Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
There's a rather amusing brouhaha going on in Alabama where a Republican candidate for governor named Bradley Byrne is having to assure voters that he believes every word of the Bible to be literally true. It all started back in November when an Alabama newspaper published an article about how many of the Republican candidates for governor were actually running to the right of Roy Moore -- something I would scarcely have thought possible!
Here's one example of a candidate actually going further than Roy Moore -- a man I unapologetically call a theocrat -- would go in imposing Christianity in America:
But some of Moore's fellow GOP candidates in the 2010 gubernatorial race have even more conservative views regarding religious displays on government property."We welcome people of all faiths, but at the same time, the standard for America is under the Judeo-Christian principles," said state Treasurer Kay Ivey.
Only Jewish and Christian religious displays should be allowed on government property, she said.
Such a limitation would go too far, according to Moore, who said the key question is not what religion the display represents but whether the display breaks First Amendment rules: "I think you should allow any display that's not an establishment of religion."
The paper surveyed all the Republican candidates and characterized Byrne's responses this way:
Most of the candidates also said they accept the Bible as absolute fact."I believe in the literal interpretation, that the holy Bible is the inspired word of God. Period," James said.
Byrne was an exception, saying it is unimportant whether some details of the Bible, such as people living for hundreds of years, are factually correct.
"I think there are parts of the Bible that are meant to be literally true and parts that are not," Byrne said.
Now, to any sane person -- including Christians -- this should be an entirely uncontroversial statement. No one really believes every word of the Bible to be literally true. Even a fundamentalist can recognize poetic or figurative language when it's obvious. When the book of Isiah says that the valleys sang and the trees clapped, even the staunchest fundamentalist does not believe that trees literally began applauding.
But among the booboisee (thank you, HL) in Alabama, even that obviously true statement addles their brains and puts them into "you ain't from around here, are ya boy" mode. Byrne had to schedule a press conference at -- I swear I'm not making this up -- a Piggly Wiggly store to make sure that everyone knew he was a Good Bible Believing Christian:
According to a local news report, Byrne also used the press conference to clear up the misunderstanding over his views on the Bible. He insisted he had been misquoted."I believe the Bible is true," he said. "Every word of it."
Now here's the punchline:
After The Huntsville Times ran a story about the news conference, several visitors to the paper's Web site made it clear they would not support someone with suspect views about the Bible, regardless of the candidate's positions on other, arguably more pertinent, issues."Just got a call from a person at my Church letting me know about this," one commenter said. "My family will not be shopping at Ragland Piggly Wiggly stores anymore or anything else they own. I don't shop at places that think it is OK to stand next to people who don't believe the Bible is all true."
A more optimistic person than me might conclude that the existence of such people is proof that God loves me and wants me perpetually amused.
Politics
Comments
How do these clowns get their crayon-scrawls onto the internet?
Posted by: dean | January 11, 2010 9:33 AM
Fred Clark does an excellent takedown of Biblical literalism as manifested in the Left Behind novels. Apparently Tribulation Force includes a part where a preacher, one of the "good guys", delivers a sermon where he first attacks the notion of interpreting Revelation as "mere symbolism", then goes on to explain what each horseman symbolizes.
Posted by: DaveL | January 11, 2010 9:33 AM
Every word is true! It's just most of the sentences are bogus.
Posted by: abb3w | January 11, 2010 9:39 AM
My favorite interpreters are those who like to oscillate between believing that the Bible is the unerrant direct word from God and is also allegorical at convenient times. For instance, holdiing that "The Bible is the word of God and as such perfect," and "Well, seven days to God could be billions of years to us."
Posted by: jws | January 11, 2010 9:51 AM
Apparently, candidate Byrne had made some non-literalist remarks. Prup (aka Jim Benton) had a nice comment about this in the open thread.
Smart enough to know he's lying to attain political office but too dumb to see how foolish it makes him look.
Posted by: MikeMa | January 11, 2010 10:02 AM
#2 DaveL
You nailed it! Everybody I debate about the literal aspect of the bible INTERPRETS what it means after telling me that it is not open to interpretation.
Posted by: Rodney | January 11, 2010 10:03 AM
Sorry I left out the link to Prup (Jim Benton)'s comment. It was #17 on . this thread
Posted by: MikeMa | January 11, 2010 10:05 AM
@jws - Well, I can understand how some believers could hold those two contradictory views at the same time. After all, when I was a kid sitting through church a few hours always felt like billions of years to me!
Posted by: Imrryr | January 11, 2010 10:05 AM
"My family will not be shopping at Ragland Piggly Wiggly stores anymore or anything else they own. I don't shop at places that think it is OK to stand next to people who don't believe the Bible is all true."
Whoo! Or as they expect me to say 'praise satan'! Soon they'll die of starvation, because very few sane businessmen really care what you worship, so long as you have money.
Posted by: Rutee | January 11, 2010 10:10 AM
"The standard for America is under the Judeo-Christian principles"?!?
Dictionaries define "Judeo" as a combinative form. Thus, the compound word "Judeo-Christian" implies that Judaism (Torah) is no more than a dependent element of Christianity.
In typical supersessionist and displacement Christian tradition (see Oxford historian James Parkes, The Conflict of the Church and the Synagogue), Christians thoughtlessly presume the prefix "Judeo-" to lay false claim to Judaism (Torah) by means of an impossible union of "Judeo-" (pro-Torah) with "Christian" (supersessionist and displacement antinomian=anti-Torah=misojudaism). Thus, the phrase "Judeo-Christian" implies supersession and displacement by Christianity no less than the labeling the Tanakh (Jewish Bible) the "Old Testament," and is insulting to any knowledgeable Orthodox Jew.
Where values are shared, the accurate (and honest) way would be to state "Judaic and Christian…" (values, traditions, etc.) instead of "Judeo-Christian."
It's reasonably clear to most that the founders of America were primarily Christians. Be content with that and stifle your greed to lay false claim to Judaism along with it. The history of the original Christian church of 135 C.E. was indisputably antinomian, and even viciously misojudaic (see Oxford historian James Parkes, The Conflict of the Church and the Synagogue). The 10 Commandments are an indivisible whole. Rejecting any one constitutes rejecting of the whole… and the Church rejected the 10 Commandments when it superseded and displaced #4 (and shredded #1-3 as well). Examples are endless. Dt. 13.1-6 explicitly precludes the Christian NT exactly as it does the Quran, Book of Mormon, Watchtower, etc. Consequently, claiming your NT is included in a "Judeo-Christian Bible" is no less wrong and offensive. The NT is not part of the Jewish Bible.
Greed to claim supersession over, and displacement of, Judaism introduces self-contradictions that undermine and negate your arguments.
Christians' religious greed results in fecklessness that enables the postmodernists to disassemble and destroy America.
Contrary to many modern Christian overstatements, the founders of America guaranteed that religion be free to all in private and imposed on no one in public.
Unfortunately, America's freedom to practice one's religion in private doesn't satisfy religious greed--particularly that of Christians--toward dominance. In such case, religions in America need to be declawed. By over-reaching you ensure the opposite--and probably disproportionate--reaction.
Posted by: Renovator | January 11, 2010 10:23 AM
Yeah, the "Judeo-christian" thing irks me too, even though I'm not religious. I mean, they want to appear as if there's some sort of contuity with the folks that they tried for centuries to get rid of. There's all kinds of significant theological and philosophical differences that make it impossible for there to be a "judeo-Christian" basis for anything.
Posted by: Moopheus | January 11, 2010 10:47 AM
There are no biblical literalists. It is not possible to believe every word of the bible is the literal truth. Anyone who claims they believe this is a liar.
Some examples (often inspired by the slacktivist link above):
In Matthew 10:34, Jesus said that he came not to bring peace, but a sword. Does anyone really think he meant a literal sword? If so, where is this magical holy weapon? If not, then there's two words of the bible that are obviously NOT the literal truth, and were never meant to be. And that's in just one verse!
Throughout the gospels, Jesus tells various stories. Do you really think those were just random accounts of factual events, or was this a way of using fictional tales to teach lessons? The literal truth of the stories in question is irrelevant to their meaning or purpose, and demanding factual accuracy of a parable only gets in the way. If there really were such people as biblical literalists, they would be totally baffled by the teachings of christ. They wouldn't even be able to recognize them as "teachings".
Revelation, the apocalyptic fever-dream of a madman, speaks of 1/3 of the stars falling to Earth, and lists this as only one of many calamities, with the clear implication that people would survive the starfall to experience the other plagues. But stars are really fucking HUGE. There are stars so big that, if they were to collide with Earth, would not only utterly destroy the planet, but engulf the sun as well. Some of the smallest of stars are neutron stars, a huge mass collapsed into such a tiny space that atoms themselves break down. And there are many BILLIONS of stars in just this galaxy alone. If 1/3 of the stars fell to Earth, there would be no Earth for the rest of the prophecy to play out on.
Song of Solomon, 2:14 "O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely."
Is this guy really talking about the beautiful face of a literal dove? A dove that hides in cracks in rocks and secret passages in stairways? Given the sexual overtones of the book, is this guy fucking a bird? Isn't that supposed to be against the rules? And given the size of a dove, how would it even be physically possible?
There is a bible verse that states that anything a believing christian prays for will be granted. I've received prayer chain letters mentioning this verse, though I don't remember the chapter and verse number offhand. Jesus was also quoted as saying that his followers would be able to heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons, and be granted other magical powers. If these verses were literally true, then why are these magical powers so rarely displayed? Why has there not been a single documented resurrection? If anything a true believer asks will be granted, there would be no need at all for any preacher to collect offerings from the flock, they'd just need to pray for the money, or better yet pray for what they need any bypass money altogether. There'd be no need for faith healers, since any believer could pray for every sick person on the planet to be healed, without meeting a single one of them. Has there never once been a christian with this sort of compassion? Not even one? Or do they just know that such a prayer will not work?
Posted by: phantomreader42 | January 11, 2010 11:14 AM
Save me a grocery cart.
Piggly Wiggly here I come!
Posted by: Rodney | January 11, 2010 11:16 AM
PhantomReader42 - Most of the stars visible in the night sky are within the Milky Way Galaxy. This Galaxy contains, perhaps, 1.182 billion stars*. The median mass of a star (at formation) is around one half a solar mass.
(1,182,244,079*0.5)/3 ~ 197,040,680 solar masses.
That would form a blackhole to rival the one in the centre of our galaxy, sucking in everything in the local area into itself, destroying the Orion and Perseus arms of the galaxy (assuming such a collision didn't trigger a catastrophic supernova!) Although what mechanism would attract such a wide field of stars to a point so far from the galaxy's centre of gravity is a real puzzler. Dark matter, a strange attractor? Who knows?
Damn science! It turns the literal word of god into semi-literate drivel. :) - Dingo
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* This seems a very high estimate. But it's based on the density of the local neighbourhood (to 25Pc) and conservatively extrapolated to the whole galaxy. I must have wrongly calculated it, surely.
Posted by: DingoJack | January 11, 2010 11:42 AM
So this person lives off the grid, right?
I have a hard time believing that a prominently displayed sculpture of a hamsa or a menorah would be greeted with open arms in Alabama.
Posted by: Sadie Morrison | January 11, 2010 11:50 AM
Sadie, I'm fairly sure he really means stuff from the Christian old testament as well as the new, not actually Jewish.
Posted by: Matty | January 11, 2010 11:56 AM
Guess you should pull down that big ol' statue of President Lincoln they got on government property in Washington DC then!
Sheesh, what a maroon! - Dingo
Posted by: DingoJack | January 11, 2010 12:00 PM
Hey Phantom, I have yet to encounter a "Bible-believer" who believes that the whole Bible is "literally true" in the sense that no account should be made for figurative language, analogies, parables, poetic allusions, etc.
Byrne's problem is that his "parts that are not [literally true]" was coupled with the part of the Bible that says people used to live hundreds of years. That is clearly intended to be a factual statement (in the Bible) and thus most "Bible-believing" Christians accept it as inerrant.
Posted by: tacitus | January 11, 2010 12:01 PM
Well this is the last time I read your blog, Ed. I don't believe it is acceptable to link to articles that criticize the views of people who don't believe in shopping at stores that believe it's acceptable to stand next to people who don't believe that the bible is literally true.
Posted by: ethanol | January 11, 2010 12:06 PM
I would imagine that many bible-thumpers are also "family values" types for some (unspecified) "traditional" family. Therefore, they should completely embrace everything that the bible decrees about the treatment of children:
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/says_about/children.html
And screw the laws of man! (Oh, wait, as an elected official, the governor of AL is in charge of protecting the constitution and the laws of the state, which make many of the laws of the bible illegal...)
(The site also has things about other topics, and one can choose to look only at NT - or OT - as well.)
Posted by: Umlud | January 11, 2010 12:11 PM
DingoJack,
That's spelled "moran", doncha know?
Posted by: Rodney | January 11, 2010 12:15 PM
jws #4,
There is no logical problem there. The bible can be inerrant and allegorical. You are confusing inerrancy with literality.
phantomreader42,
Yes in the sense that it is logically impossible to hold every verse to be literally true, even allowing for obvious metaphorical speech (I am the door.) Ask the Left Behind types about the “weeks” of Daniel. Ask them about “this generation” in the Olivet discourse.
DJ,
That’s a way low estimate. More like 200 billion.Posted by: heddle | January 11, 2010 12:17 PM
Heddle - so it's absolutely true (that is without any error) that some 28.264074 billion solar masses* of hot ionised gas is going to mysteriously be attracted to the unfashionable eastern end of the galaxy? - Dingo
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* thanks for the better estimate of the number of stars
Posted by: DingoJack | January 11, 2010 12:27 PM
Au contraire, Dingo, this is obviously the upscale north end of town. Why else would God invest exclusively in this neighborhood?
Posted by: Scott Hanley | January 11, 2010 12:43 PM
Scott Handley - Isn't he the god of the Jews? Cheap rent*. :D Dingo
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* Before the 'Ooh that's so [fill in the blank here]ist' brigade turns up - it's called humour, try it, you might like it (or not)
Posted by: DingoJack | January 11, 2010 12:57 PM
I have been given the impression on the parts of believers that literalness is a part of being perfect.
I agree with you, Heddle, that these two concepts have been confused.
Posted by: jws | January 11, 2010 12:59 PM
In some fairness to biblical literalists, their idea of "literal" doesn't necessarily insist that every last detail of a prophecy has to be taken exactly as described. But they insist that each symbol stands for some actual thing or event. So each of the seven seals is one of seven actual calamities; the stars falling from the sky don't have to be Rigel and Betelgeuse, but they will have to be some sort of celestial bodies raining to the ground, and so forth. If you interpret the tribulations in Revelation to be purely symbolic, say representing only spiritual suffering or something like that, then you're not literal; but if you take them as symbols describing real apocalyptic disasters, described with a slight poetic license, then you're okay.
Nonetheless, it's important to say that you believe every single word, because it's a slippery slope yada yada yada.
Posted by: Scott Hanley | January 11, 2010 1:00 PM
You are confusing inerrancy with literality.
Given how slippery, dishonest and inconsistent many Christians are in their use of BOTH of those words, is it any wonder we're confused over what they "really" mean?
Seriously, heddle, can you -- or anyone else -- give us a clear, useful, and honest definition of what those words are supposed to mean WRT the Bible?
Posted by: Raging Bee | January 11, 2010 1:17 PM
This is how they are defined outside the looking glass world:
Posted by: DingoJack | January 11, 2010 1:33 PM
Raging Bee,
I can try.
Literality means that apart from obvious metaphors, the bible is to be taken literally. For example, the thousand years of Revelation 20 are taken to mean that there will be a literal 1000 year kingdom of Jesus on earth ruling from a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem. To be fair, a scholarly literalist would argue that the last choice in interpretation should be to interpret a passage figuratively or spiritually--but they would not exclude it outright.
Literality is a hermeneutic; a way of interpreting scripture. It is most commonly practiced by dispensationalists, best known for their Left Behind eschatology and often their YECism.
Inerrancy, on the other hand, is not a hermeneutic, is is a presupposition that the bible, at least in the autographs, was without error. It takes no position on how to interpret the bible. Some who affirm innerancy are literalists, some are not. Of those (such as me) who affirm inerrancy but are not lieralists--we are much more prone to argue that genre and style must be taken into account. For example, eastern literature of biblical times was imprecise with numbers. Saying Mr. X had 1000 cattle was the way they said that Mr. X had about 1000 cattle--so it doesn't have to be taken literally, and if Mr. X had 1050 cattle it is not an error. Similarly we would point to eastern apocalyptic literature to argue that descriptions of astronomical calamities are a form of hyperbole that are not supposed to be taken literally, given the genre.
Posted by: heddle | January 11, 2010 1:39 PM
On biblical literalness: How did Judas die? (Note: Both stories are meant to be factual.) My dear ol' literalist dad had an answer for this puzzle, but it sure as hell wasn't literal.
The lack of literalness can be demonstrated. The lack of inerrancy can't, hence it's a wonderful fallback position.
Posted by: James Hanley | January 11, 2010 1:58 PM
@DJ 25
I'm not saying you're a humorist. But some of the things you say could be taken that way.
Posted by: Abby Normal | January 11, 2010 2:14 PM
James Hanley,
Well, maybe there is lots and lots of wiggle room, maybe semi-infinite wiggle room, but there isn't infinite wiggle room. For example if the bible simply stated, as scientists once believed, that our universe had no beginning--then inerrancy would be out the window.
Judas hung (hanged?) himself--then something unspecified happened--the rope broke or something similar--and he fell and spilled his guts.
Posted by: heddle | January 11, 2010 2:16 PM
So, from the perspective of the inerrant but not literal view, what happens with the story of Noah? Does it reduce down to a significant precipitation event on some river in Iraq, combined with a raft and a goat?
Posted by: Josh | January 11, 2010 2:17 PM
When someone gets to ask any of these bible literalists who are running for office a question, ask them which law will they enforce, the law of the Bible, or the law of the US Constitution?
Posted by: daedalus2u | January 11, 2010 2:27 PM
Heddle: that seems to be a very weak description of inerrancy. Under your definition fiction could be inerrant as long as it says exactly what the author intended, with no error. But this possibility causes obvious theological problems. Heck, I can say 2+2=5 and still legitimately claim that this email is inerrant, because that's exactly what I meant to write.
If the bible is inerrant in the way you describe, it still leaves open the question of why should we pay any attention to a book which claims merely to be inerrant?
Posted by: eric | January 11, 2010 2:29 PM
Except that nowhere does there an exist an account that reads like this. Matthew and Acts each report roughly half the salient elements in what would have to have been a spectacular and bizarre chain of events, all without either being considered guilty of an error of omission.
That's stretching the concept of "wiggle room" well beyond the breaking point for me.
Posted by: DaveL | January 11, 2010 2:32 PM
Eric,
Fair enough--but I would think it is clear that innerancy implies correct--not just what the writer intended. I would call the latter faithful, not inerrant.
Posted by: heddle | January 11, 2010 2:35 PM
Satan is not mentioned anywhere in Genesis. But when you ask a Christian who really was that talking serpent in the garden, they will respond "oh, that's Satan!" Sorry, literally, it is a talking snake, not Satan. God curses snakes to crawl on their bellies forever, while Satan is still nominally part of "God's court" throughout the OT. The story cannot be reconciled literally if one is to interpret the serpent as Satan.
Posted by: Robert Faber | January 11, 2010 2:46 PM
DaveL,
Maybe but James Hanley was mostly correct when it comes to inerrancy--it is very hard to refute. Inerrancy does not demand that all writers give the same account--it only demands that all writers (in the original manuscripts) do not give irreconcilable accounts or demonstrably false accounts. As you perceive--it is a somewhat weak claim.
In my opinion, the claim of inerrancy is seized upon for all the wrong reasons. After all, unbelievers don't believe the bible in a broad sense anyway--the question of inerrancy is somewhat in the noise. If you don't believe Jesus is God in the first place then it is not really much of an issue if you also don't believe he actually gave a Sermon on the Mount or walked on water. The importance of the claim is how believers interpret the broad gospel message and the character of God. To unbelievers it doesn't matter a whole lot whether an imaginary God did or did not command Joshua to commit genocide--to believers it matters a lot.
Posted by: heddle | January 11, 2010 2:49 PM
Semi-infinite?
Posted by: Taz | January 11, 2010 2:52 PM
Robert Faber,
Why don't you ask me and test your theory?
Posted by: heddle | January 11, 2010 2:54 PM
heddle, you can't have it both ways and remain credible. When pinned in a corner about making vast generalizations you end up saying that it would be a waste of time to always say, "In my opinion," and, "I think that..."
Since you claim, therefore, not to speak for all Christians, you cannot turn around and say that the (as you define above) "inerrant" claim by Robert Faber is wrong because you happen to be a single Christian that doesn't agree with his point-of-view.
Posted by: mercurianferret | January 11, 2010 3:04 PM
... and, heddle, if you don't get Robert Faber's "inerrant" assertion (as you seem never to actually accept when these come up until little pedantic arses like myself keep harping on at you about it), go and read Greta Christina's Blog entry here:
http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/2010/01/atheist-meme-of-the-day-critiques-of-religion-are-fair.html
Posted by: mercurianferret | January 11, 2010 3:08 PM
For some reason, I'm guessing that most biblical literalists don't know a whole lot about astronomy. If I could make a Venn diagram of it, I bet the "biblical literalists" circle would heavily overlap with the "disdain for intellectualism" circle. If they're already willing to ignore biology and archeology, it's not much of a stretch to ignore mainstream astronomy too. To be fair, most of them probably realize that stars are huge and if you asked them directly they probably wouldn't deny it; it's just that they don't spend much time thinking about "wordly" disciplines so the idea has never occurred to them.
Posted by: catgirl | January 11, 2010 3:15 PM
mercurianferret,
I don't understand your objection to heddle offering to answer Robert Faber's question claim. While it is true that heddle doesn't speak for "all Christians," he is certainly "a Christian," which is what Faber referred to. I'm also "a Christian," so Faber could again test his claim of what "a Christian" would say by asking me. I suspect that Faber misspoke, and really meant something like "many Christians, particularly among American fundamentalists."
Posted by: JuliaL | January 11, 2010 3:18 PM
James Hanley @ 31:
heddle @ 33:
This question has a special place in my heart. It was the first time I questioned the accuracy of the Bible. In this case to my Sunday School Teacher when I was 8 or 9, I only flustered her with my question given she was in no way equipped to teach anyone anything about history; think 60 year-old Sarah Palin with a fierce desire for donuts.
Here are the relevant texts (RSV):
Matthew 27:5 - 9:
Acts 1:18 - 19:
Looking only at James Hanley's overly narrow challenge to heddle, heddle has an argument though it's extremely weak. The author and editors of Matthew convey he died by hanging without explicitly stating such, providing a harmonization oppurtunity by literalists. Acts does the same, conveying he died in a fall without explicitly stating such. However, I don't buy it. I think it's more rational to argue they contradict each other given in Matthew the author and subsequent editors imply he hung by hanging and in Acts he died by a fall. That is what readers would conclude when taking each independently and in context. Also, if we accepted heddle's argument regarding the validity of the Bible, the first manuscript written would be false until the second was written unless both were written at the exact same moment since each conveys two distinctly different causes of death.
I stated Hanley's challenge is too narrow when we add who paid for the field and how this field derived its name where we do get two inarguably clear contradictions.
In Matthew Judas hangs himself without stating where. The field's name is derived by someone acting on the priest's behalf purchasing a field with money Judas returned, not because he hung himself there.
In Acts Judas dies by a fall in field he purchased (not the priests or their agents) and the field is named based on both Judas' death there and his purchase of the field.
Is there some wiggle room for heddle? Some on the death however it requires us to note that neither description of his death is complete and therefore both fail to accurately describe what happens (so much for an omnipotent god who couldn't pass a high school writing test). The best attempt I saw was a made-for-TV movie that had Judas hanging himself on a tree limb extending over a ledge, where the limb breaks and he falls to his death. However that doesn't help with what is literally true regarding his death since it doesn't solve the primary problem - which exact act resulted in death? As an aside, I've never taken the time to validate whether this is possible by finding out whether a ledge or cliff is in this particular field (I don't know if we know which field it even is).
Where heddle and the idea of a literally true Bible absolutely fails is in describing who paid for the field, the priests or their agent using the money returned by Judas (Matthew) or Judas (Acts). This is where we should note that literalists weasle out by claiming they never claimed their version of the Bible is literally true (except the KJV freaks who we can safely ignore in this thread) but instead that the original manuscripts are true, manuscripts they don't possess nor even a copy close to the period we can be confident was accurately copied.
They also fail in how the field got its name. In Matthew its because the priests had a field purchased with Judas' returned money. In Acts it's because Judas both purchased a field and died in it. There is some wiggle room given it doesn't explicitly state that's where Judas died, but what else should a reader think when reading the subsequent verse?
Posted by: Michael Heath | January 11, 2010 3:21 PM
Piggly Wiggly has to be the worst store name ever. All I can ever think of when I hear it is O Brother Where Art Thou? because Delmar knocks over a Piggly Wiggly.
It's nice (but also terrifying) to know that rural Pennsylvania doesn't even come close to these levels of religious insanity.
Posted by: Ryan | January 11, 2010 3:22 PM
OFF TOPIC: Oh good, Palin has apparently signed with Faux News to be a pundit.
Posted by: Josh | January 11, 2010 3:35 PM
Well, the answer I've seen among inerrantists (not literalists) is that if the High Priests purchased the field with Judas' money then he effectively purchase the field through them, so it isn't a contradiction.
Put the whole apologetic together and you end up with one hell of a story that we're supposed to believe somehow slipped through the cracks.
First Priest: Hey, why don't we buy some real estate with this money?
Second Priest: Sure, but where? There are so many properties to choose from. If only God would give us a sign.
First Priest: A sign?
Second Priest: Yeah, you know, something unusual. Something that would stand out.
First Priest: Hey, what's that guy doing?
[hyurk!]
[EEEEEeeeeech...]
[SNAP!]
[flip]
[SPLAT!]
Second Priest: Fuck me. Now that's what I call a sign!
Posted by: DaveL | January 11, 2010 3:40 PM
I don't agree with this as a matter of order. The vast majority of individuals who reject religion(Christianity at least) often do so because the bible is so muddled and contradictory they then take the rational approach and say it is simply the product of men. Given that the majority of the populace grows up with a childhood religion there are very few 'unbelievers' in some form of the religion but the problems with the bible don't disappear despite this childhood indoctrination.
It's not that they didn't believe in Jesus, quite the contrary, most did or do but the belief in the inerrancy of the bible was simply untenable for a rational mind. So in effect inerracy can become a form of idolatry and that has in fact seperated people from their religion.
Posted by: JimC | January 11, 2010 3:55 PM
Ok, heddle, I'll bite. Who or what was the talking serpent in Genesis?
Posted by: Robert Faber | January 11, 2010 3:55 PM
Michael Heath,
I'll disagree with Dave L's comment (or rather with those to whom he refers) although I also have heard that argument. I think the better answer is something more poetic.
The actual Greek verb used in Acts 1:18 is:
κτάομαι ktaomai (ktah'-om-ahee)
A primary verb; to get, that is, acquire (by any means; own): - obtain, possess, provide, purchase.
So the most literal translation, as used by the ESV, is acquire—but the safest translation is probably possessed, not purchased. The verb does not at all demand that the Judas paid for the field with money or that he owned it in a legal sense—but that is some sense he acquired or obtained or possessed it--it was his. Given that intro, I can't do better than John Calvin who on this verse wrote:
(Mixed in his comment is the thread of another comment, that Luke added the description of Judas’ death parenthetically, in fact the ESV, NASB and others use parentheses, given that Peter—whom Luke is quoting, would have no cause to explain Hebrew to people who spoke Hebrew.)
At any rate, to paraphrase Calvin—Judas did get or possess the field not as acquired property but as his reward for betraying Jesus. Something like: All he got out of his betrayal was his grave. Furthermore in God's providence the common name for the field (field of blood) resulting from Judas' messy death matched the name of the field resulting from its purchase with blood money.
Posted by: heddle | January 11, 2010 4:01 PM
Robert Faber,
It was a serpent, not Satan himself. In the same manner a prophet who says: Thus says the Lord is a person, not God.
Posted by: heddle | January 11, 2010 4:05 PM
Fair enough, heddle. The reason I made my statement, is because when pressured, most Christians are so struck by cognitive dissonance that they are unable to admit they believe in honest-to-goodness talking snakes; therefore, the serpent must be Satan. Do you honestly believe there was a talking snake, or was your specific example merely for the sake of argument?
Posted by: Robert Faber | January 11, 2010 4:23 PM
Heddle @38: Fair enough--but I would think it is clear that innerancy implies correct--not just what the writer intended. I would call the latter faithful, not inerrant.
But the bible isn't correct: rabbits chewing cuds, etc...
So according to your @38 defintion, if its not correct, it can't be inerrant.
Moreover even in the weak sense of inerrant you used @30, you're still left with the ethical problem of defending the rules of Deuteuronomy as laws that the author (God) intended. Not wearing wool and linen together? You really think that's the inerrant word of God? Doesn't it make more sense to say the priests might possibly have used their position to sneak in a few rules of their own making, than to say God had a major thing against wool-lined canvas jackets?
Posted by: eric | January 11, 2010 4:29 PM
heddle @ 54:
But serpents can't talk. So how did the serpent talk if it's physically incapable of doing so and Satan himself wasn't speaking through the serpent? Did God miraculously provide the serpent with magical powers in order to expedite man's fall?
Lastly, you did not address all the contradictions I noted in the Judas story, leaving out the contradiction each story conveys a different cause of death when only one manuscript existed along with one story requiring one transaction that defines the name of the field while the other story defines two transactions occuring to name the field. You also failed to address God's failure to clearly communicate how Judas died, who purchased and owned the field, where Judas died, and how the field came to its name; all of which guarantees confusion on this matter and I'd argue, is contradictory.
Posted by: Michael Heath | January 11, 2010 4:35 PM
Robert Farber,
Yes I honestly do-- and I'll admit that I don't know why that is a surprise. It always seems odd to me that you (not you in particular) would accept (in some sense) that I believe in the mother of all miracles, that a transcendent God created the entire universe-- and scoff at what are, by comparison, tiny supernatural excursions. At every level, compared to God creating the universe ex nihilo the other supernatural events in the bible, including the serpent being used supernaturally, are in the noise. It is almost a weird sort of innumeracy to give the creation miracle a pass and scoff at talking serpents. The skeptic should say: "Who cares if he believes in talking serpents, he thinks a God created the universe!" But the sense is always the reverse. I don't get it.
It is even more bizarre to me that liberal Christians accept that God created the universe--and at the same time deny the miracles of the bible. Accepting the biggest miracle and denying the little ones never made any sense to me. Atheism makes sense to me. Agnosticism makes sense to me. Of course like everyone else my own position makes sense to me. But the theism while denying little miracles (e.g., many forms of liberal Christianity) makes no sense to me.
Posted by: heddle | January 11, 2010 4:39 PM
I'm enjoying the discussion (especially the ever-slippery heddle) but I have a question that no one has adressed - why would any non-fundie want to be governor of theocratic state of Alabama?
Posted by: Rob Jase | January 11, 2010 4:45 PM
I don't know many liberal Christians who deny the miracles of the Bible. I know there are some liberal leaders who do, but in my experience -- 30 years in various Methodist churches around Britain (a liberal denomination if there ever was one), the vast majority of congregants I knew had no problem with the miraculous aspects of the Bible, nor did the ministers preaching at those churches. I would be careful not to tar all liberal Christians with the same brush.
Posted by: tacitus | January 11, 2010 4:57 PM
Michael Heath,
I addressed those earlier. He hanged himself, then I speculate (since the bible doesn't connect the dots) that the rope broke and he spilled his guts. That is both "causes" of death--and whether he was dead when he fell I don't know--the bible is unclear. The bible is allowed to be unclear--the doctrine of Sola Scriptura states only that what is sufficient for our salvation is found in the bible. It does not promise that the bible will answer all our curiosities. It fact it states explicitly that many things Jesus did, about which I am intensely curious, are not recorded. There is no doctrine that states the bible must be explicit in its description of Judas' death--such knowledge not being crucial to anyone's salvation. (This makes even more sense following a discussion of the meaning of inspiration--which there is no room for here--but which doesn't mean dictation. It quite accommodates biblical writers being incomplete in their descriptions of events.)
I also addressed the name of the field. If it was named in official circles "Field of Blood" because it was purchased with blood money and "Judas' field" by common people who knew Judas died there, then you'd probably be telling me: "see, it has two different names!" In this case the quasi-official name and the common name were the same--albeit for different reasons.
Eric,
Rabbits chewing cud, Pi = 3, bats are birds--I've addressed these a number of times in different venues.
Posted by: heddle | January 11, 2010 5:02 PM
Heddle: It always seems odd to me that you (not you in particular) would accept (in some sense) that I believe in the mother of all miracles, that a transcendent God created the entire universe-- and scoff at what are, by comparison, tiny supernatural excursions.
We scoff because the tiny supernatural excursions often make no sense. They are not issues about what an omnipotent God could do, but about his character. God gives a snake the supernatural power of speech, which he uses for the sole purpose of tempting Eve into eating an apple, which results in God banning them from paradise for all eternity and punishing not just them but every generation thereafter.
Now look, if you don't want your kids to eat cookie batter off the mixing blades, don't put them where the kids can get them. But say you do because you trust your kids - in that case it makes utterly no sense to encourage an older cousin to waltz into the room and say "mmmmmmm...cookie batter...why don't we have some?" Why would a parent do that? Torture? Test? Ignorance of the likely result? Are any of those three options good parenting?
Posted by: eric | January 11, 2010 5:08 PM
When it comes down to it, proving the inerrancy or otherwise of the Bible is a somewhat pointless exercise given that no two Christians can ever fully agree upon what the Bible actually means in many cases. Put Ray Comfort in a room with David Heddle and ask them to stay there until they agreed upon an interpretation of the events surrounding Noah's Flood and they would never come out.
If inerrancy of interpretation is impossible (which even the most ardent of inerrantists would likely agree upon) then belief in the inerrancy of the Bible is reduced to little more than a crutch for believers who would otherwise have no solid grounding for their faith. They believe Jesus rose from the dead merely because they believe the Bible is true. Seems to me that is the wrong way round.
Posted by: tacitus | January 11, 2010 5:09 PM
How can we bring up Judas without mentioning the story of the chicken?
http://books.google.com/books?id=cydzZdO58nMC&lpg=PT57&ots=MhIIs-RUhH&dq=judas%20wife%20chicken&pg=PT57#v=onepage&q=judas%20wife%20chicken&f=false
I am so glad that my wife has been taking a NT course. I learn so many things! 8^)
Posted by: KeithB | January 11, 2010 5:10 PM
eric,
Skipping the theological discussion regarding the fall and man's purpose for which he was created and free will and man being made in the image of God, etc--all of which would be brought to bear in any attempt to answer the why that you posed -I rarely get that sense (that it's the why, not the what that people scoff at when it comes to miracles) and I didn't get it from Robert Farber. He didn't say: You don't really believe in talking snakes, why would God do that? His scoffing was, from all appearances, directed at the mere existence of the serpent--not the why.
Furthermore there are plenty of miracles--the snake not being one of them, where the why is not so shrouded in mystery. Jesus walking on water was clearly to demonstrate the power of faith--anyone can understand that in principle--there is no mysterious why? The virgin birth can be understand by anyone as an issue of the mother of God's purity--very simple. But I have never received a criticism for the snake and a free pass for the walking on water or the virgin birth.
Posted by: heddle | January 11, 2010 5:20 PM
tacitus,
Please don't do that.
Posted by: heddle | January 11, 2010 5:23 PM
heddle,
I've apparently missed that. Would you give a reference? I'd like to read your comments about those.
Posted by: JuliaL | January 11, 2010 5:32 PM
JuliaL,
Here is an old Pi=3 post that also contains a link to a "bats are birds" post. I can't find a post on my own blog about rabbits chewing cud--I'll try to tack down on what other blogs I may have posted that--but it would follow a similar argument. That what rabbits do (eating their excrement) is possibly (though not definitely) consistent with what they meant by the phrase in Leviticus--and they are not obliged to mean by that phrase what we mean, today, by ruminants. They might mean nothing more than animals who eat a second time what was already eaten once--which applies to hares and would certainly align itself with their (the ancient Jews) rather draconian dietary laws. Furthermore it would mention again that you can only make a true scientific error if you are making a scientific claim--that everyday speech, even today--is filled with descriptive text that is scientifically inaccurate. I could give a million examples--one that comes to mind, perhaps not a very good one, is "the astronauts are floating about, free from earth's gravity" when in fact gravity is only a few percent weaker for them than it is on the surface. Yet we don't say, unless we are pedantic, that such a statement is false--we understand it is descriptive. Now if a science textbook made such a claim, or a teacher in a science class, it would be a different story. Inerrancy does not mean that ancient Hebrews, writing in the vernacular, are held to higher standards of scientific accuracy in everyday speech than we hold ourselves to.
Posted by: heddle | January 11, 2010 6:02 PM
heddle - I wont speak for Robert Farber, but will say, for myself, that I will at times concentrate on the more mundane miracles as a tactical matter -- I my experience they are more likely to produce some level of cognative dissonace, I believe because they are against our everyday experience. I mean, I personally havent witnessed the creation of any universes lately.
As far inerrency as a concept, I would agree with tacitus, that it seems a rather pointless idea in the absence of some agreed upon method of interpretation. Otherwise, what does it mean: that if you contemplate the text long enough and hard enough, you will find some meaning or interpretation that is correct? Couldnt that be said of just about any text?
Posted by: Dave | January 11, 2010 6:09 PM
Dave,
I understand your point—I tried to speak to it earlier. Inerrancy meaning “the bible contains no errors” is somewhat trivial and leads to the cud/Pi/bats discussions. That’s part of what it means—but not a very important part.
It is of great theological significance—which is why I think it is an important debate among believers and just a distraction when debated between believers and unbelievers. If you believe in inerrancy then you believe Jesus actually said something like No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him (The Greek word rendered here as draws is actually compels--the other two times it is used in the NT it is rendered as drags, as in dragged into court.) If you do not believe in inerrancy then the details of scripture are less important, and only the broader picture dominates. This has a profound impact on one’s theology.
But the discussion always degenerates into cud/Pi/bats (and along those lines nobody ever brings up the really tough passages.) But this kind of trivial inerrancy is simply not the important part.
So in that sense I agree with tacitus—that inerrancy as usually discussed is meaningless.
Posted by: heddle | January 11, 2010 6:25 PM
Heddle,
Thanks! That clarifies a lot for me about your explanations that I just haven't been able to follow in the past.
Posted by: JuliaL | January 11, 2010 6:48 PM
Because it is possible a God put the natural laws into motion(not that their is evidence for this) and via natural processes brought everything into being.
A snake has neither the body structure or brain power to speak. Totally different ideas.
And in the end tacitus is correct if a supposedly innerant document is unable to be univerally agreed upon it has no more value than one not considered to be innerant except as a crutch. The only way it should matter believer or not is if said crutch is necessary to maintain ones faith.
Posted by: JimC | January 11, 2010 6:50 PM
@ heddle:
Most of us can understand why people think the universe was created by a supernatural being. The universe is immensely complicated and even overwhelming for most of us to contemplate. And it just seems like the more we find out the stranger it becomes. I might not agree with believers' conclusions about supernatural beings, but I can certainly understand (and even empathize) with why they might think such a thing.
But talking snakes? Seriously? Talking snakes? As an allegory it's perfectly understandable. Maybe even entertaining. As a factual claim it is preposterous and laughable and something not even a child should take literally. That is why you don't get the free pass.
Posted by: Leni | January 11, 2010 7:03 PM
Remember that, as Heddle said, it's a presupposition. Inerrancy isn't an observation based on some rational objective evaluation of the text's relationship to other observed facts.
By the standard of Biblical inerrancy, talking snakes are totally copacetic, because absurdity must be accepted if the only alternative is to consider the text to be in error. Even in the extreme case where no interpretation can be found that would avoid admitting error, there still remains the 'out' of claiming the error must not have been present in the original autographs (which nobody now living has seen).
If I were to say "In 2001 Basque Separatists struck the World Trade Center with RPGs, and they collapsed" would not be considered in error by the standards of Biblical inerrancy, since you cannot absolutely prove there were no Basque Separatists with RPGs attacking the WTC in 2001, besides which I didn't even say the RPGs caused the collapse. In my opinion that, more than any ambiguity in interpretation, is the what renders the doctrine of inerrancy useless. It simply has no allegiance towards fact.
Posted by: DaveL | January 11, 2010 7:35 PM
For me it's always been "Why is there anything at all?" And I eventually discovered that dropping God into the mix doesn't help either -- you're still left with exactly the same question. "Why is there anything at all?"
Posted by: tacitus | January 11, 2010 7:36 PM
"And given the size of a dove, how would it even be physically possible?"
Jokes about hillbillies, squirrels, and duct tape come to mind.....
Posted by: Coragyps | January 11, 2010 7:46 PM
Angels, pinheads, .... the bible is a great steaming pile of horseshit invented by people to guide and control other (gullible) people. That people now, centuries, dare I say millenia after its creation actually give the tiniest rat's ass about the contents of this pile of bunk let alone claim its literalism or inerrancy (or whatever term you choose to use) is the most utterly frustratingly depressing statement about the condition of human intellect and the best evidence against human superiority (as a form of life) of which I can imagine.
Posted by: c-serpent | January 11, 2010 8:13 PM
DaveL
True. But your metaphor might have been better if you had said that talking snakes blew up the WTC with RPGs. I mean, at least we know Basque Separatists exist. (Probably you are guilty of being too generous.)
tacitus:
It's like that for me too. It just adds a layer of useless onto something that hardly needs to be made more difficult to understand. But I at least understand why people want to, especially if they can do so without throwing in absurdities like talking snakes.
Posted by: Leni | January 11, 2010 8:44 PM
It actually was just Bill Clinton questioning the meaning of the word, "Isssssss."
Posted by: kehrsam | January 11, 2010 8:53 PM
Well, clearly "Basque Separatists" was a metaphor for zombie snakes that spoke Basque.
And Klingon. With a Cockney accent.
It's good to be inerrant. ;)
Posted by: DaveL | January 11, 2010 9:08 PM
@48
Chicago has an old local grocery chain called "Moo and Oink."
You must see a commercial:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zz8fTbLjo9c
Posted by: Dr X | January 11, 2010 9:36 PM
Wait a minute - D&D brought down the WTC? I know some RPG books are heavy, but not that bad. Maybe it was Spawn of Fashan? (hee hee hee)
Actually, the idiots who won't shop at Piggly Wiggly would probably be surprised that there are billions of people who don't believe like they do. If they found out that stores sell to anybody, why I can imagine them becoming hermits to avoid being tainted. Actually, several Lovecraft stories come to mind. Gotta love bigots. (shakes head)
Posted by: Badger3k | January 11, 2010 9:39 PM
Heddle - I'm a little confused:
In Acts 1:18 it reports that: "this one [Judas Iscariot], indeed, then, purchased a field out of the reward of unrighteousness, and falling headlong, burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed forth...", but the best known standing high jump was by the Swedish Athlete Rune Almén, who leapt 1.90 metres into the air.
How exactly did Judas kill himself by leaping in the air in the middle of a field, and, after falling a non-fatal 1.90 metres, die having had his 'bowels gush forth' from his body? Especially since he also managed to hang himself too.
Surely the bible couldn't be in error? - Dingo
Posted by: DingoJack | January 11, 2010 9:55 PM
When the Genesis account is regarded as a literal interpretation of a talking snake whom God curses to crawl on his belly for his mischief, it comes off to the casual observer the same way African animal folklore does--interesting storytelling, but even a child can tell it is make-believe.
Posted by: Robert Faber | January 11, 2010 9:57 PM
Heddle -
If the works of William Shakespeare had been recorded (from memory, by people who had only heard second-hand accounts of the plays) in the 1650's, and had only been codified*, by a committee of fans (who had only read various bowdlerised versions of his works, mostly contradictory) in the 1880's, how much trust would you place in the inerrancy of the collected works of Shakespeare? - Dingo
---------
* Codified here means edited, condensed, selectively chosen or rejected and otherwise modified to fit the audience, politics and personal tastes as determined by the comittee.
Posted by: DingoJack | January 11, 2010 10:30 PM
@ 84
This observation is related to the question of literary genre. Stylistically, the Genesis creation stories have the character of folktales and fables that come out of oral traditions. Animism is often a part of these traditions. Little Red Riding Hood, for example, includes a mendacious talking animal interacting with a human child.
Posted by: Dr X | January 11, 2010 10:51 PM
Obviously, since the bible is inerrant, it must have happened. Since it must have happened, it did, and if you can't determine how it was done through naturalistic means, then it must have been done by God hisself. Of course, if it isn't a case that something should be taken literally, then it had to be a metaphor... in some strange manner that I'm sure that heddle could tell us (if it happens to be the latter).
Couldn't you follow the cart-before-the-horse logic that heddle is peddling? I mean, his argument above is that the bible is literally true, except when it's not. Therefore, the talking snake in the garden - which he personally believes was actually a snake that was talking (after all, he doesn't represent the views of all Christians, as he likes to point out ad infinitum) - could either be a literal talking snake, or a metaphor of something else.
Indeed, if you went by that, then almost everything in the bible that you don't personally believe as literal truth can be taken as metaphor, including all those laws that God has about under what circumstances it's okay to stone your children or what (not) to wear.
Posted by: mercurianferret | January 11, 2010 10:55 PM
I bet that he wouldn't trust any of it, because Shakespeare isn't the inerrant word of God. (And likely - if I didn't make this comment - choose not to understand the analogy you are making with the Council of Nicea (CON), but will likely now make some lame excuse that the CON - made of men with free will - somehow were guided (although they had free will) to include all and only those texts that matched the will of God, and figure out which inerrant versions of the Jesus myth they would go with.
Posted by: mercurianferret | January 11, 2010 11:02 PM
Dr X - Yes, but does anyone think that Grimm's fairy tales are literaly true? Does anyone think that they are the inerrant word of an all powerful supernatural being? Does anyone try to base their morality around them?
mercurianferret - not to mention the clear metaphorical sense of 'lying with another man as a woman is an abomination' - Oh wait. :) - Dingo
Posted by: DingoJack | January 11, 2010 11:06 PM
The moment we start going down the road to start interpreting or dissecting the Bible in the context of a political discussion, we've just handed a victory to the religious extremists.
Bottom line is it does not matter a microgram what denomination these politicians belong to, or whether the contents of these politicians' religious beliefs are true or false, profound or inane.
What matters is that these politicians and other extremists are attempting to violate one of the core principles of our Republic, by creating conditions of explicit religious tests for public office.
But not only do they harm our politics, they also harm religion by their very words and acts giving rise to a backlash against religion in general and Christianity in particular. The backlash arises in response to the attempt to codify particular sectarian beliefs into our political process and into the law.
This is entirely new in our times.
Our history is full of instances where civic and political leaders were known to have been motivated by deep faith but respected the boundaries between church and state.
No one would consider the religious among our founders to have been theocrats. No one would consider such figures as Martin Luther King to have been theocrats. And it's doubtful that anyone at these times in history attempted to deny the validity of the faith that motivated any of these individuals.
The relentless criticism of the faith of individuals only arises to this degree, where those individuals attempt to impose their faith upon the body politic in order to impose their will upon others.
Posted by: g347 | January 11, 2010 11:06 PM
Dingo
No. That's my problem with people who don't recognize Genesis as an obvious folktale.
Posted by: Dr X | January 11, 2010 11:39 PM
It was not my intention to hijack a discussion.
Posted by: jws | January 11, 2010 11:59 PM
Dingo,
So, I'm going to elaborate... a lot.
The creation accounts of Genesis are not 'moral' folktales as much as they are folktales that could be said to describe the emergence of the modern human condition. Adam begins as a sort of early hominid. For example, he doesn't have language at the beginning. There is also a suggestion of a lack of self-awareness. They were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. They lived without planning or toil, off what was around them in the garden. Not all that different from any other great ape.
Preceding the expulsion from the garden, we see the emergence of self-awareness, theory of mind, subjective perspective and rudimentary conscience--all features of a modern mind with a hypothesizing capacity and a phenomenology that includes past, future and imaginary alternate possibilities. These are all interrelated capacities and a package deal.
God asks ‘Who told you that you were naked?’ Embedded in this question are several other questions: "How did you conceive of yourselves in some other way than the way you are? How did you discover that there are other points of view? How did you become aware of yourselves as both subjects and objects—as watchers and the watched?
It is the mind of these Geneses creatures that has changed. It's an ontological change with sweeping implications for the human condition. If we step back from our cultural baggage, the story could be said to describe the emergence of a new species. A & E pre-knowledge have ontologically different minds from A & E post-knowledge.
One critical development associated with a hypothesizing, self-aware consciousness is the possibility of moral conscience--knowing good and evil. You have to be able to conceptualize a moral judgment apart from the impulse to act and apply that judgment to yourself almost as if the judgment is coming from the outside. In psychology we'd call this an observing ego.
When conceptual capacity, theory of mind and self awareness co-emerged, secrets, lies, guilt, shame, worry, angst, art, agriculture, technology and work (toil) also become possibilities. Version 2.0 of the representational mind becomes a creator, a seeker of truth and an inveterate liar. The same emergent mental capacities undergird the moral possibilities of both good and evil. You could say, then, that the rise of humankind is also the fall of humankind. The psychological and moral fall co-evolved with the rise of modern humankind. In a way, they are portrayed sequentially in the Genesis story, but the new knowledge itself is actually represented as the fall. They eat the fruit, ‘[t]hen the eyes of both of them were opened and they knew they were naked’--they became farmers and, morally, they were toast.
I am not in the least suggesting that the 'authors' of these tales understood evolution or that they could conceptualize or articulate a description of evolving human mental capacities. But like many enduring folktales, an intuitive sense of the human condition is reflected in the artistic narrative. If we can put aside fundamentalist concretism and look at this story the way we might look at any other folktale, we see a narrative that resonates with the experience of human beings. So much so, that it (and other versions of it) was preserved by oral tradition and then by written tradition.
You don’t have to believe in God or the literal truth of any folktale to see deeper truths in these stories. But literalism annihilates any sort of meaning that could matter. If the literal, manifest stories were all that mattered, these tales would have died on their own long ago just like any other bad fiction. The stories are retold because the latent content resonates with universal, unconscious human concerns--even in those who defend against the awareness of those concerns with an opaque concretism.
Posted by: Dr X | January 12, 2010 1:10 AM
DJ,
It must have been a super-elastic collision, like those common to a Ford Pinto. Maybe he had explosives in his unmentionables.
Posted by: heddle | January 12, 2010 4:32 AM
mercurianferret,
Congrats, you are the one billionth person to make a variant of the cafeteria Christian argument in such a manner as to imply that he thinks he has produced a novel and insightful gotcha.
You are so uniquely knowledgeable I would like to give you credit for learning me about the Council of Nicaea, but I have studied Dan Brown's books so I already am an expert.
Actually your point is quite wrong--since I have written on numerous occasions, including on this blog, that the doctrine of the infallibility of scripture does tell us what is scripture--and that the correct Protestant view of the bible, in my opinion, is that it is a fallible collection of infallible books, --e.g., we cannot say with 100% certainty that, say, Revelation was inspired writing that belongs in the canon. You must be confusing me with a Catholic for whom the church can state, infallibly, what are the correct books of the bible--i.e., the RCC position is that the bible is an infallible collection of infallible books. But feel free to ignore my actual positions, make up positions for me, have me voice those made-up positions with the trusty He would probably say mechanism, and then attack those made-up positions--I sense you have mastered this as a debate mechanism.
Posted by: heddle | January 12, 2010 4:59 AM
Oops, a fatal missing negative-- the first sentence in the last paragraph of my previous post should read:
Actually your point is quite wrong--since I have written on numerous occasions, including on this blog, that the doctrine of the infallibility of scripture does NOT tell us what is scripture--and that the correct Protestant view of the bible, in my opinion, is that it is a fallible collection of infallible books
Posted by: heddle | January 12, 2010 5:03 AM
I've only just realised Professor Heddles true identity, consider.
-he knows loads about outer space,
-he believes in strange powers,
-he admits to being totally depraved, and the real clincher
-he claims to have been regenerated.
I think it is clear what his name is.
Posted by: Matty | January 12, 2010 5:21 AM
@heddle #95+96:
Do you actually make both of these claims? They seem to be contradictory; the first implies that all the books collected into the bible are infallible, but that there may be more infallible books out there not collected. The second contradicts this by suggesting that some of the books collected into the bible may be fallible.
If you truly make the second claim, what happens to your claim of inerrancy for the entirety of the bible? And (but you presumably saw this coming) how do you tell which books to rely upon as infallible and which not?
Posted by: Robin Levett | January 12, 2010 7:49 AM
OK heddle, Im sorry, I think Im even more at a loss as to the utility of your position than I was before. If I understand you correctly, you are now saying that it is not the Bible that is without error, but Scripture. Is there a method for determining what is Scripture? (Presumably some sub-set of the Bible.) Further, you say that the belief that Scripture is inerrant means that you believe that Jesus said something like, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him." But in determining inerrancy, do you interpret that passage in the same manner as the one where Jesus says something like, "I did not come to bring peace, but a sword." Additionally, it was you who used the term, "something like," so if you are accepting such imprecision in Scripture, why are you worrying about the exact meaning of the original word that was written down if Jesus only said something like that, which I take to mean not necessarily those exact words?
Posted by: Dave | January 12, 2010 7:51 AM
Robin @ 98 - read the first statement of heddle's you blockquoted. heddle is stating the exact opposite of what you think he's asserting. He's claiming that some of the books might not belong, but those that do are infallible. His last sentence is pretty weasly however since an inerrantist could use that statement with every book of the Bible to defend themselves on passages in other books of the Bible not being discussed, i.e., "Heads I win, tails you lose".
I really struggle in empathizing with someone who can both understand the standards used in scientific methodology and its continuously improving performance record in approaching objective truth and then turn around and defend the fatally defective, irrational, and dysfunctional approach to revealing and defending religious beliefs given our continuous ability to falsify its assertions. That's why I find David Heddle such an intriguing person.
The history of religious belief in the face of enlightenment thinking including advances in science is one of constant retreat. The victims of this battle are normally the children of the apologists who are deprived of the opportunities of their not-so-religious or not-so-conservatively religious peers - except when these apologists influence public school curriculums and then all kids in that locale suffer from such abuse.
Posted by: Michael Heath | January 12, 2010 8:49 AM
@Michael Heath #100:
While I agree that that is what he is probably saying, it makes a nonsense of his reliance upon the bible as infallible, as we both agree. It also is not what the words he uses in that clause actually mean; a "collection of infallible books" contains only infallible books. Qualifying "collection" with "fallible" means that the collection may not be complete.
Semantics aside, if we are correct as to his intended meaning, this means that the difference between him and a "liberal Christian" is that if errancy is demonstrated in a passage, he must discard parts of the bible at the book level, whereas the lC discards at the passage level.
Posted by: Robin Levett | January 12, 2010 9:15 AM
Robin Levett
The phrase "fallible collection of infallible books" is shorthand for "The bible contains 66 books. We think they all are canonical--those that are, according to the doctrine of the inerrancy of scripture, are infallible in the original autographs--but we admit that some books may not be canonical."
And yes I make that claim. What it means is this: there exists divinely inspired scripture. Alas, there does not seem to be a divinely inspired table of contents. The table of contents was devised by men who are not infallible. There was some debate about certain books: Revelation, Jude, Hebrews, First Clement, The Shepherd of Hermas, etc. Some made it in some didn't. The Catholic Church can argue, via their infallible sacred tradition, that the process was definitely guided by the Holy Spirit. Protestants might believe that (no you reason you can't) but we deny that anything like infallible sacred tradition exists--so we must, if we are honest to our principles, agree that an error might have happened. Maybe Revelation doesn't belong. That wouldn't mean it was nonsense and could not be used for advantage, it only means that there is a chance which must be admitted that it is in the canon by mistake. How can we be confident? That's a separate question. The position that the bible is a fallible collection of infallible books is simply an admission that within the axioms of Reformation Protestants, which includes the battle cry of "Scripture Alone" there is no way, logically speaking, to claim such an error could not have happened.
Michael Heath,
Yes, and you see me doing that all the time, don't you? I'm all about "epistle of straw this" and "second chronicles my ass that." Whenever I come across an inconvenient passage, especially those pesky genocide passages, it has been my custom to argue: Maybe that book doesn't even belong! It is much easier than trying to explain difficult passages--I just throw out the whole book.
Posted by: heddle | January 12, 2010 9:40 AM
heddle at 102 - I should have been more precise. I concede you don't do such, but it does have you allowing for the process to be exploited by others. Please accept my apologies for attributing unstellar behavior to you I agree you have not displayed.
Posted by: Michael Heath | January 12, 2010 10:20 AM
I'm going to throw Heddle a flotation device as far as 'talking snakes' goes -- first. It is one of the 'rules of the game' that God -- and presumably Satan (in the sense of the 'Great Adversary' that was one of Zoroastrianism's contributions to Biblical Judaism) -- can appear in various guises, such as the burning bush or as Balaam's Ass. So the 'talking snake' can simply -- without violating inerrancy -- be the equivalent.
Okay, now you are bobbing around on the rubber dinghy, here's the anchor. Catch it. Matthew 27:52-53. To quote -- I'll even use the KJV first --
52And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,
53And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.
Darby's Translation (he's the guy who invented the Rapture)
52and the tombs were opened; and many bodies of the saints fallen asleep arose,
53and going out of the tombs after his arising, entered into the holy city and appeared unto many.
or, the NIV
52The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. 53They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus' resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people.
And, finally Young's Literal Translation
52and the tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who have fallen asleep, arose,
53and having come forth out of the tombs after his rising, they went into the holy city, and appeared to many.
----
Okay, if such a general Ressurection occurred, can you explain two things to me. First, why this does not *ahem* somewhat blunt the resurrection of Jesus that you treat as such a singular occurrence. (The other resurrections in the Bible, including the three by Jesus and the -- totally charming -- one by Paul -- can be used as examples of God's power, but how much stronger was this mass resurrection?)
But it's the sort of thing people would tend to talk about, even if 'some saw them and some didn't' the response you gave last time I brought this up. Maybe I, as a resident of Jerusalem missed out on seeing them, but wouldn't I spend time talking with my friends. "You mean you really saw Moses and Joshua, Solomon and Jeremiah, walking through the courtyard?"
Parents would have told their children. "Your Uncle Zvi actually shook Amos's hand and talked with Jonah."
Yet not only does no contemporary non-Christian source recount it, not even that gossippy old queen, Josephus, who was born about that time and loved this sort of story -- and certainly no Christian editor would have cut the story out -- but neither do the other evangelists, or "Part 2" of Luke (aka Acts). Think how perfect a way of fixing the time of the Crucifixion it would be -- "Remember when your Aunt saw Queen Esther parading down the path from the temple to your own neighborhood." (And remember, one secular argument for the accuracy of 'sacred-texts' is the better memory pre-literate or partially literate societies have. This they would have remembered.)
And yet, all is silence -- as is true about some of Matthew's other unique stories, like the 'Slaughter of the Innocents' -- again, something that should have entered into the literature and the verbal folklore the way 9/11 enters into our own.
Posted by: Prup (aka Jim Benton) | January 12, 2010 11:13 AM
@heddle #102:
OK, but I did ask:
You have accepted that you do not know that any given book is correctly in the canon, ie is infallible. How can you rest your theology on the infallibility of the bible if there exists a chance that the biblical evidence underlying any particular point at issue is fallible?
Posted by: Robin Levett | January 12, 2010 11:48 AM
Robin Levett,
I don't know. It's a mystery. It is the same as asking "why do I believe in God?" I'm either delusional, or --what I believe-- the belief in both God and in the bible was instilled in me (by God) when I was converted.
Now as an apologetic I can look at the process. The process was, in a nutshell, 1) there were apostles and they (or their secretaries) wrote the gospels, so they are in. 2) We take anything that was written by apostles or has the stamp of approval of an apostle (e.g., Acts, by Luke). On that basis books like 1st Clement were excluded. But some books of uncertain apostolic ties, notably Hebrews got in anyway. Dan Brown aside--if you take out all the books over which there was debate--you still have the same gospel message. Something like 95% of Christian theology--leaving out unimportant end times questions--comes from John and Romans about which there was no debate. The only serious loss would be Hebrews. Revelation I could do without since I can't understand it to begin with.
But that is just an apologetic to make me and other believers feel good. In truth I believe that the bible is the word of God as a presupposition.
Posted by: heddle | January 12, 2010 7:54 PM
@Dr X for #81, thanks for the Moo and Oink link.
In Union Point, Georgia is my favorite grocery store, called Lord's Super Galaxy. I don't think they have T-shirts but I wish they did.
Posted by: Jon Lester | January 12, 2010 7:59 PM
so... if heddle asserts - as he does @ 95:
So do you recite the Nicene Creed? And do you accept the statements of faith therein? And do you therefore accept the historical context in which that creed was drawn up (or is that just cafeteria Christian history that you can throw away because it doesn't fit with your "correct" form of Christianity - as opposed to all the other choices that you can make in the cafeteria)?
If you are like most Christians, I would imagine that you do recite the Nicene Creed. Furthermore, if you are like most Christians as well as actually having faith in the religion, then you are likely to have faith in the statements of faith that are part of the creed. However, if you choose to disregard how the historical context imbues the bible with meaning, then you are choosing to conduct cafeteria Christianity: instead of sticking with the one true faith, you choose to go with some bastardized form of Christianity that has forsaken part of original doctrine.
Oh, wait. It's not cafeteria Christianity when it's actually a whole faith structure based on picking and choosing which things it liked based on a former system. It's only cafeteria Christianity with it's done now.
And finally: I have never stated your position. I have, though, stated what I think your position would be (to quote you: "in my opinion"). Why are you accusing me of making statements about you, when - by use of your own argument - I am doing nothing of the sort?
Posted by: mercurianferret | January 13, 2010 2:24 PM
to heddle - just in case you actually do come back here. I wrote the above before reading your illogical (to my POV) yet logical (to your POV) justification as to why some books may be not be inerrant while others are inerrant - but that you just don't know which ones. (You don't mention the possibility of inerrant scripture that somehow didn't make it into the Bible, or were incorrectly excluded at the Council of Nicea, but I'm sure you could tell everyone about those possibilities, if pressed. I for one, do not - at this time - care to know about these possible mysteries of group-editing that occurred during the history of the bible.)
I also wrote my comment before understanding how all of this (to me) logical dissonance is perfectly reasonable (to you). Therefore, as we had in our previous tete-a-tete, I leave you with your position of (in my POV) being completely wackaloon and you of possibly thinking me to be an annoyance (and possibly more, based on my interpretation of your responses to me).
Posted by: mercurianferret | January 13, 2010 2:36 PM
... and you still never made any comment about whether the governor of Alabama should uphold laws in accordance with the state and national constitutions and laws, or in accordance with Biblical scripture (the ones that he finds inerrant, which may not be the same as other Christians)? In other words, which should have supremacy?
Posted by: mercurianferret | January 13, 2010 2:39 PM
Heddle @33:
Hah, that's exactly what my dad said. And it's utter bullshit. There's no such account in the Bible, so you make up some really quite silly account to connect them. Don't you think it's much more plausible that if he hanged himself and the rope broke so that his body fell, at least one of the authors would just have said so? But what we have is accounts that directly contradict--so you and my pa invent a new story.
As to "accepting" the big miracle, of God creating the earth, while rejecting small ones, it's a matter of internal logic. Assuming an omnipotent being exists, making a world (or more likely, many) would be a very plausible action. Given the assumption, the internal logic is not at all problematic.
But assuming a god does not quite get us to the talking & tempting snake. Assuming also Satan, the logic that he's a bad guy who tempts us is also not problematic, which is why he gets attached to the snake. But since he actually cannot be the snake, we have to reexamine the logic of the snake story. Who is this tempter, then? Where does he come from and why does he act so if he's not Satan? There's a plausible internal logic that it's a miracle of God (as you seem to suggest, by calling it a miracle), who's putting his creations to the test.
But the Bible never says God was making use of the serpent. It says, "the serpent was more crafty than any other wild creature that the LORD God had made." Not, "God made the serpent crafty for a particular purpose." No, the serpent is just crafty--it's a natural attribute of the serpent. If we want to "interpret" (which I know doesn't offend you, but which does offend many Christians), we can accept that the serpent had the attribute of craftiness because God had a plan for it, but that's an interpretation that's only possible, it's not at all necessary.
Indeed it's not even very compelling, because God seems surprised by the whole incident. He has to ask Adam and Eve what happened, and then he condemns the serpent for bad behavior.
So the internal logic of the incident doesn't make any sense at all.
Posted by: James Hanley | January 13, 2010 2:57 PM
James Hanley,
Yes and what part of "something unspecified happened" did you miss?
Why? Matthew and Luke wrote at different times, using perhaps different eyewitness accounts or retelling the story as they heard it--possibly forgetting details. There is no reason they have to match--they just cannot contradict (without possibility of resolution) which neither you nor anyone else demonstrated. If Matthew wrote that Judas died while Luke wrote that Judas repented and moved to Spain where he was a productive missionary, you'd have a point.
Neither inerrancy nor inspiration nor sola scriptura demand completeness or matching details (except in the gospel message) or that the writing satisfies your sense of how inspired writing should read.
I never said God made use of the serpent (though he certainly ordained it). If I said miracle it was only as a synonym for supernatural. The serpent was not God or controlled by God--God is never the author of sin.
Posted by: heddle | January 13, 2010 3:21 PM
heddle "...God is never the author of sin."
So, First Cause works for creating everything, but not creating everything?
Posted by: Modusoperandi | January 13, 2010 3:54 PM
Modusoperandi ,
Yes, but don't ask me for my theodicy, 'cause I don't have one.
Posted by: heddle | January 13, 2010 4:11 PM
*Pbbt!* It's not a proper theology without an (attempted) answer to the Problem of Evil.
Posted by: Modusoperandi | January 13, 2010 4:20 PM
Yeah, yeah, its fun to laugh our heads of at these idiots but the sad and tragic, and potentially HORRIBLE reality is--they are going to continue to win elections, and thus be in decision-making positions in congress for decades to come.
All the more reason to pull together and ALWAYS ALWAYS ALLWAYS!!!!!!! vote for the closest thing to a progressive candidate in ANY election who HAS THE BEST CHANCE OF WINNING!! I hate to sound melodramatic ( ya know-the capitals & all) but JeeeZUSS, does anyone beleive that Ted Kennedy's senate seat, which was President Kennedy's before that, could be won by a republican.
ANY freethinker who can vote in Mass and doesn't on Tuesday vote for the lackluster but much more progressive democrat, should be ashamed, or at least burn in hell.
Posted by: Ed K | January 15, 2010 10:46 PM
Yeah, yeah, its fun to laugh our heads of at these idiots but the sad and tragic, and potentially HORRIBLE reality is--they are going to continue to win elections, and thus be in decision-making positions in congress for decades to come.
All the more reason to pull together and ALWAYS ALWAYS ALLWAYS!!!!!!! vote for the closest thing to a progressive candidate in ANY election who HAS THE BEST CHANCE OF WINNING!! I hate to sound melodramatic ( ya know-the capitals & all) but JeeeZUSS, does anyone beleive that Ted Kennedy's senate seat, which was President Kennedy's before that, could be won by a republican.
ANY freethinker who can vote in Mass and doesn't on Tuesday vote for the lackluster but much more progressive democrat, should be ashamed, or at least burn in hell.
Posted by: Ed K | January 15, 2010 10:49 PM
Sorry abt the duplication
Posted by: Ed k | January 15, 2010 10:52 PM