Rebuttal to Brian Chilton's interpretation of Deuteronomy 22:28-29

Brian Chilton has posted an audio message to his blog trying to refute the "rape" interpretation of Deuteronomy 22:28-29.  See here.

 28 "If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her and they are discovered,
 29 then the man who lay with her shall give to the girl's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall become his wife because he has violated her; he cannot divorce her all his days.
 30 "A man shall not take his father's wife so that he will not uncover his father's skirt. (Deut. 22:28-30 NAU)

Chilton's motive is clear.  This passage is forcing the maiden to marry her sex partner.  If the passage is talking about "rape", then this makes God sound like a sadistic idiot.  Chilton is a Christian bible believer:  There is nothing bad about his god, end of story, have a nice day.  And that's all the presupposition he needs in order to become automatically suspicious of any bible passage that seems to imply God's morals are different than those held by modern-day Americans.

I'm a skeptic, and for the following reasons I'm "reasonable" to view Deuteronomy 22:28-29 to be addressing the issue of non-consensual sex or "rape".  I also challenge Chilton to a live in person or written debate on whether it is reasonable to classify the OT YHWH as  "good".

The following arguments are from a study I did years ago, and I will respond in a future post to Chilton's specific arguments.

(you need to remember that because reasonableness doesn't always demand correctness, you are not demonstrating this skeptical interpretation to be 'unreasonable' merely because you've proven that a different interpretation remains logically possible.  If you are going to uphold the negative inferences you always draw out of Psalm 14:1 and Romans 1:20, you must do more than show your view of Deut. 22:28-29 is possible, as "possible" isn't enough to show that the opposing view is unreasonable.  You must show that the skeptics who are interpreting Deut. 22:28-29 as addressing "rape" are "foolish" and "without excuse" for seeing rape therein).

First, commentators admit there is no agreement among commentators as to whether this passage addresses rape or merely "seduction": 

There is no agreement among commentators as to whether Deuteronomy 22:28–29 treats seduction (and is therefore an expansion of the case in Exod. 22:16–17) or rape. If the New International Version is correct in interpreting the passage as addressing rape, the monetary increase (fixed at fifty shekels) may be seen as a penalty exacted against the offender because he shamed her (v. 29). Whereas the former case (Exod. 22:16–17) would have been subject to conventional divorce procedure (Deut. 24:1–4), an additional provision is made for the woman’s economic security in the latter case: the man can never divorce her, whatever she does (Deut. 22:28–29). The concern for the woman is also reflected in the distinctions between the two rape cases described in Deuteronomy 22:23–27: the betrothed woman raped in the city would have been heard if she had cried for help, but the woman raped in the country is presumed to have cried out, whether she did or not. In the latter case, only the man is put to death.

Elwell, W. A., & Elwell, W. A. (1997, c1996). Evangelical dictionary of biblical theology (electronic ed.). Baker reference library; Logos Library System.

Grand Rapids: Baker Book House.

This means there is a stark possibility that the passage is not sufficiently clear as to render the 'rape' interpretation unreasonable.  It might be sufficiently ambiguous as to allow either interpretation to be reasonable. Christian professor Joe Sprinkle highlights commentator uncertainty in his 1997 JETS article on the subject:

Similarly Deut 22:28–29 describes a case of what appears to be rape 8 in which the woman is subsequently given to the offender as wife (after a fifty-shekel marriage gift/fine to the father). In such a case the man “cannot divorce her as long as she lives.” Again, were it not for the original offense it would be assumed that he could divorce her.
---fn.8. The usual interpretation of “seize” (tāpas) is that the text implies that the man seizes the woman by force and rapes her. G. P. Hugenberger (Marriage as Covenant: A Study of Biblical Law and Ethics Governing Marriage Developed from the Perspective of Malachi [VTSup 52; Leiden: Brill, 1994] 255-260), on the other hand, argues that Deut 22:28–29 is a case of seduction rather than rape. One argument in favor of the seduction view is the expression “they are found,” which suggests that both the man and the woman are involved, whereas in the case of rape one would expect it to say “he is found.” Another argument is that it seems unfair to force the woman to marry her rapist, whom she may well hate. Against Hugenberger, however, it seems hard to reconcile this being only a case of seduction with the extremely high bride price of fifty shekels, in contrast with Exod 22:16–17 where no such high price is set and no forfeiture of the right of divorce is mentioned.

Old Testament Perspectives On Divorce  And Remarriage, Joe M. Sprinkle

JETS 40/4 (December 1997) 533 

 * Joe Sprinkle is associate professor of Old Testament at Toccoa Falls College, P.O. Box 800236, Toccoa Falls, GA 30598–0236. 

The Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society. 1998 (electronic edition.). Garland, TX: Galaxie Software.

Second, the fact that I'm reasonable to view Deut. 22:28-29 as talking about non-consensual sex is proven from the fact that even conservative Christian commentators, whose love for god gives them high motivation to avoid any "god is immoral" implication, nonetheless insist this passage is talking about rape.  E. H. Merrill is an inerrantist, and writes as follows for the inerrancy-driven New American Commentary.  IF there was any grammatical justification for him to avoid the "god is immoral" implication and restrict this passage to mere seduction, he likely would have.  He did not, he candidly admitted this was violent coercion:

22:28–29 At first glance the next example, the rape of an unbetrothed girl, might appear to have been a lesser offense than those already described, but this was not the case at all. First, he seized (Heb. tāpaś, “lay hold of”) her and then lay down (šākab) with her, a clear case of violent, coercive behavior.

Merrill, E. H. (2001, c1994). Vol. 4: Deuteronomy (electronic ed.). Logos Library System; The New American Commentary (Page 305). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

The NET bible (“Our passion is to see every person become mature in Christ and competent to teach and train others.”) makes the rape connotation in 22:28 explicit, which this team of Christian scholars would hardly have done had the grammar and context reasonably indicated the virgin was willing: 

Suppose a man comes across a virgin who is not engaged and overpowers and rapes her and they are discovered.

The ESV makes the rape connotation explicit: 

Deu 22:28 Suppose a man comes across a virgin who is not engaged and overpowers and rapes51 her and they are discovered.
Deu 22:29 The man who has raped her must pay her father fifty shekels of silver and she must become his wife because he has violated her; he may never divorce her as long as he lives. 

The Brenton’s English translation of the Septuagint makes it clear this was rape: 

And if any one should find a young virgin who has not been betrothed, and should force her and lie with her, and be found, (Deut. 22:28 LXE)

ISBE agrees:

RAPE.
[חָזַק, chazak] = “to seize,” “bind,” “restrain,” “conquer, “force,” “ravish.” The punishment for this crime was greater when the act was committed against a betrothed woman (Deuteronomy 22:25-29).

Orr, J., M.A., D.D. (1999). The International standard Bible encyclopedia : 

1915 edition (J. Orr, Ed.). Albany, OR: Ages Software.

Third, “seize” in v. 28 in the Hebrew is taphas and means “to lay hold of, weild”, it is the same Hebrew word used in Deut. 21:19 to describe the way parents of a rebellious son force him in front of the elders to receive the death penalty; the same Hebrew word used in Deut. 20:19 to signify how the Hebrews will capture a city after warring against it; also used in Deut 9:17 to describe how the angry Moses seized the two tablets of stone and smashed them.  It is also used in 1st Samuel 23:26 (capturing an enemy) and in 1st Kings 18:40 (Elijah commanding seizure of the Baal prophets for purposes of execution).

Fourth, the Greek word in the Lxx here is βιασάμενος, and means “to force, dominate”.  Friberg says it is “always with a component of force”, and all other standard lexicons agree: UBS says

“exercise force (if midd.) or suffer violence (if pass.)” citing Mt 11.12 and “enter by force (Lk 16.16)”.  LNIDA says “to experience a violent attack…”.  LSCOTT says “force, an act of violence…against one's will”.  THAYER says “to force, inflict violence on…”.  TDNT,  “The reference of the term is always to “forced” as distinct from voluntary acts. The middle means “to compel,” “overpower” (sometimes sexually), the passive “to be constrained.” BDAG, “to gain an objective by force” (citing Dt. 22:28).

In the NT, this Greek word appears in of Matt 11:12 where the kingdom of God is controversially said to suffer ‘violence’, and Luke 16:16, where people ‘force’ their way into it.  

Fifth, 22:28 further describes the sex act as “he has violated her”, the Hebrew word for ‘violated’ is anah, and while cognate usage is not dispositive, this word is used in at least 5 other OT passages where forcible rape is clear, making it reasonable to demand very good contrary evidence before we say Deut 22:28 is an exception to the rule: 

And when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the land, saw her, he took her and lay with her by force (Hebrew: anah). (Gen 34:2 NAS)
It shall be, if you are not pleased with her, then you shall let her go wherever she wishes; but you shall certainly not sell her for money, you shall not mistreat her, because you have humbled (Hebrew: anah)  her. (Deut. 21:14 NAU)
But the men of Gibeah rose up against me and surrounded the house at night because of me. They intended to kill me; instead, they ravished (Hebrew: anah) my concubine so that she died. (Jdg 20:5 NAS)
However, he would not listen to her; since he was stronger than she, he violated (Hebrew: anah) her and lay with her. (2Sa 13:14 NAS)
Jonadab, the son of Shimeah, David's brother, responded, "Do not let my lord suppose they have put to death all the young men, the king's sons, for Amnon alone is dead; because by the intent of Absalom this has been determined since the day that he violated (Hebrew: anah) his sister Tamar. (2 Sam. 13:32 NAU)
They ravished (Hebrew: anah )the women in Zion, The virgins in the cities of Judah. (Lam 5:11 NAS)

Sixth, 3rd century church father Tertullian thought this was about rape: 

The Creator, however, except on account of adultery, does not put asunder what He Himself joined together, the same Moses in another passage enacting that he who had married after violence to a damsel, should thenceforth not have it in his power to put away his wife. Now, if a compulsory marriage contracted after violence shall be permanent, how much rather shall a voluntary one, the result of agreement!

(Five Books against Marcion, Book 4, ch. 34,

Schaff, P. (2000). The Ante-Nicene Fathers (electronic ed.).

Garland, TX: Galaxie Software.

Seventh, that 22:28 describes a virgin who was forced or raped, may also be inferred by noting that v. 29 requires the man to pay a specified sum for the bride price that is very high in light of average earnings of the average man in those days, while the price the man had to pay in the similar circumstance described in Exodus 22 was not specified:

Exodus 22:16-17	Deuteronomy 22:28-29
16 "If a man seduces a virgin who is not engaged, and lies with her, he must pay a dowry for her to be his wife.  17 "If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him, he shall pay money equal to the dowry for virgins.	28 "If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her and they are discovered,  29 then the man who lay with her shall give to the girl's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall become his wife because he has violated her; he cannot divorce her all his days.

Therefore, it is reasonable to assume a presumption attaches that the bride-price was left unexpressed in Exodus because the sexual situation in Exodus was less severe of a crime than the case described in Deut. 22:28-29. But even conservative commentators admit Exodus was talking about "rape", and since I'm a skeptic who doesn't believe in biblical inerrancy, I have no problems with the bible giving inconsistent solutions to the single crime of "rape":

In the event that a man raped a single woman, he was to pay the bride-price and marry her (Exodus 22:16–17).

Vos, H. F. (1999). Nelson's new illustrated Bible manners & customs : How the people of the Bible really lived (Page 104). Nashville, Tenn.: T. Nelson Publishers.

If a girl was already betrothed and was raped by another man she could not become that other man’s wife, as would normally be the case (Deuteronomy 22:28–29), because she already belonged to her husband–to–be. Such violation involved the death penalty (Deuteronomy 22:23–27).

Gower, R., & Wright, F. (1997, c1987). The new manners and customs of Bible times. Updated and rewritten version of Manners and customs of Bible lands, by Fred Wright.; Includes indexes. Chicago: Moody Press.

   "Reasonableness" doesn't require that we check out the lexical meanings of the Hebrew words in question, otherwise, nobody would be reasonable to interpret the bible they way they do unless they first conducted a scholarly level inquiry into its original languages.  Ok...do you forbid sinners from accepting Christ until they do a scholarly study of 2,000 years of Christian differences on soteriology?  Are you suspicious that the salvation of biblically illiterate people who nevertheless "accepted Jesus as their savior"?  If not, then unless you wish to tell the skeptic they can safely delay the day of their repentance as long as they are studying the original languages of scripture, you are going to have to admit that conducting a scholarly study of the Hebrew words is not necessary, before the skeptic's interpretation can be "reasonable".

Eighth, D.L. Christensen in the Word Biblical Commentary considers this to be seduction, but he calls it "rape" and allocates the "seduction" classification to how the event is viewed "legally":

If a man rapes an unbetrothed woman in the city, it is considered seduction, requiring marriage and paying the girl’s father fifty pieces of silver (vv 28–29), as a dowry.

Christensen, D. L. (2002). Vol. 6B: Word Biblical Commentary : Deuteronomy 21:10-34:12. 

Word Biblical Commentary (Page 523). Dallas: Word, Incorporated.

Let's consider some objections:  

God would never force a woman to marry the man who raped her
Let me guess...you were born and raised in a democratic nation where lots of people fight for individual rights, correct?  But apologists argue that this requirement was morally good because, in the ANE, if the woman's virginity was taken, her value was diminished in the eyes of her village, so that forcing her to marry the rapist was a loving way to ensure that she could have restored status in the community through marriage and child-bearing.  Some apologists will speculate the forced marriage forbade sexual relations, but there is no evidence that sexual relations in such marriages were forbidden.

The fact that Deut. 22:24 requires the woman to be killed and 22:28-29 doesn't, proves these are two different situations

I'm not seeing the argument.  Yes, v. 24 doesn't express or imply rape:

 23 "If there is a girl who is a virgin engaged to a man, and another man finds her in the city and lies with her,
 24 then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city and you shall stone them to death; the girl, because she did not cry out in the city, and the man, because he has violated his neighbor's wife. Thus you shall purge the evil from among you.

In that in 22:24, the woman is to be killed because she did not cry out, implying she had consented, and yet it still says the man “violated” (anah) his neighbor’s wife.  Apologists will seize on this as if this less forceful sense of anah in v. 24 must be read back into the anah appearing in v. 28.  But there are several problems with this knee-jerk method of exegesis so common among apologists:  

---a) vv. 23-24 are missing the ‘seize’ comment that appears in v. 28, which is significant especially for inerrantists who think only one human being authored the entire book of Deuteronomy (why didn’t Moses assert in 23-24 that the man had “seized” the virgin, if Moses was willing to use that word later in v. 28?).  The implication is that the sex act in 23-24 was consensual, in which case it is for sheer grammatical necessity that the anah of v. 24 would take the nuance of positional disgrace or dishonor (i.e., the woman’s consent doesn’t negate the moral disgrace of the man’s initiating such act on a betrothed virgin, indeed, consenting extra-marital sexual relations are disgraceful);  

---b) context determines the precise nuance a biblical author intended for his chosen word, and since it was already shown that v. 28’s ‘seize’ (taphas/βιασάμενος) means rape, the anah of v. 28 is governed more closely by the other word in the same verse, than it is governed by the sense anah takes 4 verses earlier.  Yes, Moses could very easily be giving anah in v. 24 a nuance not quite as popular as the nuance of “force” that it takes in v. 28 and most other cases.  

---c) anah literally means “bowed down”, and since most agree that vv. 23-24 do not describe rape but consenting sex, the author could have simply been referring to the physical position the woman took in her choice to have extra-marital sex.

---d) I do not believe Moses is the only author of Deuteronomy, nor do I believe the redactors did a perfect job of making that book teach morals and laws consistently.  I accept a hypothesis that is taught in all but the must fundagelical bible colleges and seminaries:  the documentary hypothesis.  Therefore, I have no reasonable basis to worry that the way I interpret 22:28-29 might contradict what the same book says elsewhere about a debateably similar subject.  Bible inerrancy is so controversial even among those who espouse it, that it is reasonable to say it does not deserve to be exalted in our minds to the status of governing hermeneutic (i.e., automatically cite the interpretation's contradicting another part of the bible as the only reason needed to trash it and look for another).   It just might be more reasonable to view two passages in one book as contrary to each other, than to pretend that any harmonization scenario is going to be "better".

Finally, the fact that the slave-owner is the only person required to do anything to atone for "his" sin of sex with a slave betrothed to another man (Leviticus 19:20-22), when in fact it is clear the passage is addressing "rape" (and it is clear that this is adultery that would, absent the girl's slave status, be punishable by death) makes it reasonable for those who accept Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch to say the person who wrote out Deut. 22:28-29, also wrote Leviticus 19:20-22, and had a very low view of woman, and such a man wasn't likely to view "forced to marry her rapist" in the shocking horrifically unacceptable way that it is viewed by modern-day democratic American Christians.

Much more could be said, but "reasonableness" doesn't require anybody, whether Christian or skeptic, to knock the opposing interpretation all the way out of the ballpark.  How much scholarly study of Mormonism do you suppose the average Catholic and Protestant fundamentalist did, before deciding that it was a false form of Christianity?  Isn't it likely they did little more than read a book or two written by an anti-Mormon (i.e., the way most creationist Christians read a few blogs written by creationists and become certain that evolution is a lie of the devil?)

If you aren't going to label Christians "unreasonable" for reaching confident conclusions before they've conducted a thorough scholarly review, fairness dictates that you also refrain from labeling skeptics unreasonable should they reach confident conclusions before they've conducted a thorough scholarly review.

But if you are this objective, then you leave yourself no basis to insist that Psalm 14:1 and Romans 1:20 correctly broad-brush skeptics and atheists.  When you tangle with me, you soon find out that poets that lived thousands of years ago aren't exactly the best sources of information about today's unbelievers.  But you cannot really be blamed for being impressed with empty rhetoric.  Just look at the pastors of fundamentalist churches.  The pastor's deep bellowing or screechy voiced confidence makes their trusting congregation positively certain that they should babble incoherently...or adopt KJV onlyism...or accept 5-point Calvinism, or jump around the church in voo-doo like stupor, etc, etc.


Since apologists find life is easier for themselves by quietly deleting my rebuttals from their blogs, here's a screenshot showing I posted news of my rebuttal at Chilton's blog, just in case that post disappears.  If he chooses to ignore my rebuttal, it won't be because he "didn't know about it":

Reply to Logician_Bones on the problem of evil

One of James Patrick Holding's followers, some Christian using the name "Logician_Bones", tried to "explain" in a comment why evil is "necessary" and yet humans are still accountable to avoid what's logically necessary....and yet maintain a straight face all at the same time.  See here.  I reply in point by point fashion:

Logician_Bones18 hours ago (edited)
​@PristineKat It's the Problem of Evil argument which I've debunked, so here goes. The bad premise is implied 'underneath' "God made us who we are yes?" that he did so arbitrarily -- in reality, God had to work within logical necessity.

Well first, your attempt to explain evil is making use of an incoherent concept called "god".  This being cannot be empirically detected, but you pretend that inferring his existence indirectly makes his existence as obvious as cars or trees. Try again.

It's been shown (by analyses besides my own, but mine is definitive and fairly simple as a disproof) that allowing evil for a time was logically necessary.

Which means your god, who bitches at people for sinning, thus bitches at them for doing what was logically necessary, i.e., something they could not logically avoid doing....a divine attitude completely contradictory to the common sense notion that it is crazy to "expect" people to avoid that which is logically necessary.

If America's court judges and juries believed like your god, they'd have no moral basis for holding guilty criminals accountable.  If not even God can get around the logical necessity of evil, what fool would argue that less powerful human beings are "required" to do any different? 

Short answer is if we did not experience a fallen world like this for a time, we would not truly appreciate how bad evil, left to itself, is

We wouldn't need to know how bad evil itself is, if god kept us from doing it.   Our need to "appreciate" the evil of sin is simply a non-starter under the theory that God was capable of creating a sinless world.  And under your logic, your god is a deceptive asshole, because he sure does give the appearance in Genesis 3 that he never willed for Adam and Eve to disobey.  At least that's the appearance the illiterate farm hands living under Moses (the originally intended audience) would have gotten.  They did not have biblical inerrancy of systematic theology on the brain anymore than they had alegebra on the brain.  They would have understood Genesis 3 in the same simpleminded way that small children today get from "The Little Red Hen".

-- and we would always think it must not be that bad and would want to try it,

Then God could have created a sinless universe, and the risk we might find evil tempting, would never arise in the first place.  One conservative hermeneutic is to ask how the originally intended audience would have understood the story.  It's obviously stupid to assume Moses' mostly illiterate farm-hands would have had theological consistency, systematic theology or bible inerrancy on the brain as they sat listening to the story teller reciting from Genesis 3.  Those dolts would most certainly not have seen any ulterior divine motive, but would have believed God honestly wanted Adam and Eve to obey him, and that their doing so was just as unexpected to their god as a teen's involvement in murder was unexpected by their parents.

You cannot understand Genesis 3 correctly today because you read it through the rose colored bible-inerrancy glasses you've chosen to superglue to your nose with the help of a bulldozer.  But the understanding that makes Genesis 3 contradict the rest of the bible's fairy tales about its constantly evolving 'god' is more objective.

and, if God gave us freewill mentally at all, would always be angry at him for refusing to let us act as we wish.

Same answer:  if God created a sinless universe, there's be no "don't do this" command that would alert us to evil and possibly morph into our being mad at god in forbidding us to try knew things.

If yoru god was perfect before creation, he'd have been perfectly "content" without creatures to worship him...leaving him about as much rational motive to create anything,  as a person who just drank half a gallon of water has motive to take another swig.

So appeals to empathy with rape victims, murder victims, etc. are actually proving our point, and unwittingly evidencing that God had to allow this (temporarily).

Only in an evil world.  If God did what any good parent does, and prevented us stupid kids from succeeding with our stupid dangerous ideas (i.e., keeping bleach locked up), there would be no occasion for us to feel sorry for victims of evil in the first place, as such victims would never exist.

The skeptics fail to consider that their empathy (when not fake, and often it's somewhat faked just to give an excuse to be obnoxious with this argument, though many well-meaning people do honestly wonder about the argument) is not automatic. They're taking it for granted and forgetting that they got it in the first place precisely because God set things up this way.

No, empathy is part of the nature of a mammal, even if to varying degrees.  Frank Turek does a rather shitty job of trying to prove "god" is the "best explanation" for human morality.  On the contrary, an empirically undetectable something or other than people have been disagreeing on for 2,000 years, is a horrifically complex solution clearly sliced away by Occam's Razor long before any empirically based naturalistic theory would be.

If we rightly condemn a parent who constantly bitches about their kids being bad, but never does anything to physically prevent them from doing evil (i.e., negligent parenting), then we rightly condemn god, who, like the neglectful parent, constantly bitches about his kids being bad, when he is apparently even more capable of interfering with their evil plans than human parents are (coercive telepathy, Ezra 1:1).

And they are undermining it by refusing to side with the single perfect, infinite being, who actually WILL remove evil forever in heaven.

Sorry, your classical theism might be biblical, but open-theism is also biblical.  See God's regretting his own prior choice to create man in Genesis 6:6-7, then ask yourself why the literal interpretation has support from the immediate and larger context, and the "anthropomorphism" interpretation has zero contextual justification.

And you are dreaming if you think evil will be forever removed in heaven.  God approves of and commissions liars while he is in heaven (1st Kings 22:19-23), so if he is unchanging, then his approval of liars is never going to change....meaning his approval of sinners will continue existing even up in heaven.

They're actually siding WITH the very evils they pretend to oppose!

Gee, if it weren't for you, we'd never have seen this truth.

And trying to use this argument to justify arguably the greatest evil ever -- luring others into hell.

That's your god's fault, as apparently his trivializing the seriousness of sin is as easy as a wave of his magic wand (2nd Samuel 12:13), or, if he's in the mood, getting rid of a person's sin is as easy as burning their face a little bit  (Isaiah 6:6-7).  Your classical theist notion that god "must" judge sin either through Christ's cross, or by eternal shame in hell, is bullshit even by the standards of your own bible.

Notwithstanding that we do not believe hell is literal torture, it's still endless, and we think shame matters a lot.

I'm worried.  Whenever I hear Romans 1:20, I start crying in fear and horror.  I thought you said your lesbian friends would be doing that strip tease at my house?  Beer-pong!

And actually, think about how callous the skeptics must be who actually DO think the Bible teaches literal torture!

Then you must think Hank Hanegraaff, part time employer of your James Patrick Holding savior, is callous, since all through the 1990s he was saying on the Bible Answerman show that eternal conscious torment is actually an expression of god's infinite love.  But because James Patrick Holding has no more spiritual spine than a dead-alligator, I don't suppose he'll be calling Hank a "moron" anytime soon.  We tend to think more highly of just anybody who makes our life easier to live, and play down any disagreements we have with such people.  Especially if we bask in their  reflected glory.

You spiritually alive fundamentalists disagree with each other all day every day on "basic" bible doctrine, yet you "expect" spiritually dead atheists to "recognize" biblical truth?  FUCK YOU.

Think about how risky it is for them to behave like little brats on this subject in light of the danger, from their perspective, that the Bible might be true.

About as risky as getting struck by lighting while shopping for groceries.  Let's just say I you are dreaming if you think you've said anything remotely disconcerting to an atheist bible critic. You don't have the balls to debate real skeptics, that's why you gave up your ill-advised challenge to me from some months ago.  Even stupid bullies retain their survival instincts after discovering they picked on the wrong victim.

Especially the ones who will insist 'atheism doesn't absolutely deny it, it just means we haven't see the evidence yet.'

Then count me out.  Both positions are viable, but I adopt "strong" atheism.  I'm about as confident in the non-existence of Christian hell as you are confident in the non-existence of Muslim hell.  Now what you are gonna do, fundie?  Quote the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus?  LOL.

Perhaps if they had logical disproof of God, but even informed skeptics admit that is not possible.

You cannot logically disprove lots of crazy ideas, including those found in other religions.  That hardly makes you worry they might be right.  Quit demanding from others more than you demand of yourself, and you'll successfully duck the "hypocrite" label that's currently welded to your forehead.

(And I know that's definitely impossible since I've proven God.

Your god is logically contradictory, he is "unchanging" (Malachi 3:6, Hebrews 13:8) and yet he loves sinners (John 3:16) but also hates them (Psalm 5:5).  Since the thesaurus lists "hate" as an antonym for "love", we are reasonable to see a contradiction.  You cannot argue there's no contradiction, with the trifle that "hate isn't the opposite of love, only apathy is".  You also cannot logically disprove that the Christian god is really just an advanced space alien who visits the earth every few thousand years and lies to us because he gets a thrill out of watching us fight over what he meant.  But since you don't spend too much time worrying about this logical possibility, you have more in common with atheist bible skeptics than you admit.

By the way, my main route of sound support, the causality proof, also proves he HAS to be 100% good in order to be infinite, and MUST exist, ergo MUST be 100% good. So no "immoral God" argument will ever work.

Lots of dogshit to shovel away here:

a) you are just parroting Thomas Aquinas
b) most Christians think burning pre-teen prostitutes to death is objectively evil, so since it is God's command (Leviticus 21:9), under Frank Turek's logic that morals come from God, it must be the Holy Spirit who is telling most Christians that actions like those commanded in Leviticus 21:9 are objectively evil.
c) You are merely arguing divine command theory (i.e., the goodness of an act derives from nothing deeper than the mere fact that god commanded something), but even the bible says God gave evil commands (Ezekiel 20:25).
d) is is precisely this cultic obstinacy about an idol's unquestionable goodness that motivates fanatics to hurt others in the name of their god solely for subjective religious reasons, when in fact if they acted more consistent with their mammalian nature, they would be less dangerous for society.
e) you are also assuming classical theism, but classical theism bites the dust in Genesis 6:6-7.   Google Gregory Boyd, then trifle about how even Christians far more knowledgeable than you in the bible, can still go astray...then pretend that while god knows spiritually alive Christians can get biblical things wrong, he nonetheless "expects" spiritually dead people to "know better".  FUCK YOU.

And my argument against your god's goodness is airtight.  Under your stupid logic, you cannot really say that rape, kidnapping and parental cannibalism are evil, because your god not only causes such things to happen, he gets just as much thrill hurting disobedient people that way, as he gets out of granting prosperity to those who obey him (Deuteronomy 28:30, 41, 51-53, 63).

Yes, Matthew Flannagan tries to escape that biblical noise by pretending that the "context" indicates that these words are mere rhetorical hyperbole merely because not every description in that chapter is literally true.  But what Mr. Know it All fails to get is a) the rhetorical hyperbole excuse can also "explain" those passages that say god is infinitely good, and b) the presence of hyperbole doesn't imply that literal intent is entirely lacking.  If I told you I "kicked his ass", that would be rhetorical hyperbole, but it would not be merely hot air, it would only mean I described a literal reality with hyperbolic language.  If Flannagan had first thought for two seconds how the originally intended and mostly illiterate farm hands, who were the originally intended audience, would have taken Moses words when they heard Deut. 28:15-63, he might have noticed the probability that these words were meant to be taken as serious threats.  Finally, most of the threatened horrors were, in the days of Moses, realities not only in Israel's past but for most others living in the ANE.  Flannagan is a fool to think the literal interpretation is "obviously wrong".  And plenty of Christian scholars, like Bill Craig, disagree with Flannagan's "mere exaggeration" excuse to take the sting out of the divine commands to slaughter the Canaanites.  Consider shutting the fuck up before you bounce back with "anybody who disagrees with Copan and Flannagan are just morons."  Otherwise, if even the spiritually alive Bill Craig cannot detect the actual truth about the divine atrocities in the bible, how the fuck could you "expect" spiritually dead atheists to recognize it?

I show that when something is logically necessary, it cannot be the fault of the omniscient God who knew it was and allowed it.

Then you apparently haven't read those parts of the bible where God CAUSES and doesn't just "allow" evil.  Deuteronomy 28:15-63, supra.  See also 2nd Samuel 12:12.

It would be the "fault" of logical necessity itself, except that it is incoherent to speak of necessity being a "fault."

But if the evil was "logically necessary", then the humans who committed it were no more capable of avoiding it, than they are capable of creating a 4-sided triangle.

Like I said at the beginning of this post, if judges and juries believed the way you do about the logically necessary nature of evil, they would not see much difference between absolving god and absolving humans.  It isn't like humans have more ability than god to avoid logical necessities.

 The only "fault" would lie in the sinners themselves/ourselves.

how could you "fault" a sinner for doing something they couldn't avoid doing?  Oh, I forgot.  Your blind acceptance of the bible.  Like apostle Paul, you are worried less about logical consistency and more about blindly supporting biblical conclusions, regardless of the consequences.  Never mind.

So the Bible's portrayal of the relationship of God to sin is logically correct, it turns out.

Then because God can get rid of even the worst sins by simply waving his magic wand (2nd Samuel 12:13), the parts or the bible that show him constantly bitching about his kids sinning, can be safely dismissed as nothing more than rhetorical hyperbole.  Copan and Flannagan are currently sorry about opening doors they wish to god they'd never opened with their ridiculous sins of word-wrangling.

By the way, I noticed that you don't couch your logical conclusions in syllogistic form.  I'm wondering if the reason you refuse to do that is because it will make it easier for the reader to pinpoint where exactly your reasoning fails.  If your logic is so impeccable, cast it in the form of syllogistic deductions....where the proof you are wrong is narrowed to two options:  either one of your premises is wrong, or the conclusion you drew from them doesn't logically follow.

(Unsurprisingly to me since before investigating that I had already found that the Bible had unfakeable prophecies,

"unfakable" is a strong claim, you'd have to show fulfillment of the following criteria.

(1) Your interpretation of the prophecy is settled beyond reasonable doubt (i.e., the predictive words are not sufficiently vague as to reasonably accommodate a non-fulfillment interpretation).
(2) You must show beyond reasonable doubt that the the alleged prophecy's wording existed before the allegedly fulfilling event happened.  With all of the Christian scholarly disagreement about the dates of the biblical books and when the canonical form of the text was first completed, good luck.
(3) You must show beyond reasonable doubt that the alleged prophecy predated the alleged fulfillment so much as to reasonably eliminate the possibility of the prophet's prediction merely being educated guesswork.  Predicting in May 2019 that President Trump will be impeached, would mean nothing if he was later actually impeached, as any fool can currently make an educated guess that impeachment is on the table of possibilities, whose probability grows with each passing day.
(4) You must show beyond reasonable doubt that the people involved in the fulfillment did not intentionally contrive the "fulfillment".  If you claim Mary's hymen was still intact during her pregnancy with Jesus, something more than "she claimed throughout her pregnancy that she was still a virgin!" must be shown.
(5) You must show beyond reasonable doubt that the allegedly fulfilling event was a real event in space-time, not something restricted to "heaven".
(6) You must show beyond reasonable doubt that you used the grammatical-historical method of interpretation to reach your interpretation.  We have about as much patience for "midrash" and "pesher" as Moo had for Gundry.
(7) You must show beyond reasonable doubt that you arrived at your interpretation by employing the normative principles of historiography that are commonly agreed to by Christian and non-Christian historians.  You start complaining that Mike Licona's historical method makes it too easy for skeptics to attack something?  I start asking why James Patrick Holding doesn't publicly accuse Licona of being a "dumb ass" and "moron". Fair?
(my restatements and additions to Farrell Till's prophecy-fulfillment criteria, TSR, January/February 1996, p. 3).

Those criteria are fair because they reasonably guard against false interpretation.  Take your best shot.  I'm waiting.  What, Daniel 9 predicted Jesus? LOL.

that the Christ resurrection was historically verified,

Nope.  The identity and general credibility of each NT "witness", and their specific resurrection testimony, is severally impeached on the merits, using the same methods of historiography and hermeneutics that most conservative Christian scholars employ, to say nothing of how such ancient "witnesses" miserably fail the modern American court legal tests that John Warwick Montgomery unwisely aspires to.  Pick whatever witness or group of witnesses whose resurrection-testimony you think is most impervious to falsification, and let's get started.   Or come up with a face-saving excuse to decline the challenge, and just don't tell anybody that one of the other benefits you get by declining is avoiding getting shot out of the sky.

and that much in science clearly confirmed it in ways no primitive myth-maker could have guessed.)

Dream on.  Pick your best example and let's get started.

It is then usually asked, why, if it was logically necessary that we sin, we are still punished. But that question contains the necessary premise that if there are good reasons why something is not suitable to a task, then you should still use it for the task. If we test this premise we see it fails. My usual analogy is to the task of needing to dig a hole to plant a small tree, and the possible tools you have to select from are a shovel and an oven. In the analogy to keep it simple, assume the human who needs to perform the task is also the maker of the shovel and the oven. This person had good reasons to design the oven the way he did, but it doesn't mean the oven is good to use to dig a hole with when a shovel is available! (Or ever!)

But if god is infinitely holy and sovereign, he would not "need" to "dig a hole" for the tree, he could simply cause the tree to magically appear out of thin air, similar to how he magically willed the earth into existence from nothing.  Or did you never read Genesis 1:1?

Also, the mere fact that there are five-point Calvinists in the world who think your theory of human accountability is total bullshit (i.e., Steve Hays, who says everything we do conforms perfectly to god's secret will 100% o the time), makes it reasonable for the skeptic, if they so choose, to kick you and Steve to the curb and consider the whole "why does god allow evil" and "how can we be condemned if we couldn't avoid doing evil" discussions to be nothing but sophistry and illusion based on broken mirrors looking at each other from across an infinite chasm of debatable darkness.  Or maybe you are expressing your Calvinist sentiments incorrectly?

NOW what you need to argue is that the Calvinist theories of human accountability for sin are so wrong, spiritually dead atheists should be able to see why, and are thus still "accountable" to "know the truth" even more than the spiritually alive Calvinists who are apparently blind to biblical reality.  DREAM ON.

The objection then is to act all miffed that people are being compared with objects. But the Bible does this frequently, in Jesus' parables such as the one about the weeds, and in Romans 9 about "ignoble vessels" made from clay for practical use versus "noble vessels."

Then the biblical authors were just as stupid as you.  Paul actually pushed the analogy to the breaking point.  If he likes the fact that the pot never does talk back to the creator (Romans 9:20), he should also like the fact that the pots never talk, act, or have thoughts.  So under his logic, because it is foolish to think the pot would object to the creator, it's equally as foolish to expect the pot to make decisions...meaning under Paul's logic, it would be better if humans, like the pots they are, never made decisions.

Paul's predictable reply, i.e.,  that this is pushing his logic too far, would only prove what's already clear about Paul, that he made arbitrary argument, did not wish to go where his own logic led, and automatically consigned any disagreement with him to the "heretic" bin (1st Tim. 6:4)...making him nothing short of a delusional cult leader.

(The latter teaches my view explicitly.) And there is no sound reason to object this way -- only an arrogance-based one.

It's not arrogance to challenge corrupt authority that rests on fairy tales drawn from a continuously evolving theology rooted in primitive culture.

We are the creations; we should be humble enough to admit to it, even hypothetically for an honestly truth-seeking nonbeliever.

That's irrational to expect of atheists, who recognize they are not created by any god.

So what it boils down to after this is (the point tekton usually makes) that it isn't God who's leaving orphans unadopted, it's people.

Sorry, but since your god empowers pagans to kidnap children (Deut. 28:32) and then says he gets a thrill out of inflicting these ad other horrors on people (v. 63), I'm sticking with specific declarations from the bible in my attacks.

And Tekton would also be disagreeing with Calvinist Steve Hays' view that we leave orphans unadopted because God secretly wanted us to (i.e., every time somebody turns away from an orphan, it was god's will).  Now what?  Maybe unbelievers have some sort of moral obligation from God to go study the Calvinist controversy, while knowing that even if we study it for 30 years, Tekton will still call us stupid if we dare conclude Calvinism is biblical?  FUCK YOU.

  Ironically it's often (though not always) the skeptic himself. (Not that I've adopted anyone, but I didn't go around being obnoxious about it.)
 I've also read Miller's analysis of this, which might interest you too; he doesn't cover the disproof that I do, but he goes into very much detail about the logical impossibility of certain goods without certain evils and so forth that might interest you (I think it wasn't direct to the problem of evil but came up as a foundational discussion in his reasons for the atonement piece).

What a waste of time.  Of course good cannot be known without having background knowledge of evil, and evil cannot be known without having a background knowledge of good.  That's a major rebuttal to the standard Christian view of Genesis 3:  How can god 'expect' Adam and Eve, who were so innocent they didn't even know they were naked, to appreciate the seriousness of his prohibitions, anymore than a parent can 'expect' a toddler, who has never been burned before, to appreciate the seriousness of the prohibition "don't touch the stove"? We are reasonable to say the story is bullshit, and there's not enough evidence in favor of your trifles to render our reasonable dismissal unreasonable.  It's not like disagreement with Genesis 3 is equal to disagreement that cars exist. But because dogmatism necessarily invades the bible study of clueless fundamentalists, I'm sure you'll pretend the one error is equally as great as the other.

And no, the Bible can't be "rewritten" in any functionally distinct way, unless we assume atheism as a premise, which would be circular reasoning, because its moral teachings (this is including the sound deductions from everything it teaches) are the result of God's omniscience.

Have fun trying to convince anybody outside of blind fundyville that there was a time when it was "good" to burn pre-teen prostitutes to death (Leviticus 21:9). Have even more fun pretending it's "obvious" that "we shouldn't do this anymore".  Whenever the ancient Jews were able, they tried to re-institute the Mosaic theocracy (Ezra/Nehemiah).  Only naturalistic evolution would explain why the later post-exillic Jews started pretending that "god" was going to start a "new" covenant (Jeremiah 31).

That doesn't change, and cannot change. Situational responses based on heirarchical moral absolutes may change, but subjective situational ethics are NOT an option for God.

Of course they are.  If God knew what the fuck he was doing, he'd no more have to start a new covenant, than a construction contractor, who got it right the first time,  needs to tear down the house he just built and start over.  Unless the contractor knew, before starting, that he'd have to demolish the completed building and start over.  He's free to spend $100k in materials and labor just to create what he knows will need to be destroyed upon completion, but he's also crazier than a shit-house rat.

Your belief that god always knew the second covenant would be needed, is also bullshit.  The second covenant's roots are no deeper than "Jews of later times became more civilized, hated the Mosaic covenant more and more, but, not willing to say god got something wrong, pretended that god surely must have always known the Mosaic covenant was temporary."  The same Hebrew word in Exodus 12:7 that meant observation of Passover was permanently permanent (olam), is used to describe the permanency of Day of Atonement in Leviticus 16:31, with absolutely nothing in the context to even remotely suggest the latter was only meant in the sense of "temporarily permanent".  You have no trouble engaging in the sin of eisogesis, where doing so will help reconcile the OT with the NT.  Sorry, you lose.

We are not unreasonable to say the person who authored the Mosaic Theocracy intended it to be permanently permanent, and probably would have stoned Jeremiah to death, had he lived in the days of Moses, for daring to teach god wanted the Mosaic economy to end.

If you'd just specify in your apologetics writings that you are like James Patrick Holding, and you don't write to convince skeptics, but only to reassure Christians, you could save me a lot of time.

I've notified Logician Bones that this reply to him exists:

Demolishing Triablogue: Steve Hays, the sadistic god, and why god 'couldn't' create people perfect

This is my reply to an article by Steve Hays entitled 

Why didn't God create us in heaven?

Saturday, May 25, 2019

Some people ask why God didn't begin at the end. Begin with the goal. The question is ambiguous.

Ok, then you just met a skeptic who doesn't ask god to begin at the end, but why god apparently doesn't think creating people with inability to sin is better than the current state of affairs he is always bitching about. If you create an environment that causes you to murder people because they are always pissing you off,  we don't need to run our "you dumb-fuck!" reaction through the filter of Calvinism and presuppositionalism before we can be reasonable to consider our reaction reasonable.

1. Technically, "heaven" is the intermediate state, a disembodied, postmortem state between death and the general resurrection.

But it also allegedly existed before the world (the 'heaven' created in Genesis 1:1 isn't the place where god lives, but the "firmament" or whatever can be seen in the sky).

So is the question why didn't God create us after we died? But of course, God can't create us after we die, inasmuch as we must already exist in order to die.
 2. Is the question why didn't God created us in a disembodied state? But that's not an ideal condition. There are many benefits to embodied experience.

Then apparently you think God did not want angels to live in an ideal condition, because they are disembodied.  The same with the evil spirits which your fairy tales say are waiting for final judgment.

There are also many disadvantages to embodiment.  The body requires food, thus the search for food will create trouble in a planet full of bodies competing for food.  How many sins of stealing would be preempted by creating us without need to eat (disembodied state or some other).  The body has sexual desire, and this creates sinful situations. How many sins could have been preempted if god created people without sexual desire via disembodiment or some other state? 

My studies in theology forever put the lie to "god cares".  God deliberately creates situations that cause people to sin, making your god not much different from those prison guards who put two rival gangs in the same yards, knowing fights will inevitably arise.  If we conclude the guards get entertainment out of seeing people kill each other,  we are also reasonable to say your god, so much like these guards, also gets entertainment out of watching people kill each other.  Why do you waste your time using human reason about God, as you always do, if god's goodness is absolutely beyond any possibility of being proven wrong with human reason?  Nothing good on cable?

And your god is like the stupid prison guard who "bitches" about the violence and commands the inmates to stop, while knowing it won't stop until the guards physically intefere.  The simple-minded sunday school version of god that persisted in the masses since the 1st century is contradicted on nearly every page of the bible, unless you are willing to say your god is a sadist...which you'd find support for in Deuteronomy 28:15-63, with v. 63 specifying god will "delight" to horrifically harm people for their sins just as much as he "delighted" to give them prosperity when they obeyed.

In that respect, the question suffers from popular confusion by theologically illiterate people who think heaven is the ultimate goal of human existence.

Then you must think apostle Paul was theologically illiterate, he told people to set their minds in heaven, NOT on earth.  Colossians 3:2.  In biblical parlance that meant avoiding planning for future daily life (Matthew 6:25), which apparently meant specifically that true followers of Christ should not obtain employment to feed and clothe themselves (v. 26, prohibiting efforts to sow and reap).  How much did Jesus demand people stop living for this world?  He promised salvation and abundance to those who gave up custody of their kids  (Matthew 19:29), and he viewed the death of one of his follower's fathers as too unimportant to pay any attention to (Matthew 8:21-23).

Your apparent implication is that because god created us on an imperfect world, our living through the bullshit of this earthly existence is just as important as is reaching the heavenly goal.  But even Paul ventured into Gnosticism, hating his own mortal body and wishing to be separated from it (Romans 7:24).

You die, go to heaven, and live there forever. But that's not Christian eschatology.

Skeptics are only under an obligation to shove you in a corner with questions you cannot answer.  They are not obligated to taper their questions in a way that makes it easy for you to get answers from biblical eschatology.  We are open to the possibility that Christian theology is often self-contradictory. 

3. Is "heaven" being used as a synonym for the final (earthly) state, i.e. the new Eden/new Jerusalem? But God already created Adam and Eve in an Edenic earthly state. They fell.

And under your Calvinism, they only fell because God intended them to fall...yet in Genesis 3 he acts like he never suspected they'd fall and that they let him down (the interpretation most likely held by the original and mostly illiterate farm hands such stories were originally intended to be heard by).  What a deceptive bastard for you to plan and facilitate the Fall, but to act like it is contrary to your purpose.  Not a whole lot different than the prison guards who deliberately put two rival gangs in the prison yard at the same time, then complain and bitch and impose discipline when the fights inevitably ensue.  Fuck those guards, they wanted  this to happen...leaving them no rational basis for bitching.  So FUCK your god, he wanted Adam and Eve to fall, leaving himself no rational basis for bitching.  And yet he curses the earth because of the Fall, every bit like the employer who fires an employee for engaging in unforeseen misconduct.

What...does God reprimand people for doing what he wanted?  "Hey son, I noticed you took out the garbage in exactly the same time and manner as I commanded.  Shame on you, go to your room!'  LOL.
If your god is that far departed from human reason, why do you even bother trying to "explain" this pretentious fuck to anybody except other 5-point Calvinists?

4. Perhaps the question is why didn't God create us perfect? Skip the journey and cut straight to the destination.

Sounds like a plan, except that there would be no "journey" to worry about if he created people perfect.

i) If so, that assumes the process is dispensable.

It is, see Ezra 1:1.  If God can wave his magic wand and successfully convince even idolatrous pagan kings to do his will, then he is equally as much to blame for human sin, as the dog-owner is responsible for the dog attack when they neglect to reasonably restrain the dog.

And the end-result is achievable without experience.

if God "needs" people to experience this stupid life before they can go to heaven, then he is incapable of creating them perfectly in heaven from the start, an attack on his allegedly supreme sovereignty.  Are you sure you wanna play with fire, and give the devil a toe-hold by which he can continue chipping away that the inerrancy of classical theism?

The simple fact is that there are plenty of people on this earth (usually adults) who are never meek, mild, have no sex drive, and therefore we have perfect certainty that God, if he wished  it so, could have created everybody else with the same genetic predispositions and inhibitions (including some teenagers who simply do not feel any need to party or have sex or rebel) and there would be less sin in the world than there is.  And since god apparently finds it worthwhile to ask a sinner to stop sinning, knowing the effort will not produce a perfect result, your god is apparently open to reducing the level of sin in the world, even if the reduction-efforts do a less than perfect job of it.  So you cannot falsify my thesis at this point by pretending that God is too perfect to put imperfect plans into practice.  The reduction of sin in the world would still be legitimately holy and good, even if not the perfect answer to all sin.  So your god's ability to reduce sin in the world without violating anybody's freewill still makes it reasonable to charge him with stupidity.

But is that realistic?

No, given that we are talking about a non-existent being and stupidly pretending we can draw verifiable  inferences from a pool of his attributes that Christian theologians have been disagreeing on ever since Jesus' family called him insane (Mark 3:21).

Take forgiveness. You can't experience forgiveness without prior wrongdoing.

So what's more important to god?  Protecting a little girl from rape, or putting her in situations that will eventually require that she forgive some disgusting pedophile?  How could you be reasonable to attempt human reasoning about this dogshit god of yours, if everything about him is necessarily beyond all possibility of refutation by human reasoning?  If you knew that application of algebra wouldn't solve the problem, why the fuck would you use it to solve the problem?

If you know human reason isn't going to solve the problem of others criticizing your religion, why the fuck do you employ human reason?  How many other times in your life do you intentionally use an obviously insufficient tool to do the job? Do you shave with a banana?  Put cake frosting in the radiator?

The sense of guilt, gratitude, and relief.

Then why would it be "wrong" for you to rape a little girl?  After all, subjecting people to sin is precisely what god does to make people draw closer to him.  Now what, Mr. Calvinist?  God will bitch at you if you fulfill his secret will?  I'm afraid at that point the problem of the stupid sadistic hypocritical god is all yours, not ours.

Then you wonder why even most Christians find your god to be a pure sadist?

So that condition can't be directly created

Sure it can, what the fuck do you think happens to the souls of aborted babies?  They completely miss out on this sinful earthly life, they go directly to heaven.  Now what?  Maybe the aborted babies who go to heaven are forever locked into a neutral existence or limbo because they got there without first living on a sinful earth?  LOL.

Or do we really need to give two shits about Steve Hays unbiblical speculations and his happiness to invoke God's mysterious ways like every other dishonest apologist does when they get cornered by their own logic?

It's a nested effect, internally related to something prior. An intervening history is necessary prerequisite.

Then what is the eternal lot of babies that go to heaven due to abortion?  Reincarnation? how hard would it be to reconcile that with the bible?  Given the sophistry already present in inerrancy-defenses, probably not that hard at all.

ii) In addition, creating everyone sinless and impeccable would preempt the lives of many people whose existence is contingent on a fallen world.

But if he created everybody perfect in heaven, there would be no need to create anybody whose existence is contingent on a fallen world.  If your god wishes to create people who are contingent on a fallen world, then tell him to shut the fuck up when he sees sin happening.  What the fuck else did he expect?  Flowers? 

They are products of chains of events involving sinful agents.

Given how little respect for human life your god exhibits in the bible already, methinks YHWH doesn't really give a fuck about whether a certain potential human's life would be contingent on sinful agents.  He kills and he makes alive.  Sadist be the name of the Lord.

But nice job at showing sin to be so "necessary" to reality that we cannot avoid it, it provides the perfect excuse (as if god's infallible foreknowledge and secret will, didn't do that job already).  But then again, you see nothing stupid about a god who sets up sinful situations, then pretends he is "angry" about it when his secret will is fulfilled in a perfect way, so I didn't write this post in the hope of convincing you.  You are completely hopeless.  You'd probably kill yourself if you found out 2nd Timothy 3:16 was talking about the copies just as much as the originals.

 I write this piece to warn others away from the stupidity of your god, your Jesus and your Calvinism.

J.P Holding, served process in third libel lawsuit

Today, James Patrick Holding was forced to answer that undesirable knock at the door, and accept my lawsuit Complaint from a federal marshal.  This is AFTER the Court reviewed the First Amended Complaint and found no reason, based on its claims, to call it "frivolous".

https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/26884971/Doscher_v_Apologetics_Afield,_Inc

Now Holding has 21 days, or until June 12, to file and serve either an "answer to Complaint" or a "motion to dismiss".

Some may say I was mean to sue Holding in a way forcing him to hire a lawyer, since, because this case won't be short-circuited like the others were, he's looking at a full year's worth of attorney fees, and since this must include preparation for and attending trial, the cost is going to be nearer to $50,000 in total fees, than it will be to the $21,000 he paid to short-change the 2015 lawsuit.  But consider:

a) I believe, and demonstrated that belief with factual and legal argument, that his libels were committed in his capacity as president of Apologetics Afield, so suing his "corporation" (i.e., the thing that forces him to hire a lawyer) is legally appropriate, and

b) There is such intensely horrific hatred between us, forcing him to hire a lawyer is a rather prudent way of providing a bit more guarantee of the case proceeding in a timely expeditious manner, as opposed to us fighting each other on every trifle in creation.  If you saw the emails he and I exchanged before he lawyered up in that 2015 case, you'd understand that I'm actually doing Holding a favor by giving him less opportunity to mouth off and forcing him to reply to me through a lawyer.  His attorney, not being Holding himself, likely isn't going to contact me and say he's offering a pitifully lame settlement out of concern that I might commit suicide.  I'm betting money that the attorney he hires will not have any of the narcissistic obsessive/compulsive pathology Holding has been displaying on the internet since 1998.

Most inerrantists are blind to the obvious meaning of 2nd Timothy 3:16

Roger Pearse recently gave some insightful comments about the history of the KJV here.

His last comment made me think of my own basic rebuttal to biblical inerrancy.  He said:

This claim is not what Christians believe about the scripture.  It is merely a strawman, designed to require something that does not exist and never did exist.  Jesus himself talked about the rolls of the law as inspired; but these were written by men.  However divine inspiration works, it can certainly cope with spelling mistakes, human error, and all the business of living in an imperfect world.

This reminded me of my infallible argument refuting the "inerrant only in the originals" belief of modern-day inerrantists, and I posted the following in reply to Pearse.  The comments did not show up after I clicked "reply" to we'll have to wait and see whether this was because he already blocked me, or if he elects to approve of comments before allowing them to post.  Here's what I wrote:

Your last comment implicates a powerful rebuttal to the modern inerrantist movement represented in Geisler/Archer and the Chicago Statement on Bible Inerrancy. 

Most modern inerrantists sidestep the obvious errors in the bible by imposing a standard that is not reasonably checkable:  the bible is inerrant "only in the originals".  This amounts to little more than mooting the significance of the obvious copyist errors by fiat.

But in the bible, whenever the authors speak about the divine inspiration of some writing, they never express or imply that they mean "only in the originals".

Therefore, their unqualified statements about scriptural inspiration are most likely talking about the nature of the thing that their contemporaries can actually read and touch...the copies...even if they are also talking about the "originals".  That is, the most natural reading of passages like 2nd Timothy 3:16 is that the copies are inspired too.  In context Paul is talking about the scriptures Timothy knew in childhood or in the 1st century (v. 15).  Obviously, Timothy did not know "the originals".  No scholar thinks the pieces of parchment and papyrus that Moses and Isaiah actually set their pens to, survived into the 1st century.  The only "scripture" he knew were the copies.  Those copies are what Paul is according "inspiration" to, even if he "also" means the originals. 

The point is that the sense of copy-inspiration (i.e., the sense that would put the final nail in the coffin of modern-day inerrancy theory found in the CSBI statement) cannot be reasonably excluded from Paul's wording.

If then inerrantists continue standing by their other premise that "inspiration = inerrancy", then because the biblical authors taught that the copies were "inspired", the biblical authors thus also necessarily taught that the copies were "inerrant".  The very fact that the inerrantists themselves clearly deny inerrancy to the copies ensures that whatever change they make to avoid the implications of this argument, that change will imply that they have been missing the forest for the trees for decades. 

Since they cannot deny the reasonableness of the interpretation, what are they going to do?

Say Paul got it wrong?
Admit the CSBI was framed more out of a desire to avoid the obvious than by concern to be "biblical"?
Admit that the biblical "truth" they've been dogmatic about for decades, was the "wrong interpretation"?

The issue is not whether modern inerrantists can be reasonable to believe they way they do.  Maybe they can.  The issue is rather whether the bible skeptic's above-cited argument against biblical inerrancy is "reasonable".  If not, why not?  How does the "the-first-century-copies-were-inspired-too" interpretation violate anything in the grammar or context of 2nd Timothy 3:16?

But if the skeptical interpretation of Paul here is reasonable, it would appear today's inerrantists are (in light of their own commitment to "truth") under a moral compulsion to stop characterizing the skeptical affirmation of error in the bible as "absurd" or "false", to stop pretending biblical inerrancy is "obviously true" or stop being so obsessed about defending it...and to allow that the skeptical view, supra, is at least no less reasonable than their own position on the subject.

If skeptics can be reasonable to argue Paul did not mean "only in the originals", then they are reasonable to say he accorded inspiration to the copies too, in this case 1st century copies. And since no scholar thinks the 1st century copies of the scriptures were inerrant, we are reasonable to turn away from modern-day inerrantists until they interpret Paul correctly.

One homosexual inerrantist once trifled that the "only in the originals" caveat need not be "biblical", but he is obviously stupid:  the Christian's view of inerrancy needs to at least correctly reflect what Paul meant in 2nd Timothy 3:16, and they aren't doing this when they exclude copy-inspiration from Paul's comments.

Therefore, the modern-day inerrantist's "only in the originals" caveat is not merely some viewpoint of possibly arguable merit that falls within acceptable hermeneutical practice.  The "only in the originals" caveat is positively contrary to Paul's beliefs because it is neither expressed nor implied in his wording, therefore, to insert the caveat into his wording anyway is nothing less than changing what he really meant to avoid falling into the same pit that Paul himself dug.  Good luck giving an interpretation of 2nd Timothy 3:16 that seriously insists the specific "only in the originals" nuance is what Paul meant.

Some trifling inerrantist will insist that this present rebuttal doesn't hurt them because they don't adopt the version of inerrancy espoused by Geisler/Archer and CSBI they adopt a more modern form that avoids the pitfalls of the traditionalist notion.

But whether we skeptics are reasonable to view as false the "new inerrancy" , is another subject appropriate to a future blog post.  There certainly are a lot of stupid inerrantists out there who adopt the traditional CSBI form of inerrancy, so the atheist goal of "refuting the Christian view" has obviously been achieved in large part by refuting what millions of Christains and their capable scholars have believed for centuries.

I've made obviously significant headway by bulldozing a major Christian position to the side of the road.  You're next.

Reply to Jonathan Morrow's defense of Matthew's authorship

This is my reply to an article by Jonathan Morrow entitled

How Do We Know Matthew Was the Author of the Gospel of Matthew?

3 Reasons Why Matthew Was Not A Forgery of the Early Church

We live in a culture that has questions about the Bible. And that’s OK–because questions, if the goal is truth, will lead to a stronger faith.

But it could also be 'bad', as questions, where the goal is truth, can also lead to apostasy, such as becoming an atheist...or at least giving up on bible inerrancy and adopting a less extreme form of biblical inspiration.  And since questions logically impede one's decision for Christ, the failure to repent immediately upon hearing the gospel, was believed by the gospel authors to automatically signal the hearer's assured condemnation: 

 18 "He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. (Jn. 3:18 NAU)

 Apparently then, those who hold off accepting Jesus, because they have "questions" are defined in the bible as being under the present condemnation of God, thus implying their basis for questioning arises from their rebellious spirit and not an honest desire for knowledge.  As a fundamentealist yourself, you need to rework the part of your article that renders questions "ok" or "permissible".  Or become a liberal and deny the fantatical position espoused in John 3, supra.

I have seen this time and again. (But how we question the Bible is critically important)

But as Christians we also are called to respond to challenges which threaten to undercut our faith (Jude 3; 1 Peter 3:15).

 Those bible passages legitimately raise the objection as to why we should assume there is any Holy Spirit conviction going on when a Christian makes argument to defend the faith.  Crediting the convicting to the Holy Spirit here is about as gratuitous as the attorney who tells the jury "There's lots of evidence in favor of my client's innocence, but the only way you can appreciate its force is if the Holy Spirit opens your eyes to it."

And in case you haven’t noticed, the Bible is a BIG target so there are lots of challenges!

    Our goal is to say (and defend) what the Bible says—no more and no less.

Then this article is going beyond your stated goal, as you admit that the proposition that Matthew authored the gospel now bearing his name, is not technically made IN the bible.  So perhaps you could have spent God's precious time more efficiently by scrapping the defense of something that isn't even "biblical" and defending something that is biblical, but which skeptics viciously attack, such as Paul's credibility.

The Skeptical Challenge of the Authorship of the Gospels

Skeptics like to raise doubts and new “hidden” or “lost” information about the Gospels. Why? Because that is where all the information about Jesus is. And if you can undermine confidence in biblical authority there, then that weakens the overall authority of Christianity. Why? Because Christianity rises or falls with Jesus.

 On the contrary, like Mormonism and other obviously false cults, Christianity rises or falls based on how successfully the local upstarts can convince the laity that their claims about ancient historical events are true.  Given that most people's eyes turn into question marks when asked to spell "historiography", I'm not surprised that false claims about what happened in history are still capable of deceiving masses of people.  I suppose that if everybody had the level of knowledge about historical methodology as professional historians possess, the number of people who go around pushing the resurrection of Jesus as a true historical event would be similar to the number of professional historians who go around pushing the resurrection of Jesus as a true historical event.

Here’s the basic argument of the Bible skeptic meant to raise doubt:
    “Did you know that we don’t know who wrote the Gospel of Matthew? In fact, this Gospel is anonymous–(i.e., there is no formal claim to authorship within the document itself). The early church for political reasons wanted to exclude certain writings it didn’t like and so used an Apostle’s name (i.e., Matthew) to generate authority so this version of Christianity could win.”

 Then you are very close to misleading your readers, as you are merely refuting a very superficial type of gospel authorship skepticism.  It would be akin to me "refuting Christianity" by showing how stupid it is to allow people to play with live rattlesnakes in church.  That might refute those particular Christians, but would hardly operate to successfully broad-brush Christianity proper as false.  So when you refute the retarded skeptic whom you are quoting, you aren't refuting the serious scholarly skeptics, whose arguments you don't even get near touching in this article.

One of the new challenges in this generation is that arguments like this used to stay locked up in stuffy ivory towers. The effect was that everyday Christians never encountered them. Enter social media and youtube. Now these “sophisticated” arguments are available for the masses. And in our culture with a general distrust of authorities, conspiracy theories are then off and running.

How do we respond?

3 Reasons Why the Apostle Matthew Wrote the Gospel of Mathew

New Testament Scholars like Darrell Bock, D.A. Carson, and Michael Wilkins (among plenty of others) have done a lot of excellent work.

 So have other conservatives like Craig Blomberg, who specifies he is setting forth his case for Matthew's authorship "tentatively":

When all the evidence is amassed, there appears no conclusive proof for the apostle Matthew as author but no particularly cogent reason to deny this uniform early church tradition…Without any ancient traditions to the contrary, Matthew remains the most plausible choice for author…But again we present these conclusions tentatively. Little depends on them.

New American Commentary
Blomberg, C. (2001, c1992). Vol. 22: Matthew, p. 43

 Given Blomberg's status as a world-authority on the gospels, and his status as a fundamentalist or conservative who accepts biblical inerrancy, and his prior books about the historical reliability of the gospels, his admitting to presenting his case for Matthean authorship "tentatively" would be alone sufficient to reasonably justify the skeptic to strike this gospel from the list of alleged resurrection "eyewitnesses".  If you were on trial for murder and the prosecutor's only evidence against you was an affidavit whose authorship had generated just as much scholarly disagreement as exists in the case of Matthew (i.e., there's no reliable way to tell which parts are from the eyewitness and which parts were added or changed around by later and anonymous redactors), and if the prosecutor admitted to the jury he was only "tentatively" arguing that the alleged eyewitness was the real author of the affidavit, wouldn't you ask the court to drop charges on the grounds that there is simply no way a reasonable jury could find an affidavit of such questionable "authorship" sufficient to prove your guilt beyond a reasonable doubt?

Yeah, you would.

Here is just a short summary of the evidence for why we can be confident that Matthew, wrote the Gospel of Matthew, even though this Gospel is technically anonymous.

(1) First, regarding Matthew, “there is no patristic evidence that anyone else was ever proposed as the author.”

That's called the argument from the uniformity of tradition.  But many scholars insist that the only reason the tradition is uniform is because the later fathers were doing little more than repeating what 2nd century Papias said, which, if true, robs your argument of force, since in that case its not 10 ancient guys testifying to the same thing independently, it's one guy's opinion being cut and pasted by 9 other guys.  Guthrie:

 This evidence points to an unbroken tradition that Matthew wrote his gospel in Hebrew, and advocates of any hypothesis which disagrees with this must suggest an adequate explanation of so consistent a tradition. The usual explanation is that later Church Fathers were merely reiterating Papias’ original mistake, or at least confusion, over what Matthew originally wrote in Aramaic.

Guthrie, D. (1996, c1990). New Testament introduction.
Series taken from jacket. (4th rev. ed.). [The master reference collection].
Downers Grove, Ill.: Inter-Varsity Press.

 

And indeed, if Papias is everything you think he is, you will never disconnect his influence from the later fathers who mention Matthew's authorship.  Would we not expect the later fathers to gain much of their knowledge about such issues from the fathers who preceded them?  

 Morrow continues:

 (2) Second, Papias, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Eusebius, and Origen all affirm Matthean authorship.

But the fathers who mention the language Matthew wrote in, never say it was Greek, they always say it was Hebrew.  If it is historically true that Matthew authored a second original in Greek before he died, you would expect the later church fathers, who desire to tell the reader the language Matthew wrote in, would have no less desire to mention the Greek than the Hebrew, especially in their own day when the Hebrew was archaic and the Greek version of the gospel was mandatory for preaching.

(3) Third, the literary evidence reveals that Matthew was the most popular Gospel in the earliest period of the church and it was circulated widely.

 Lots of early Christian works enjoyed popularity despite authorship you'd say was non-apostolic authorship.  Shepherd of Hermas, Gospel of Thomas, Gospel to the Hebrews, etc.  

2 Objections to Matthew as Author

There are two common objections to his authorship.

Then you need to up your game.  I have more than 300 separate objections to Matthew's authorship.  I'm surprised that you completely avoid dealing with the obvious objection:  Papias' unreliability and the fact that his famous statement can just as easily be translated and understood in a way that significantly distances Matthew from the Greek gospel now bearing his name.

First, it is argued that Matthew, an apostle himself, would not have relied so heavily upon Mark, who was not an apostle, when composing his Gospel.

 And since you cannot find any 1st century examples of a true eyewitness author depending as heavily upon hearsay accounts as Matthew depended on Mark, this skeptical objection's force is not abated by anything you argue below.  Unless you can defeat Markan Priority and the Two-Source Hypothesis, your apostle's extensive quoting hearsay accounts to tell the world what he himself experienced, remains authentically unexpected.  If you saw a car accident along with your grandma, what would you tell the police when they asked you to make a staement?  Would you refer them to somebody else's edited version of your grandma's version?  Obviously not.  The fact that you saw it yourself means you either give your own version, or the cops become reasonable to be suspicious of your claim to be an eyewitness.  It really is that simple.

But since we have very good evidence that Peter stands behind Mark’s Gospel, Matthew would have had no issue utilizing the recorded testimony of Peter.

You are assuming Peter is "the" source behind Mark's gospel, when in fact even conservative Christian scholars think Mark's sources included far more than just the notes he allegedly took during Peter's sermons:

 Furthermore, the traditional units betray little evidence of being simply mental or written notes based on Peter’s preaching from his first–hand witness, a conclusion that impugns part of Papias’s testimony but does not necessarily disparage the veracity or the value of the traditional units.... Consequently, for the most part, one can only speak generally and tentatively when seeking to delineate between tradition and redaction. This conclusion does not dispute Mark’s use of traditional materials or the availability of multiple sources, but it does mean that one cannot precisely reconstruct or always identify the exact content of his source or sources.

Guelich, R. A. (2002). Vol. 34A: Word Biblical Commentary : Mark 1-8:26.
Word Biblical Commentary (Page xxxiv-xxxv). Dallas: Word, Incorporated.

 Furthermore, you haven't solved the problem:  there's not much difference between the problem of an alleged eyewitness author extensively using hearsay, and an alleged eyewitness author making extensive use of the hearsay version (Mark) of another's (Peter's) alleged eyewitness account.  Once again, if the author of Matthew was an eyewitness apostle, we would no more expect him to hide behind the hearsay version of another eyewitness's version, than we'd expect him to hide behind a purely hearsay version.  Matthew's extreme reliance on Mark remains inconsistent with what we'd reasonably expect of a real "eyewitness", especially if his memory recall was magically put into turbo-mode by "divine inspiration", another assumption about Matthean authorship that fundies insist on, and which they likewise cannot reasonably demonstrate.

The other common objection is that the Greek is too good to have been written by Matthew. However, Matthew was likely trilingual (Aramaic, Greek, and Latin) by growing up as a Jew in the region of Galilee, and as a tax collector he would have been required to know Greek well.

 None of my objections to Matthean authorship argue from the goodness of the Greek.  Dismissed.

Does it Matter if Matthew is the Author?

Yes.  The only resurrection testimonies that come down to us today from the NT in first-hand form would be (generously assuming traditional authorship) Matthew, John and Paul.  So the more reasonable skepticism of Matthew's apostolic authorship is, the more reasonable skeptics are to strike Matthew from this list of witnesses.  Reducing thecase for Jesus' resurrection from 3 witnesses to 2 witnesses is profoundly injurious, given that you need every last bit of evidence you can possibly get your hands on anyway.

I'm gonna change my life and start focusing on invisible issues of sophistry and theology, leading me into possibly psychologically harmful relations with "fundies", because the case for that religion draws from TWO "eyewitnesses" supplemented by a smattering of equally problematic hearsay? 

I don't think so.

Let me make one last point: Our goal is to say (and defend) what the Bible says—no more and no less. In the case of Paul writing a letter that bears his name, we are compelled to defend his authorship as a matter of biblical integrity. However, when it comes to the four Gospels, there is no one specifically to defend (i.e., because it is technically anonymous).

 Which is another argument against apostolic authorship of Matthew.  The example from Paul and most other NT authors is that the author is willing to say IN the document what his name is.  So the Matthew author's unwillingness to do so is not subject to only one reasonable interpretation (i.e., maybe his audience already knew who he was, he didn't need to repeat the obvious.  Well gee, Paul's churches knew who he was, but by divine inspiration still felt compelled to "state the obvious" anyway).  It is just as reasonable to conjecture that the apostolic signature doesn't appear in Matthew because the author wasn't an apostle.  Or Matthew wrote it, but like lukewarm Christians today, might have wished to help the church in some way, but was reticent to just dive headfirst into the role...reasonably suggesting he was something less than "amazingly transformed", thus impeaching to some degree his statements about Jesus rising from the dead.

You also fail to mention that among the late and contradictory accounts of Matthew's death, several give no hint that it was anything more than an uneventful natural death, no implication he was "martyred"...also suggesting he became disenchanted with the whole business, and, while remaining a part of the movement, stopped being the Jesus-freak he once was, also hurting the credibility of his resurrection testimony.

Finally, the Matthew-author quotes no more speech from the risen Jesus than what would take about 20 seconds to recite orally.  If Acts 1:3 is true and this risen Jesus taught Matthew and the other 10 disciples things concerning the kingdom of God over a period of 40 days, that sounds like the risen Christ had far more to say than 20 seconds worth of speech...even if the actual speeches happened less often than 8 hours per day for each of the 40 days.  So the shockingly short quote of the risen Jesus in Matthew either suggests the author's knowledge of the risen Christ's sayings was far less than what we'd expect for "Matthew", or, the risen Christ didn't say much more than what Matthew records, and Acts 1:3 is exaggerating historical reality.

I say that the Matthew-author's obviously intense desire to quote the pre-crucifixion Jesus' sayings at length is reasonably expected to manifest itself also in the case of the post-crucifixion Jesus' sayings.  The author's belabored obsession with the pre-crucifixion Christ contrasts sharply with "his" far shorter account of the post-crucifixion Jesus, reasonably justifying skepticism, either in that the resurrection narrative wasn't authored by the same obsessed person who wrote the bulk of the gospel, or it was the same apostolic author, but he lost much of the zeal for his faith before authoring the resurrection chapter, and that's why he appears to care far more to document the pre-crucifixion than the post-crucifixion Jesus.

The reasonableness of those skeptical theories cannot be overthrown merely because you can always dream up some sort of logically possible theory that favors bible inerrancy or tradition.  You either show your theory to be more reasonable than mine, or you lose in your attempt to "defeat" the skeptical view.  

If you think my skeptical views can be reasonable, I wouldn't really hit you this hard.  But since you appear to be a fundamentalist, which thus implies you think any and all skeptical theories of gospel authorship are devilish attacks upon the wordagawd, you cannot afford to allow for theories opposite to yours to be the least bit reasonable...all that would do is involve you in helping the devil mock the Christian faith!.  

So you either demonstrate my theories to be unreasonable, or you fail to demonstrate that my theories are unreasonable.  You don't demonstrate a skeptical theory to be unreasonable by merely pointing out that your own opposite theory is reasonable.  Reasonableness can often be equally present in two conflicting theories, such as when reasonable educated mature respectable members of the jury hear the exact same evidence and are unable to agree on the verdict.  Only a fool would pretend that this is always because there is some mentally defective or dishonest person in the jury that is being unreasonable.  Evidence is not usually so perfect in quality and quantity as that.

If I cannot demonstrate your theory to be unreasonable merely because my own contrary theory is reasonable, then fairness dictates that YOU aren't showing my theory to be unreasonable merely because your own contrary theory is reasonable.  I'm keenly aware of the epistemological "shortcuts" fundies typically employ in their clever efforts to make it seem the only reasonable theory is the theory favoring biblical inerrancy/reliability. 

As a thought experiment, let’s say it was somehow discovered that Andrew wrote what we now know as the Gospel of Matthew in the 1st century? Would that mean that there is an error in the Bible? Actually, no, because no claim of authorship was technically made in this document (the same logic would hold for the book of Hebrews)

 Then you are admitting there are more important issues that you could have devoted God's precious time to defending, than who authored the gospel now bearing Matthew's name.

So the bottom line? We have good reason to believe that Matthew is the author of this Gospel.

And you've now been given several justifications for saying skepticism of Matthew's authorship is reasonable.