insular, ignoring for the most part criticism, problems and issues raised by conservative scholars. As I point out in Chapter Two of my book, Evidence for the Bible, there are some serious problems with the claims of liberal scholars.

More damaging to his claim is that, while earlier liberal scholarship was very critical of the NT, believing the books to have been dated long after the events as Hitchens claims, later scholarship has reversed this to some extent and more recent scholarship has been pushing the date of the writing back to, and in some cases even earlier than, the traditional dates. For example, liberal scholars of the 19^th century dated the Gospel of John as late as 170 A.D., long after John had died. Then a fragment of the Gospel was found dating 125-130 destroying the later dates. More recent scholarship points to a date somewhat earlier than the traditional date in the 90s, with a few scholars even arguing for a date in the 50s or 60s.

The simple fact is that, rather than being over their heads, scholarship plays and important role in many Christians’ understanding of the Bible, and contrary to the impression Hitchens gives, many scholars are believing Christians who see their scholarship as deepening their faith. Now I know that Hitchens is aware of these Conservative scholars as he has debated some of them. But rather than a reasoned discussion of the evidence for and against his position, we get one sided pronouncements that ignore any scholarly disagreements, followed by a few insults to try and stifle any debate.

What makes this even more problematic is that Hitchens is claiming to be arguing for the rational over the irrational. But a one sided presentation filled with invective is not what one would call the epitome of rationality and in the end Hitchens comes off somewhat as parent vainly arguing do as I say, not what I do.

After taking time to attack and ridicule Mel Gibson for making The Passion of The Christ, what follows is then a one sided rehash of many of the common objections raised by skeptics. And that is where I will pick up next time.

This is Elgin Hushbeck, asking you to Consider Christianity: a Faith Based on Fact.

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In my extended review of Christopher Hitchens’ book “God Is Not Great,” I considered a further discussion concerning the evidence that points strongly to design, but since I cover this in chapter four of my book  Evidence for the Bible, I have decided to move on.  Those interested, should see my discussion there.

Hitchens leaves no doubt about where he is going in the title of chapter seven  “Revelation: The Nightmare of the ‘Old’ Testament.”  Hitchens once again starts by creating a strawman, which he then proceeds to knockdown, defining revelation as God giving “unalterable laws” to “randomly selected human beings.”  Even with such a strawman, Hitchens still misses the mark with his first objection, i.e., that “several such disclosures have been claimed to occur, at different times and places, to hugely discrepant prophets or mediums” (pg 97) They cannot all be true, and while one may be authentic, “this seems dubious… and appears to necessitate religious wars.”   As with so many of Hitchens’ claims, this is more commentary than argument.

Hitchens argues that, “the syncretic tendency of monotheism, and the common ancestry of the tales, mean in effect that a rebuttal to one is a rebuttal to all.”  (pg 98)  This could only be true if all alleged revelation were equally true, or equally false.  Yet they cannot all be equally true, if for nothing else, one of the revelations is that there would be false prophets, and thus false revelation. On the other hand, if you start by assuming they are all equally false, then there would be no need to make a rebuttal in the first place. So once again Hitchens argument simply does not make sense.

From here Hitchens quickly moves to a discussion of the Ten Commandments, which he believes are “proof that religion is man-made.” (pg 99) However his justifications for this claim are at best nonsensical, such as his claim, yet another he considers “unanswerable,” that for God to included a prohibition against murder would imply that before this murder was acceptable, as if God could only give moral laws that were otherwise unknown.

Much of Hitchens analysis ignores that while grounded in universal principles, many of the laws given to Moses were for a particular  purpose, to a particular people, at a particular time and in a particular cultural setting. In fact that they show this characteristic is for Hitchens evidence that they are man-made. However, this is a much easier conclusion to reach for one living in a culture that has been shaped and molded by the Bible for 3000 years and thus where it is easy to overlook the revolutionary character of these laws and the huge moral advancement that they represented.

Hitchens ignores, or is unaware of,  the advancement and complains that these laws don’t match his conception of perfect. As an example, he points to the Bible regulations of slavery. Granted in a perfect world God would have just banned slavery, but we don’t have a perfect world. While Hitchens complains about the regulations, at the time they were a marked step forward over having no regulation at all.

Like it or not slavery was so completely entrenched in the societies of the time, that a total prohibition was likely to be ignored. However, more humane treatment was easier to follows and thus much more likely to actually improve things. Historically this is what happened.  In fact the rules governing slaves were so restrictive that over time it resulted in later rabbis concluding “He who buys a Hebrew slave buys a master” and slavery virtually disappeared over time.  Thus while in theory, one might argue that an outright ban would have better reflected a perfect moral code, the result of the Laws on slavery did effectively end the practice.

Hitchens also cites one of the other common examples of alleged cruelty, the stoning of children for disobedience. Again he ignores the revolutionary improvement the law brought about. What was new about the law was not the killing of children. That a parent had the right of life and death over a child was common place. sWhat was new was this power was being taken away from the parents, and transferred to the community, where it seems never to have been exercised.  Contrast this with the honor killing that continues to be a problem in some parts of the world.

This is not to say that there are not difficult passages in the Old Testament. There are, such as God’s command to kill all the Amalekites, and some of which only God has the answer. But, these are for isolated and special events under unique circumstances.  They are not general moral precepts to be followed.

Much of the rest of the chapter is taken up with the claims that the Old Testament is unhistorical and a restatement of theory that Moses did not write the first five books of the Bible. Both subjects I deal with in my book Evidence for the Bible.

In the end, Hitchens exegesis of the Old Testament leaves a lot to be desired and his argument that it is a nightmare stands in stark contrast to what the Old Testament has actually produce.

This is Elgin Hushbeck, asking you to Consider Christianity: a Faith Based on Fact.

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Continuing in chapter six of Christopher Hitchens’ book “God Is Not Great,” I come to his discussion of the specific arguments for design.  Again there is a great deal of hyperbole and ridicule that one must wade through, and given the subject matter, a great deal of it is somewhat ironic.  Hitchens attempts to claim that it is theists that have been forced into this argument “with great reluctance,” and that atheists “have to improve our minds by the laborious exercise of refuting the latest foolishness contrived by the faithful. (pg 80-81)

Hitchens would do to well to seriously read Jonathan Wells’ book Icons of Evolution in which Wells exposes a number of not only foolish arguments, but distortions, errors and in many cases outright fraud that has been and continues to be used to defend evolution.  The many examples documented by Wells are not obscure pieces of evidence, but well known and commonly cited examples,  such as that evolution is mirrored in the development of an embryo, or the Pepper moths that changed from white to dark because of pollution, both of which are in fraud category.   Yet, despite the fact some of these have been known to be false for decades, and in the case of the embryos for over a century,  these and the other examples in the book were still being used in standard biology textbooks at least as late as 1998.

Nor is this simply a problem of the past. Hitchens, himself falls victim to one more recent examples is this string of myths used to support evolution, a supposed computer model that proved the evolution of the eye.  The simple fact is that there was no such program, nor, more importantly, could there be, at least any time soon, for reasons we will come to in a moment.

In Hitchens defense, apparently he was relying on Richard Dawkins here who popularized this error.  Once the error was pointed out, atheists were quick to claim that Dawkins was only partially in error, for he was referring to a mathematical model develop by Nilsson and Pelger which he merely confused as a computer program.

The differences between the study and a computer program aside, the problem with Nilsson and Pelger’s paper as a proof for evolution is the same that would plague any computer model; it is based on a whole series of assumptions which go to the core of the theory of evolution. If you accept all of the assumptions, that is, if you already accept evolution, then the paper will make a plausible case. But in the end, the conclusion of the paper is only as valid as the assumptions that are behind it.  It can at best only say how the eye might have evolved if all the assumptions were correct. It is hardly a proof of evolution as Hitchens was falsely led to believe.

Unfortunately this is how much of evolution is defended. Pieces of information are distorted, expanded, or in some cases even created, and then strung together as so called proofs of evolution.  Anyone who dares questions this alleged evidence is ridiculed, attacked and rejected.  If they persist and expose the error, then we are told the error really doesn’t matter anyway.

To further compound his problem, one of the points Hitchens makes against design, apparently unbeknownst to him,  is a major problem for evolution.  Hitchens quite correctly states that, “a theory that is unfalsifiable is to that extent a weak one.” (pg 81)   

The problem of Hitchens is that evolution is unfalsifiable for two reasons.  The first is that it depend heavily on imagination.  A great deal, if not the vast majority, of what we think of as evolution, is not based on what we actually know happened, but on what scientist imagine might have happened.  Since we have a great capacity for imagination, evolution has a rich texture of what might have been, especially given how little we really know about the prehistoric past.

Hitchens might object to this by claiming that evolution is science, and therefore must pass peer review and conform to the evidence. But modern science is not the open-minded investigation atheists like to claim. It is a narrow-mind and oppressive system that will severely punish any who question the current orthodoxy, as Pamela Winnick shows in her book A Jealous God.  One of the quickest ways to lose funding for your research, your job, and your livelihood is to raise a question about evolution.

As for the evidence, there is in reality very little, and more importantly any potential problems are brushed aside with the claim that future research will resolve them. Even worst is the often used argument that we are here therefore evolution must have happened. The bottom line is that evolution is unfalsifiable.

Sure if you interpret all evidence to fit your theory, let your imagination fill in any blanks, strenuously ignore any problems, and suppress any criticism so that only believers of evolution, or at least those who will not voice any doubts, can be considered scientists, then evolution will seem to be firmly established.  And yet, despite this the evidence for design grows stronger, not weaker, the more we know.

This is Elgin Hushbeck, asking you to Consider Christianity: a Faith Based on Fact.  

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This week I continue my extended review of Christopher Hitchens, “God Is Not Great.” In Chapter Three, Hitchens addresses the question of why Jews and Muslims will not eat pork.  This question does not directly concern Christianity, but the overall discussion deserves some comment.

In this short chapter Hitchens quickly disposes of the normal justification for this law, which concerns health, a justification he calls, absurd. Hitchens is correct that the dietary dangers of eating pork, even in ancient times, are at best marginal.  In fact for some of the other prohibited foods, the dangers are non-existent, or at least no different than the dangers of acceptable kosher foods.  So while pointing to health reasons can provide some explanation in some cases, it is not a complete answer, and marginal at best for pork. 

Yet Hitchens explanations is hardly any better.  Hitchens believes that the prohibition grew out of a “simultaneous attraction and repulsion” for the pig; that the pig had very human qualities, including taste, that set it apart from other animals.  Hitchens believes that the prohibition followed a night of human sacrifice and cannibalism in which the participants clearly saw the similarities.  As Hitchens puts it, “Nothing optional – from homosexuality to adultery – is ever made punishable unless those who do the prohibiting…have a repressed desire to participate.” (pg 40)

This statement is one of those generalized indictments that leaves me with more question than answers.  The claim that there must be a repressed desire to want to make something punishable is hardly any better than the health explanations, i.e. it might explain a few cases but hardly explains them all. Hitchens examples, homosexuality, adultery and then later prostitution, all involve sex, where his explanation is at least possible even if still questionable as this would not even be a good explanation for all sexual prohibitions. Does one really have to have a repressed sexual desire for children to want a child molestation prohibited? 

When you move beyond the realm of sexuality, his explanation is even less satisfying. Must one have a repressed desire for theft or murder to want them prohibited?  My guess is that Hitchens would claim that these do not match is initial qualification of “Nothing optional” but this qualification is so vague as to be meaningless.

In the end, natural justifications such as those pointing to health benefits or that given by Hitchens miss the point, though I believe that Hitchens unknowingly touches on a much more likely explanation. Hitchens defended the lack of a health hazard in pork, by pointing to those living around the ancient Jews who did eat it, for “ancient Jewish settlements in the land of Canaan can easily be distinguished by archaeologists by the absence of pig bones in their rubbish.”(p. 39) 

The Deuteronomy 14, which specifics some of these laws, begin with “You are the children of the LORD…you are a people Holy to the LORD your God.” The ancient Jews were God’s people Holy or set apart from those around them. This was the primary reason for the dietary laws, which included the prohibition on eating pork.  Of course there is the secondary question as to why individual items such as pork were on the list or while beef was not. But we should keep clear that this is a secondary question. Sometimes we can see possible reasons why particular items were or were not prohibited in either health, or the religious practices of other groups. But we must be careful not to focus on these secondary reasons to the point that we neglect the primary reason. 

There is a tendency when defending the Bible to fall into trap of accepting the assumptions of the critics, and thereby seeking natural explanation for things that are inherently spiritual, as if without a natural justification, a commandment must be nothing more than an irrational superstition. The dietary laws are then explained as health oriented for a time before modern medicine and refrigerators. As health oriented we can ignore them, since the need has passed.

Such reasoning is very convenient for Christians, since because of the teaching of the New Testament, we don’t have to follow the dietary laws in any event. But again this is to focus only on the secondary reason, not the primary, which is to be set apart for God.

Non-Jews may look at the distinctive aspects of Judaism, such as the dietary laws and say that they are old legalisms, or even superstitions, but they have performed a very important function: they have kept the Jewish people set apart for over 3000 years, which just happen to be exactly what God said they were for.

As Christians we are children of God. While we do not need to follow the dietary laws, we are still called to be holy, to be set apart for God (1 Pet 1:15).  Today the church seems more aimed at fitting in and keeping up with the culture, and to some extent this is a good thing, for we have a living faith and worships a living God.  If we are Holy, that is set apart, for God, what is it that sets us apart? It cannot just be our eternal destination, for we are called to live Holy lives now. So what is it that sets you apart?

Christianity and Secularism

Evidence for the Bible

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I was recently asked about the tag line of this ministry, “A Faith Based on Fact.”   To some these concepts are mutually exclusive. If you are relying on facts then you don’t have faith, if you have faith, there can be no facts. So why do I claim a faith based on fact.

Let me first define my terms. While a precise and full definition would be quite involved, in general, facts are simply those things that can easily be determined to be true.  For example, that Abraham Lincoln was the 16^th President of the United States would be a fact.

In the book of Hebrews faith is defined as being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. (Hebrews 11:1-3).  The author then proceeds to give a series of examples of faith from those in the Old Testament. These examples all have the same general pattern, by faith someone did something.  For example in verse seven we read, “By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family.”  For Noah, that God warned him was a fact because he had experienced it himself. Noah’s faith was not in the certain knowledge that God had warned him, or even in the mere act of believing the warning. Faith was in the fact that he trusted what God said enough to act upon it. He built the Ark.

A belief that does not lead to action is not a saving faith. If someone believes that a bridge is strong enough to support them, but still is too scared to cross it, then they do not really have faith in the bridge. A person who believes in Jesus Christ, but does not trust him enough to follow him, does not really have faith. This is what James is referring to when he says, “Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” (James 2:17)

This is not to say that we are saved by our works.  We are not. But it does say that without works there is no saving faith.  This is like a car’s exhaust.  It would be silly to say that the exhaust is what powers a car. But if there is no exhaust the engine is not running and the car is going nowhere.  A living faith powered by the Holy Spirit, will produce works, just like a running car will produce exhaust.

What God is concerned with is that we have faith, that we do trust him enough to live our life based on what he has said and that we act according to his will. Why we have faith is not really that important. Thus for the most part, why the Old Testament Saints had faith is not mentioned in Hebrews 11.  One exception to this is Abraham’s faith in sacrificing his son, for in verse 19 we read that “Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead.”  This shows that faith can not only be based on facts, but on reason as well.

So what then do I mean when I say that Christianity is a faith based on fact?  I mean that there are a whole range of facts upon which our faith is based. It is not a blind faith, where one must flip a coin to see whether or not it is true, but a faith that can be investigated and tested, at least to some extent.  

Few would question that a major foundation for Christianity is the Bible. But why should we trust the Bible? I would argue, and have done so in my books such as Evidence for the Bible  that there are plenty of facts, upon which to base our faith in the Bible.

For example, it is just a fact that most of the cities mentioned in the Bible existed and their locations are known. In fact many of the persons, places, events, and things mentioned in the Bible are established facts. We know for example that Nebuchadnezzar, did in fact conquer Judea and took many of the Jews back to Babylon. This is not to say that everything in the Bible has been confirmed to be accurate and true, but it does provide a basis of fact upon which our faith in the Bible is based. 

In contrast, compare this to other religious texts.  Most are purely theological in basis and as such there is no history to compare with.  A book that makes historical claims similar to those of the Bible would be the Book of Mormon, which purports to describe the history of Jews who traveled to the Americas. Yet unlike the Bible, not a single New World person, place, event, or thing mentioned in the Book of Mormon has ever been found. With the Bible as our knowledge of early history has grown, so has the confirmations of the reliability of the Bible.  Yet for the Book of Mormon, as our knowledge of early Central America has grown, the possibly that the Book of Mormon contains any actual history has correspondingly diminished.

There are solid reasons to believe Bible is the Word of God. That its message of Jesus Christ, his ministry, his death, burial and resurrection is historical. It is a message of salvation that we can not only believe in, but have faith in.

This is Elgin Hushbeck, asking you to Consider Christianity: a Faith Based on Fact.  

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The latter part of the Richard Dawkins’, “The God Delusion”  becomes increasingly speculative as he applies his view of atheism and religion to topics such as homosexuality, abortion, and children and these issues would be better treated in more general discussion of the individual topics than a specific review of Dawkins’ slant on them.

One point Dawkins makes, however, is worthy of comment and on this point I will conclude my review.  It is when he talks about the “dark side of absolutism.” (pg 284) There is a lot of truth to Dawkins’ comments on this subject, and yet because they are true, they actually undermine Dawkins main point at the same time.

As he has throughout his book, Dawkins points to examples of religious people being so sure they were correct that they made their beliefs into law, or in some other way forced their beliefs on others. Such as a Pakistani Doctor sentenced to death for blasphemy because he said Muhammad was not a Muslim before he invented Islam.

The problem for Dawkins is can be seen in his claim that “Such absolutism nearly always results from strong religious faith.”  To see the problem in Dawkins statement we need to consider that nature of this dark side of absolutism and what makes it so bad.  At its core absolutism, is simply enforcing what you believe to be true on others. All societies do this to some extent. After all, that is what a law is; it is the power of the state forcing people to do some things and prohibiting them from doing others.  For example, we as a society are pretty absolute and downright intolerant when it comes to child molesters, and I would argue this is a good thing.

Absolutism becomes dark when the truth being enforced becomes uncertain, and it is this dark absolutism that we generally are referring to when we talk of absolutism.    This is a difficult area to discuss because people do not see themselves as being on the dark side of absolutism, they see themselves as standing up for the truth, or right, or good.

For example, currently there is a major debate over man-made global warming. Those who believe in it are trying to pass laws to prevent it. Those who do not believe it label these laws as part of the dark side of absolutism. Thus whether or not this is an example of the darker side of absolutism largely depend on what you believe.

Dawkins is certainly correct that throughout the history of religion the dark side of absolutism has been a factor.  What he fails to see is that, contrary to his statement, such absolutism is not at all restricted to religion, and in fact it is even a prominent part of modern day atheism. 

For example, almost everyone in western civilization, if not the world, would agree that the Taliban destruction of the Buddhist statues was an example of the dark side of absolutism. But at its core, how is this action any different than the atheist demanding the removal of a tiny Cross that was in seal of the city of Redlands, or any of the numerous other examples of the atheist desire to expunge society of religion.  Was the Taliban’s was seeking to remove any vestige of religion symbols they disagreed with really that different than the atheist desire to remove religious symbols they disagree with, particularly if they are Christian.

But that is the problem with such absolutism; it is very difficult to see from the inside. This is particularly true when the belief that one is correct, is coupled with corresponding view that others are wrong.  Dawkins and other atheist undoubtedly sees themselves as defending reason and science, when in reality they are often guilty of the same sort of intolerance and in some cases bigotry that they are so critical of in religion. 

I said earlier that Dawkins comments on absolutism undermine the main point of his book.  If one takes Dawkins comments on such absolutism to heart, then it is hard to reach any other rational conclusion than that it is this dark absolutism which is the real problem not religion.  In fact if you remove all the example of religious absolutism from Dawkins book, what remained would be some theories of the existence of God, some comments on the reliability of the Bible, and very little else. In short, though aimed at religion his book is really more an indictment of this dark absolutism in religion, something I and I believe most Christians also condemn, even if we don’t accept all of his examples.

To sum up this review, Dawkins’ book fails at almost every point, except his criticism of religious absolutism, but even here he mistakenly see this as an indictment of all religion, rather than an indictment on absolutism.  He is quick to point out any flaw of particular religions or religious believers as automatically an indictment of all religion. Yet, any positive quality or action is either ignored or written off as due to something other than religion.  More damming is that his knowledge of religion is often superficial if not actually in error.  Ultimately Dawkins book is more an example of atheist’s absolutism than any serious attack on religion much less Christianity.

This is Elgin Hushbeck, asking you to Consider Christianity: a Faith Based on Fact.

Let me first thank you for both your review, and for the kind introductory remarks. As for your more critical comments, I think they somewhat miss the mark, for a couple of reasons.

First, writing any book involves a whole series of choices and tradeoff. One of the decisions I made was to make this a more popular book rather than a more scholarly one, aimed at the educated non-Christian, rather than the biblical scholar. Because of this I drew on more popular books and addressed arguments my target audience would likely have encountered, such as in an introductory class in religion at a secular college, or in a popular best seller, or magazine, etc.

I knew at the time this would not satisfy the scholarly minded, but then that was not my audience, and space is limited. Granted, I may not have mentioned the particular scholars you wanted to see (part of which may be that these are expanded and updated versions of an early work). On the other hand, at least I do cite a number of critics, many scholars, and much of the book is dealing with their arguments, which is far better than most of the critics, who for the most part completely ignore all conservative opposition, or if they do mention it, do so only as an off handed dismissal.

One particularly annoying comment in its pettiness, and one which I found to be at best somewhat misleading was when you commented “Hushbeck’s ignorance, of German, moreover, is painfully evident. In one place he refers to “the German scholar Frank” (meaning, apparently, Franz Hermann Frank) and spells two German words in the title of “Frank’s” book incorrectly. The omission of the author’s first name, the publisher information, and a page number makes it altogether evident that he’s relying on Josh McDowell’s partial citation of this work.”

First let me plead guilty as charged to having no real working knowledge of German. In fact, there are a whole range of languages that I have no working knowledge off, and in some cases no knowledge at all. But then I never claimed otherwise. Considering that these two misspelled words appeared only in an endnote, they hardly are a substantial incitement against the book itself. As for relying on McDowell for this quote, again I plead guilty, though I am somewhat puzzled while you needed all of those clues you cited to make this “evident,” when the citation you mentioned included “quoted in Josh McDowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict Vol. II (San Bernardino, CA: Here’s Life Pub., 1975) p. 7”

As for me not bothering to check these, you speak from ignorance. While, there was no way you could have know, the research for this book took me several years, and I went to great lengths to check out the quotes in the book. Now at the time, I was working for JPL and traveled across the country, to Europe and Australia and thus was able to visit libraries such as at Harvard, and the National Library in Australia. During this time was able to find almost all of the works cited. I believe that the quote you cited is the only quote in both books I was not able to verify, which is why I cited it the way I did. Hardly an unknown practice, even among scholars and certainly not worthy of criticism.

Frankly of far more interest to me than the irrelevances of whether or not searching all these libraries constitutes “bothering” is whether or not the quote is accurate. If the quote is accurate it really does not matter how it came into the book. If it is not, then I would really like to know so that I can remove it. So is it accurate?

As far as the sources tending to be from a conservative perspective, that is simply false. The general pattern for the book is to cite the critics and then deal with what they are saying. As result, I cite both critical and supportive works, and do cite scholarly critics.

Much the same can be said for the two chapters on science, though you ignored most of both chapters to focus on the last section that dealt with evolution. But even here you seem to have missed the point. The focus here was not so much to argue that evolution is wrong, but rather to address the question why is it that so many Christians question evolution. Perhaps a few words on theistic evolution should have been included, though I would point out that my personal experience with my target audience is that while they are well aware of theistic evolution as an option, and I do say there is a diversity of opinion in this area, most have never seen a serious treatment of the arguments against evolution, for these arguments have been pretty successfully suppressed outside Christian circles.

As for simply “parroting” Christian apologists, sure I cite some, where it is appropriate, just like I cite critics such as Carl Sagan, Robert Jastorw, and semi-critical scientists such as Steven Hawkings. I would point out that Dallas Willard, hardly someone uninformed in on these matters, told me that he had never encountered some of these arguments when I wrote them in a paper for him, which was why he encouraged me to publish. As such this charge is hard to see as anything other than slanting.

In summary, I would say that your review so far has been long on accusation, and short on substance. Perhaps in later posts you will get into more detail, but so far you have demonstrated the academic’s over preoccupation with citations, rather than actual argument, at times drifting very close to ad hominem attack when you at least imply that certain sources are to be rejected While you praise me for dealing with so much in so few pages, (and length was a key consideration when writing the book, and much was left out or cut), you turn around and are very critical for not going into greater detail. Again I think the audience I was targeting address most of these criticism. More to the point, nothing you have said so far actually challenges the any of arguments I make in the book.

BTW, while I thank you for the promotion, I only have two masters degrees, not a phd.

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In chapter 7 of his book, “The God Delusion” Richard Dawkins, turn the issue of morality and the Bible.  Dawkins lays down his goal pretty clearly in the opening paragraph when he says that the Bible, “encourages a system of morals which any civilized modern person whether religious or not, would find – I can put it no more gently – obnoxious.”  As for the millions of people who do get their morality from the Bible and yet somehow seem to be civilized and modern, Dawkins claims that “they either do not read it, or do not understand it.”

As a Christian friend of mine is fond of saying when confronted with such statements, “And yet here I stand.” The simple fact is that there are many people who do read and understand the Bible, probably a lot more than Dawkins, who reach vastly different conclusion.

It is true that on the one hand there are the extreme fundamentalists who insist that any deviation from how they read the Bible is heresy. In fact, in some cases they even argue that if you don’t read the same translation they do, you must be a heretic.  Yet on the other hand there are the skeptics like Dawkins who, if you deviate from how they read the Bible you are picking “which bits of scripture to believe” (pg 238).  Other than the conclusions they reach, I find very little difference between the two groups, as they both have a very superficial view of scripture, and dogmatically reject any deviation from their view.

Again Dawkins is not completely at fault here for he relies on the work of liberal scholars who are also critical of the scripture, such as Bishop Shelby Spong. But as I detail in my book, Evidence for the Bible, Liberal scholars are often little better than these other two groups. For example a while back I heard Bishop Spong being interviewed on the radio and he said that the Gospel of John that was anti-Semitic, and he knew of no scholars who would argue differently.  This means that he was completely unaware of those scholars, for they certainly do exist.  D. A Carson for example, in his Commentary on John’s Gospel, lists other possible understandings and argues quite convincingly from the text that anti-Semitism simply does not fit.

Dawkins’ analysis of the Bible starts out by listing the acts of God he considers immoral such as Noah and the Flood, and Sodom and Gomorrah. There are two main problem Dawkins faces with these arguments. The first, as discussed in earlier installments of this review, is on what basis of morality are we to make such criticism?

A bigger problem however, is that to really judge the morality of an action, we need to have all the relevant information the person had at the time.  Without that information, an act that seems immoral could in fact have been moral in light of the addition information.  For example, if all you knew was that John cut Mary with a knife, that might seem immoral until you find out that John was a doctor removing a cancerous growth.

The simple fact is that we can never hope of have all the relevant information available to God so as to be in a position to pass judgment on God.  Nor does this really matter, in terms of our morality, as even in the Bible these are special cases, and not models for us to follow today.

Another problem in Dawkins critique is that he at times fails to distinguish between the Bible describing what happened, and the Bible telling us how we should act. For example, he cites the instance in Judges where a priest cut up his concubine into 12 pieces (Judges 19).   But as the book of Judges says about the period, “in those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit.” (Judge 21:25)  One of the unique aspects of the Bible is that it does not present the main figures as perfect and noble, but as flawed.   We are not so much to follow their actions, but frequently to learn from their mistakes.  But Dawkins often is too busy ridiculing to notice such distinctions.

One of the stranger side trips Dawkins takes, is when he condemns “America’s Ten Commandment tablet-toters” arguing that they should be praising the Taliban for their destruction of Buddhist statues.  He says “I do not believe there is an atheist in the world who would bulldoze Mecca—or Chartres, York Minster or Notre Dame,  the Shew Dagon, the temples of Kyoto, or of course, the Buddhas of Bamiyan.” (pg 249)  Apparently Dawkins is unaware that much of the controversy in the U.S. is over the removal of Christian religious symbols such as crosses and the Ten Commands.  In short, those in the U.S. acting like the Taliban in their intolerant seeking to remove religious symbols they disagree with are not Christians, but atheists.

Finally Dawkins fail to consider the historical context of the time. For example, he asked if a whole range of offenses should have the death penalty, starting with cursing your parents. This was nothing new to the age, in fact even today; in some cultures parent have the right and even the duty to kill their children that dishonor them. What was new in the Bible’s command was that parents had to “bring him to the elders at the gate of his town.”  The change the teaching of the Bible brought about was that the power to kill was removed from the parents. But like in so much of his analysis, Dawkins missed the point of the passage.  

This is Elgin Hushbeck, asking you to Consider Christianity: a Faith Based on Fact.  

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April 13, 2007, Wausau, Wi— Bart Ehrman’s recent book, Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why, has recently been cited by those casting doubt on the text of the New Testament.  Yet, despite the title Ehrman’s book is really just a popular overview of New Testament textual criticism.  In fact when you get down to it, there is very little in the core of the book, that I, someone who believe in Inerrancy, could not have written, and in terms of the evidence presented, there is no major conflict with my book, Evidence for the Bible which claims that “the text we have today is essentially the same as that penned by the original authors.”

The heart of the issue is that there are over 5000 Greek manuscripts and over 20, 0000 manuscripts of translation of the New Testament.  Since all these manuscripts were manually copied they don’t all completely agree.  The key question is, what are we to make of these differences? For Ehrman, these differences are a problem.  For me, while it may initially sound like a problem, when the actual differences are analyzed, I don’t see much of a problem at all.

After all, the main goal of Textual Criticism is to evaluate all these manuscripts to determine which of the various versions of a passage is what the original author wrote, and which were changes or errors made by later copyist.  While there are lots of differences between the numerous manuscripts, most of the time it is not difficult at all to determine which version  is the original version and which were the result of later  copyist, particularly  when there are some pretty standard types of errors that can occur when copying, such as skipping a word or line, etc.  As a result most of the difference can be dealt with fairly easily.

In fact,  Ehrman and I both agree that, in Ehrman’s words, “most of them are completely  insignificant, immaterial, and of no real importance for anything other than showing that scribes could not spell or keep focused any better than the rest of us.”  (pg 208)  However,  Ehrman goes on to say that, “It would be wrong… to say – as people sometimes do – that the changes in our text have no real bearing on what the texts mean or on the theological conclusions that one draws from them.”

As for this last statement, it all depends on what is meant by “text.”  If one means the verse or passage where the difference occurs, then of course this is true, as I discuss in my book. If, on the other hand, this is taken as referring to the Bible as a whole, as Ehrman implies, that is something quite different.

You can perhaps better understand the reason for our different conclusions on the minority of places where the changes are significant, if you look at Ehrman’ list of his  top ten additions to the Bible.   Two of the ten verses Ehrman’s claims were added are also missing from the main text of modern Bibles like the  NIV, while 4 others are bracketed off and preceded by statements that these passages are not found in  “The earliest and most reliable manuscripts and other ancient witnesses.” Another of the ten is mentioned in a footnote as a possible addition.  The remaining three alleged additions are known variants about which there is some disagreement among scholars, and there is good evidence to support that these three were original, but even if Ehrman, is correct and these verses were added, the teaching in the verses  are duplicated in other portions of the New Testament.   Thus while their absence would obviously  affect the teaching of the passage, it would not affect the overall teachings of the Bible.  

So of Ehrman’s top ten, Most are already reflected in modern Bibles and none even if Ehrman is correct, affect the overall teaching.  In fact, the first of Ehrman’s top 10 (1 John 5:7) is discussed in my book as an example of a significant change.

So as a summary of the history and methods of Textual Criticism, Ehrman’s book is a good popular survey.  As an argument for how the Bible is unreliable, it fails miserably.

The major difference between Ehrman and myself would be over significant to the average reader of passages about which there is some doubt.  As I pointed out in Evidence for the Bible, “no major teaching of the church depends on a single verse, much less a verse in which there is a variant reading.” Nor is any of this information hidden, but is accessible to any who are interested.

In short, as I argue in my book, Evidence for the Bible the text we have today is essentially the same as that penned by the authors.