The Strange and Superstitious World of the Bible, by John W. Loftus
[In what follows is chapter 13 from my book, Why I Became an Atheist (with endnotes). I think it's the longest chapter in any of my books.]
In the Bible we find a strange world that Karl Barth wrote about in an essay titled “The Strange New World within the Bible.” To the question of what lies within the world of the Bible, Barth gives this answer: “Within the Bible, there is a strange, new world, the world of God.”1 And it is indeed strange to us today—very strange.
We find a world where there were gods and goddess that ruled over specific lands over the earth and met in divine councils to decide our fate. It was a world where the God and his sons lived in the sky (heaven) and people who died went to live in the dark recesses of the earth (Sheol). It was a world where a snake and a donkey talked, where giants lived in the land, where people could live to be more than nine hundred years old, where a woman was turned into a pillar of salt, where a pillar of fire could lead people by night, where the sun stopped moving across the sky or could even back up, where an axe head could float on water, where a star could point down to a specific home, where people could instantly speak in unlearned foreign languages, and where someone’s shadow or handkerchief could heal people. It was a world where a flood could cover the whole earth, where a man could be swallowed by a “great fish” and live to tell about it, and where a man could walk on water, calm a stormy sea, or change water into wine. It was a world populated by demons that could wreak havoc on earth and also make people very sick. It was a world of idol worship, where human and animal sacrifices pleased God. In this world we find visions, inspired dreams, prophetic utterances, miracle workers, magicians, diviners, and sorcerers.
New Testament scholar Rudolph Bultmann calls the stories in the Bible “myths” and gets his point across by exaggerating his case:
<BQ>
The cosmology of the New Testament is essentially mythical in character. The world is viewed as a three-storied structure, with the earth in the center, the heaven above, and the underworld beneath. Heaven is the abode of God and of celestial beings—angels. The underworld is hell, the place of torment. Man is not in control of his life. Evil spirits may take possession of him. Satan may inspire him with evil thoughts. It is simply the cosmology of a pre-scientific age. To modern man . . . the mythical view of the world is obsolete. It is no longer possible for anyone seriously to hold the N.T. view of the world. We no longer believe in the three-storied universe. No one who is old enough to think for himself supposes that God lives in a local heaven. There is no longer any heaven in the traditional sense. The same applies to hell in the sense of a mythical underworld beneath our feet. And if this is so . . . we can no longer look for the return of the Son of Man on the clouds of heaven. It is impossible to use the electric light and the wireless and to avail ourselves of modern medical and surgical discoveries, and at the same time to believe in the N.T. world of spirits and miracles. The same objections apply to the doctrine of the atonement. How can the guilt of one man be expiated by the death of another who is sinless?2
</BQ>
On the one hand, we have the ancient world as expressed in the Bible, and on the other hand, we have the one with gods and goddesses expressed in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. These worlds look very similar to me, and very superstitious to the core. Today’s Christians believe that the Bible accurately describes the ancient world of the Israelites and that the events depicted in it really happened, depending on how they interpret it all. However, today’s Christians reject the world of the gods and goddesses described by Homer as superstitious to the core. Nonbelievers like me just think both books describe worlds so strange to our ears that they both must be mythical reflections of very superstitious ancient people.
It’s very interesting to me that Christians will believe in the miracles recorded in the Bible, simply because they are recorded in the Bible, but if I claimed I saw one of these miracles yesterday, they would not believe me. I dare say that if evangelical Christians with their present modern mind-set would step back into the ancient world and hear someone tell a tale that a woman turned into a pillar of salt, they wouldn’t believe it unless they saw the evidence. If someone told them a snake or a donkey talked, they would scoff. But simply because these things are told in the Bible, they believe these stories are true. What I want to know is why the Christian maintains a double standard. Why would they believe the world of the Bible but reject the world of Homer? Why would they believe the biblical claims of miracles but reject similar claims of miracles today? Why would they believe the biblical stories but reject those stories if they lived in that era? Just think about it. Someone believed Balaam’s story that his ass talked and wrote it down. If Balaam were to walk into any bar today and tell that tall tale, even Christians would respond by saying, “Make your ass talk,” before they would believe it.
Sam Harris makes this point very vivid in these words: “Tell a devout Christian that his wife is cheating on him, or that frozen yogurt can make a man invisible, and he is likely to require as much evidence as anyone else, and to be persuaded only to the extent that you give it. Tell him that the book he keeps by his bed was written by an invisible deity who will punish him with fire for eternity if he fails to accept its every incredible claim about the universe, and he seems to require no evidence whatsoever.”3
<A> Ancient People Weren’t Stupid, They Were Just Superstitious
Ancient people were not stupid people. After all, they built great walls, roads, buildings, cities, temples, and empires. But if ancient prescientific biblical people were extremely superstitious in comparison to scientifically literate people today, it significantly weakens biblical claims of miracles, since it doesn’t seem reasonable to think these ancient people had solid evidence for what they believed. It would then lead reasonable people to see that extremely superstitious people will tend to believe most any wondrous story if it is told by a sincere and devoted person. This will be my point in this chapter.
My contention is that ancient people weren’t stupid, just very superstitious. Christopher Hitchens put it this way: “One must state it plainly. Religion comes from the period of human prehistory where nobody had the smallest idea what was going on. It comes from the bawling and fearful infancy of our species, and is a babyish attempt to meet our inescapable demand for knowledge.”4 While I’ll admit that our day and age still contains a lot of superstitious people, more thoughtful and scientifically literate people in today’s world have different standards—higher standards—for the evidence needed to believe. Our standards have been adopted from the results of modern science, which help us to better understand how babies are born, what makes it rain, why nations win wars, and what makes people sick. And any person living in the industrial world is probably much more scientifically literate than any ancient person could ever be. Even Christians look for natural scientific causes, for the most part. Why else would they go to fertility doctors, or any doctors at all? Why would they listen to the weatherman on TV? It’s because even today’s Christians have accepted the standards of modern science, just like the rest of us.
Let’s define superstition, using Microsoft EncartaTM:
<BQ>A belief or practice generally regarded as irrational and as resulting from ignorance or from fear of the unknown. It implies a belief in unseen and unknown forces that can be influenced by objects and rituals.
The question of what is or is not superstitious, however, is relative. One person’s beliefs can be another’s superstitions. All religious beliefs and practices may be considered superstition by unbelievers, while religious leaders often condemn unorthodox popular practices as a superstitious parody of true faith [emphasis mine]. </BQ>
As this indicates, there are problems in defining superstition. But this is true of many words. Would you please define pornography? What is a normal human being? What is beautiful? We may not always be able to specify what we mean, but “we know it when we see it,” don’t we? And this is usually an acceptable answer. All I’m arguing here is that ancient people believed a great many things that modern educated people today would say are superstitious, and that’s good enough.
I can propose scientific tests for what I consider superstitions. I can compare the results of meteorologists’ predictions about the weather with the results of someone who plans to do a rain dance and test which results are more reliable. The results of reason and science have jettisoned a great many superstitions. Testing and comparing results—that’s science. I can do the same for the superstitious practice of bloodletting, for exorcisms, and for people who claim to predict things based on palm reading, or tea leaves. I can test whether walking under a ladder, or breaking a mirror, or stepping on a sidewalk crack brings us harm. I can even test the results of using penicillin to treat sickness against the results of using prayer alone. That’s science. And we modern people are indebted to it. It’s what makes us different from ancient people.
<A> Ancient People Definitely Were Very Superstitious
One way to examine whether ancient people were very superstitious is to examine historical documents and archeological records to see what these people were doing and thinking at that time. Richard Carrier did this in “Kooks and Quacks of the Roman Empire: A Look into the World of the Gospels.”5 According to him, the ancient New Testament age was one “of fable and wonder, where magic, miracles, ghosts, and gods were everywhere and almost never doubted.”6 Tim Callahan has examined the biblical stories for precursors in the ancient superstitious world, and he makes an excellent case that many of the biblical stories themselves come from early superstitious myths of the Israelites’ pagan neighbors.7
But I think there is another way to see how superstitious the ancients were. I decided to reread portions of the Bible just like fundamentalist and evangelical Bible-believing Christians do. That is, I took the Bible at face value without utilizing the results of higher critical biblical scholarship regarding the true nature of the dates, sources, and time periods of the biblical documents. What I wanted to find out is whether the Bible, taken at face value, leads us to think other surrounding cultures were superstitious by our standards today. If the Bible is believed to be the word of God, and the Bible tells us that the peoples in the ancient world were superstitious, then it leads us to think even the Israelites and Christians were superstitious too, especially if it shows that they regularly were “led astray” to practice the same pagan superstitions. After all, according to Voltaire, “Every man is a creature of the age in which he lives, and few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of the time.”
What I found was that there were so many superstitious beliefs by the Gentile nations at every period of time in the Bible that superstition reigned in those ancient days. I don’t think any modern person should be able to conclude anything other than that. The beliefs of these nations were so prevalent that God’s people in the Bible regularly joined in the same practices and worship of these gods and goddesses. So my question here will be this: If these nations were so superstitious, and Israel regularly joined them in their beliefs, then how do we know that the beliefs of the Israelites, and later the Christians, weren’t based upon superstitions too? I’ll argue that they share the same foundation for their beliefs, rampant superstition.
Every surrounding culture had a plethora of gods and goddesses, along with priests, magicians, sorcerers, astrologers, and diviners. This is very easily documented.8 These myths of gods and goddesses were believed by the people of those days, and these people had a great deal of contact with the Jews of the Old Testament and the Christians of the New Testament. After all, if Abraham came from the Babylonian area, then he was brought up by a father who served other gods (Josh. 24:2). Abraham purportedly traveled to Palestine by means of the Fertile Crescent, and he lived in Egypt for a time during a famine. The Fertile Crescent was a heavily traveled trade route for the Near Eastern peoples of Assyria, Babylonia, Asia, and Egypt, which met midway in Palestine. So the Israelites had to have a great deal of contact with other cultures throughout biblical times.
Furthermore, the Israelites purportedly lived in Egypt, the Bible says, for about four hundred years, and then they settled in the land of the Canaanites. Later they were destroyed and/or carried away into Babylonian captivity for seventy years before being able to return home. Jews and Christians lived under Roman rule during the first century CE. How could the biblical Jews and Christians not have been influenced by these great cultures? And since people of every era are unavoidably “children of their times,” the burden of proof is on those who say that the Jews and Christians are the exceptions to this rule. Even though it can be shown that the biblical Jews and Christians had distinctive beliefs and practices that distinguished theirs from other cultures, we will see in what follows that they shared the fundamentally superstitious outlook on the world common among the cultures with which they had contact.
We who live in the modern world of science simply don’t believe in distinct gods of the sun, or moon, or harvest, or fertility, or rain, or sea. We don’t see omens in an eclipse, or in a flood, a storm, a snakebite, or a drought, either. That’s because we understand nature better than our ancient ancestors did by using science. We don’t see sickness as demon possession. Nor do educated thinking people believe that astrology is a reliable way get an insight into the future. Nor do we think we are physically any closer to God when we’re up on a mountaintop rather than down in a valley. But ancient people did, nearly all of them, even if it can be accurately pointed out that there were people who did not believe in the larger myths of their day. For example, Socrates (fifth century BCE) was charged with not believing in the Greek gods and was consequently condemned to die for corrupting the youth. But remember, he was condemned to die by the superstitious people of his day, too, so he’s merely an exception.
<A>Old Testament Examples
The first thing we notice is that the Hebrew God is pictured with a body, just like the gods of their polytheistic neighbors. The gods of surrounding cultures had human and physical characteristics. There is no reason to suppose the Hebrews thought differently about their God from what we read in the early parts of the Old Testament. What we have in the Bible is an evolving understanding of the nature of God, so we find later statements to the contrary. In the New Testament, “God is a Spirit” (John 4:24). But in the early portions of the Old Testament we see God with a body.
The Bible states that man and woman were created in the image/likeness of God in three passages in the early chapters of Genesis (Gen 1:26–28; 5:1–3; 9:6). About this image, The Anchor Bible Dictionary (entry for “Image of God”) tells us: “Gen 5:1–2 makes it clear that both male and female are included under the designation adam who was made in God’s image. Gen 5:3 reports that Adam fathered a son ‘in his likeness, according to his image,’ and the verse employs the same nouns used in Gen 1:26–27, though the order of the nouns and the prepositions used with each are reversed in comparison to Gen 1:26. This suggests that the way in which a son resembles his father is in some sense analogous to the way in which the human is like God.”9 Harper’s Bible Dictionary (entry for “Image of God”) is more to the point: “To speak of human beings (‘Adam’) as created in the image of God apparently refers primarily to the bodily form (the Hebrew term for ‘image’ usually denotes a concrete likeness) but also to the spiritual attributes the physical body symbolizes.”10
If we want to know just what that image is, we should consider some of these passages that describe God with a human form. Genesis 2:2: “And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.” But only a physical being needs to rest. Genesis 3:8: “They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.” Shouldn’t this verse settle the whole issue?
From Exodus 33:18–23: “Then Moses said, ‘Now show me your glory.’ And the Lord said, ‘I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. But,’ he said, ‘you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.’ Then the Lord said, ‘There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.’” This passage would be strange if God wasn’t viewed as having a body, especially since God purportedly said, “there is a place near me.”
According to the Bible, God has arms. God has ears. God has eyes. God has hands. God has a footstool. God has a scepter. God sits on a throne. God has a heavenly court. God even has nostrils. The burden of proof is upon the conservative Christian to show why the ancient Hebrews didn’t think of God in a human form. Mormons today take these statements literally and believe God has the shape of a human being, so if modern people like Mormons think this way, then it’s even more likely that ancient Hebrews did. Christians will argue that passages in the Bible about God having a body are merely anthropomorphic, based on the hindsight conclusion in the New Testament that “God is a spirit,” that is, these passages are not to be taken literally. However, where is the word anthropomorphic in the Bible such that we’ll know how to interpret a passage properly when it is “red flagged” with that word? I don’t have such a Bible, do you? If we read these passages in light of the ancient embodied gods and goddesses in the polytheistic surrounding cultures, it becomes clear that the Hebrews thought their god had a body too. Christians will also claim these are “theophanies” where God appeared in a human form, or where Jesus himself appeared in a preincarnate bodily form. The only reason they call these things anthropomorphic (or theophanies of Jesus) is because they are reading the texts in their original settings anachronistically based upon the hindsight of later Christian understandings. For now I’ll skip over the accounts of the Creation, the Garden of Eden, and Noah’s flood, since I’ll cover each of them in detail later. These stories are based upon the superstitions of the ancient world just as surely as what follows.
<B>The “Sons of God” Sire Children Called Nephilim (Gen. 6:1–4)
Genesis 6:1–4 opens up with a description of the evils that had finally taken place on earth. There is a new and horrible evil. The divine “sons of god” were having sex with the “daughters of men” and producing semidivine offspring giants called Nephilim. This biblical text tells us that divine beings (or angels) have genitalia and produced offspring. Moreover, according to Gordon J. Wenham, the text implies “that the divine-human intercourse was, like eating the tree of life, intended to procure eternal life for man,” and as such, was an “attempt to usurp what belongs to God alone.”11 This was a deliberate act of rebellion that Donald Gowan tells us was understood by early Jewish commenters to be “more important than the story of the sin of Adam and Eve. . . . For several authors this was the true ‘Fall Story,’ the account of how evil came into the world by means of the descent of certain rebellious angels.”12
To say that the “sons of god” are the descendants of Seth, or that they are kings, belies the fact that the main motivation for claiming this is to rid the Bible of obvious mythic elements. Gleason Archer grabs a text from the New Testament that says angels are “spirits” (Heb. 1:14) and claims that spirits are “utterly incapable of carnal relations with women,” which leads him to conclude Genesis 6 must record “the first occurrence of mixed marriage between believers and unbelievers.”13 But this view goes against the natural reading of the text. The word for “men” in verse 1 should have the same meaning as in verse 2, describing the human race and then their daughters. The exact phrase, “sons of god,” always meant supernatural beings (Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7; Ps. 29:1; 89:6). And the text itself says nothing about believers and unbelievers, nor can one assume that all of the male descendants of Seth were godly and all of the female descendants of Cain were ungodly. The “sons of God” in Genesis 6 were later understood “without exception” by Jewish and Christian writers up until Augustine (fourth century CE) to be supernatural fallen beings, admits the conservative F. B. Huey Jr.14 The fact is that “marriages between men and gods are a well-known feature of Greek, Egyptian, Ugaritic, Hurrian, and Mestopotamin theology,” says the conservative Gordon Wenham, who admits this Genesis text “comes closer to myth than anywhere else, for it is describing acts of godlike figures.”15
Besides, as we’ve seen with the evolving notions of God (who initially has a body), and as we shall later see with the notions of Satan and hell, notions about angels evolved as well. When the Hebrews later developed a monotheistic concept of God after the Babylonian captivity in the sixth century BCE, the “sons of God” became reduced to the status of angels.
<B>There Is the Purported Tower of Babel (Gen. 11:3–9)
<BQ>They said to each other . . . “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.” But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. The LORD said . . . “Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.” So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. (Gen. 11:3–9) </BQ>
The implication here, although not expressly stated, is that God wanted to stop the men from building a tower to “heaven.” Among the ancients it would have been clearly understood by this that God didn’t want these people to approach him where he lived, so God stopped them from doing so. Gordon Wenham states: “It was a commonplace of Babylonian thought that temples had their roots in the netherworld and their tops reached up to heaven. . . . It seems likely that Genesis views it as a sacrilege. For the sky is also heaven, the home of God, and this ancient skyscraper may have been another human effort to become like God from what is said here (cf. 3:5; 6:1–4).”16
Furthermore, ancient people would also consider that this God, like the other gods, had a pantheon of gods with him who helped him (hence the words “let us”). No one would have considered the idea of a triune God here. It was something Christians read back into the Old Testament stories of Creation and the Tower of Babel. According to Wenham: “Christians have traditionally seen this verse as adumbrating the Trinity. It is now universally admitted that this verse was not what the plural (‘let us’) meant to the original author.”17
<B> There Are Mythical Creatures
There is Rahab. According to Harper’s Bible Dictionary, Rahab is “the mythical chaos dragon whom God killed in battle and thus made an orderly creation possible (Job 26:7–14; Isa. 51:9; Ps. 89:10).”18 There is Leviathan. According to Harper’s Bible Dictionary, “Leviathan is a great, mythological monster. In Ugaritic mythology, Leviathan (appearing by the name ‘Lothan’) is one of the primeval sea monsters who battles against Baal on the side of Mot (the god of the underworld) and who is ultimately defeated. This mythological tradition was adopted and transformed in the Bible where God appears as the victor over the sea monsters (Ps. 74:13–14, cf. Job 3:8; 26:12–13; 41:1–34; Ps. 104:26). The references to God ‘playing’ with Leviathan (Ps. 104:26; Job 41:5) are explainable on the basis of God’s omnipotence which reduces this mighty rebellious dragon to a plaything. . . . The future and final destruction of Leviathan becomes a symbol in Isaiah (27:1) for the death of the wicked, to be succeeded by the redemption of Israel (26:20–21; 27:2–13).”19 My question is how can God defeat mythical beasts that do not exist? There is Behemoth (Job 40:15). According to The Anchor Bible Dictionary, it has been claimed that “Behemoth and Leviathan denote respectively the hippopotamus and the crocodile. However, they are probably instead chaos monsters. The description of neither Behemoth nor Leviathan corresponds to any known creature, and certainly not the hippopotamus and crocodile. It seems fundamental to the argument in Job 40–41 that the beasts in question can be captured by God alone, otherwise Job might have replied that he could have captured them, and then God would lose the argument!”20
The King James translators used the word unicorn to refer to a beast in the Bible (Num. 23:22; 24:8; Deut. 33:17; Job 39:9–10; Ps. 22:21, 29:6; 92:10; Isa. 34:7). If that’s not the proper English word to translate the Hebrew word, then at the very minimum, the King James translators were themselves believers in mythical beasts. Marco Polo himself searched for a unicorn! The same thing can be said for the other mythical beasts we find in the Bible, like dragons (Deut. 32:33; Isa. 34:13; Ps. 74:13; 91:13; Mic. 1:8). David Mills alerted me to other mythical creatures: “The Bible contains innumerable other references to fanciful creatures, such as the Cockatrice—a serpent hatched from the egg of a cock whose mere glance could kill its enemies (Isaiah 11:8; 14:29); Satyrs—creatures that were half man and half goat or horse (Isaiah 13:21); Fiery serpents (Deuteronomy 8:15), and Flying serpents (Isaiah 30:6).”21
In the ancient world mythical beings populated the earth. The ancients believed in serpents and dragons like the amphisbaena, basilisk, Chimera, cockatrice, Hydra, Gorgon, wyvern, and more. They believed in part-human beings like the centaurs, Harpies, lamias, Satyr, Sphinx, and more. They believed in winged beasts like the griffin, hippogriff, martlet (and Bird of Paradise), opinicus, Pegasus, peryton, phoenix, roc, and more. They believed in land beasts like the Bonnacon, bunyip, Cerberus, gulon, ibex, Lamb Trees, manticores, Mermecolion, musimon, salamanders, unicorns, yale, Yppotryll, and more. They believed in sea creatures like Devil whales, Kraken, nereids, mermaids, Scylla, Sirens, sea bishops, sea monkeys, seahorses, sea lions, sea serpents, and more. What we find in the Bible is just more of the same.
<A>A Brief History of Superstition in Israel
When Moses confronted the Egyptian pharaoh of his day, we read: “Aaron threw his staff down in front of Pharaoh and his officials, and it became a snake. Pharaoh then summoned wise men and sorcerers, and the Egyptian magicians did the same things by their secret arts: Each one threw down his staff and it became a snake” (Exod. 7:10–12). Never mind for the moment that we’re told that Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs, because whether or not this happened is in question. We’re told that the Egyptian magicians were able to turn a staff into a snake, turn water into blood (Exod. 7:19–22), and duplicate the plague of frogs (Exod. 8:18), just as Moses did. And the Egyptian sorcerers weren’t surprised at doing so. They weren’t surprised at all. Neither was Moses, Aaron, the writer of this account, nor the ancient people who believed such a story. It’s very strange to modern ears that these sorcerers even attempted to do this, much less were not surprised at the results. But we would be if we heard such a tale, most definitely. That’s the difference between them and us.
We read that after escaping from Egyptian slavery, the people “have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’” (Exod. 32:7–9). This took place “on the third month after the Israelites left Egypt,” plus forty days and nights (Exod. 19:1; 24:18). So four months and ten days later these people (“all the people,” Exod. 32:3) wanted to worship a golden calf that Aaron said, “brought you out of Egypt.” How could they so quickly abandon the God of Moses if the events all took place as described in Exodus? I doubt very much if anyone would dare risk worshipping this calf against the God of Moses if the previous events actually occurred as Exodus tells us. If I was there, I know I wouldn’t! I would be too scared to do so. This leads me to think this whole story was built upon nonhistorical myths. How could the Hebrews so quickly abandon the biblical monotheistic God of Moses if the story is true as recorded in Exodus? The Hebrews might simply have come to the conclusion that the gods of Egypt revolted against the Egyptians themselves, allowing them to escape from Egypt. That’s a reasonable conclusion for polytheistic people to make. But because they worshipped the golden calf, Moses had the Levites kill “his brother and friend and neighbor,” three thousand of them (Exod. 32:27–29). If we take the story at face value it just looks like Moses intimidated the people to believe against their will.
It just seems more likely to me, from the story itself, that the pharaoh of Egypt was himself superstitious. And because there were some strange natural phenomena going on in the land at the time, which he would have viewed as omens, he would’ve sent these foreigners away, while Moses received the credit for it all. So when Moses didn’t come down from Mount Sinai, the Israelite people simply gave credit to the true god who had given them their freedom, in their minds. “The calf was probably similar to representations of the Egyptian bull-god Apis.”22 They “knew” who had released them from Egyptian slavery, the god Apis, but Moses threatened them with death if they disagreed.
The Bible records that the Israelites lived in the wilderness for forty years, where manna from heaven fed them. They got water out of rock, were directed by a pillar of fire at night and a pillar of cloud by day, and their clothes never wore out during these years. You’ll just have to pardon my complete and utter skepticism here, especially in light of the fact that there is no independent confirmation or evidence to believe this except that some ancient biblical writer told this story. This is simply unbelievable, and I’ll just pass on this with a laugh.
We read that during a particular battle, “Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered, and Moses, Aaron and Hur went to the top of the hill. As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. When Moses’ hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up—one on one side, one on the other—so that his hands remained steady till sunset” (Exod. 17:10–12). Jesus purportedly commended the centurion in his day for having the faith that Jesus could merely speak the word and his servant would be healed (Matt. 5:5–10). But apparently God required Moses to raise his hands to defeat the enemy. This is a case of magic, which I’ll explain later. But just imagine standing there, watching this scenario play out in front of your eyes and you’ll see the utter foolishness of these grown men. Just because the Israelites gained the victory, this is not evidence that what Moses did worked.
When the Israelites were camped along the Jordan River before entering the Promised Land, “Balak son of Zippor, who was king of Moab at that time, sent messengers to summon Balaam son of Beor, who was at Pethor, near the River, in his native land. Balak said: ‘A people has come out of Egypt; they cover the face of the land and have settled next to me. Now come and put a curse on these people, because they are too powerful for me. Perhaps then I will be able to defeat them and drive them out of the country. For I know that those you bless are blessed, and those you curse are cursed.’ The elders of Moab and Midian left, taking with them the fee for divination. When they came to Balaam, they told him what Balak had said” (Num. 22:4–7, 24:1). And even though Balak took Balaam to three “high places,” which were believed to be closer to where God lived in heaven, we’re told Balaam couldn’t curse the Israelites.
Ancient people like Balak and Balaam believed in divination and that curses could actually help defeat an enemy. It’s recorded in the Bible that God would only allow Balaam to bless the Israelites. So let me ask you this: How would it go over today if our president asked for congressional approval to curse the militant Muslims? What would the media say about it? What would you say? Scientifically literate modern people don’t even attempt such things.
Clearly, the Israelites placed a great deal of importance on blessings and curses—something we find throughout the Old Testament (note especially Gen. 12:2–3; 27–28, 49; Deut. 27–28, 33; and Judg. 5). The patriarchs blessed their children, but notice that Isaac cannot reverse what he has promised to Jacob (Gen. 27:33–37). Why not? Notice also that when Jesus cursed a fig tree, it withered and died (Mark 11:12–23).
Even though Balaam couldn’t curse Israel but blessed them instead, some of the Israelites were seduced by Moab: “While Israel was staying in Shittim, the men began to indulge in sexual immorality with Moabite women, who invited them to the sacrifices to their gods. The people ate and bowed down before these gods. So Israel joined in worshiping the Baal of Peor. And the Lord’s anger burned against them. So Moses said to Israel’s judges, ‘Each of you must put to death those of your men who have joined in worshiping the Baal of Peor’” (Num. 25:1–5). And thus, Moses ordered the death of more people who disagreed with him. It would seem that many people followed their cult hero, Moses, out of fear, not true belief.
Curses were even believed to cause the thighs of adulterous women to rot away (Num. 5:12–21). This particular case refers to a husband who was suspicious that his wife had committed adultery. He would bring her to a priest who would make her drink “the water of bitterness” taken from off the tabernacle floor, which could seriously hurt someone if drank. Imagine, if you will, the number of animal sacrifices that took place on this very floor and the diseases that would have been carried in contaminated water taken from it. If she were guilty this ingested water would cause her body to swell and her thigh to rot away. It would bring upon her a curse. This is a nothing other than a trial by ordeal—an ordeal by ingestion. And it was used to justify other trials by ordeal repeated during the Inquisition and the witch-hunts. There was an ordeal of fire that involved holding a red-hot iron to a person’s body. Innocence was usually determined after three days if the wound was healed or merely festering. There was an ordeal of water, where the accused dipped his or her hand in boiling water to retrieve a stone. If after three days the wound was healing or merely festering then the person was declared innocent. There was also the ordeal of cold water, associated with the witch-hunts, where if accused witches sank after drowning they were considered innocent, but if they floated they were pronounced guilty of witchcraft. They died either way. This practice of trial by ordeal is utterly barbaric and superstitious; it is universally condemned by modern civilized people. But we find it in the Bible.
After the Israelites settled in the land promised by God, “the LORD raised up judges, who saved them out of the hands of these raiders. Yet they would not listen to their judges but prostituted themselves to other gods and worshiped them. Unlike their fathers, they quickly turned from the way in which their fathers had walked, the way of obedience to the LORD’s commands. Whenever the LORD raised up a judge for them, he was with the judge and saved them out of the hands of their enemies as long as the judge lived. . . . But when the judge died, the people returned to ways even more corrupt than those of their fathers, following other gods and serving and worshiping them” (Judg. 2:16–19; 10:6). It just didn’t take the people of Israel very long at all to worship other gods. This is especially surprising when one considers that their God had provided miraculous manna to eat, had given them water from rocks, and didn’t let their shoes wear out for forty years.
Judge Jephthah sacrificed his daughter to “God” (Judg. 11:39). Was the God of the universe really pleased at that? Micah had a shrine, some idols, and even a priest (Judg. 17:5, 10). When Samson lost his strength, the Philistines praised their god for this (Judg. 16:24). Yep, the Philistines believed their god helped them. But when we subject the Samson story to a detailed analysis, “the logistics here just don't add up,” argues former preacher Joe E. Holman.
Holman explains: “In every area, Samson would have needed the physical abilities of Superman to accomplish what the scriptures say he did.” According to the Bible he slew a thousand Philistine soldiers in one battle all by himself, using only the jawbone of an ass! In order to take on these fully armored sword wielders, pole-bearers, and archers, all at the same time, Samson would’ve needed speed beyond what any human body can possibly achieve. Can you picture the speed that would have been required for Samson to shield himself with that jawbone from fifty arrows shot at him at the same, for instance? In doing so Samson would’ve had to “swing the bone three or four times the speed of sound,” and “if someone could swing this makeshift club that fast, the club would break from the sheer force of the air opposing it.” Furthermore, even if it were a fresh jawbone, “the density of it would only be good for a few hits to any well-crafted steel body armor before the jawbone broke.”23
The people of God were tempted with the religious beliefs and practices of their neighbors throughout all of the Old Testament. The first king of Israel, King Saul, resorted to necromancy when “the Lord did not answer him, either by dreams, or by Urim, or by prophets,” and he had to consult the medium of Endor to bring up Samuel for him (1 Sam. 28).
At the beginning of King Solomon’s reign we find that “the people . . . were still sacrificing at the high places, because a temple had not yet been built for the Name of the Lord. Solomon showed his love for the Lord by walking according to the statutes of his father David, except that he offered sacrifices and burned incense on the high places” (1 Kings 3:2–3). Even though Solomon built a temple to the God of Israel, he married seven hundred foreign wives for political gain, but these foreign marriages brought foreign religions. So we read, “As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been. He followed Asherah the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molecha the detestable god of the Ammonites. So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the Lord; he did not follow the Lord completely, as David his father had done. On a hill east of Jerusalem, Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the detestable god of Moab, and for Molech the detestable god of the Ammonites. He did the same for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and offered sacrifices to their gods” (1 Kings 11:1–8).
After the kingdom divided between Israel to the north and Judah to the south, we see little change. In the northern kingdom of Israel we are told that King Ahab “began to serve Baal and worship him. He set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal that he built in Samaria. Ahab also made an Asherah pole and did more to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger than did all the kings of Israel before him” (1 Kings 16:30–33). Queen Jezebel herself practiced sorcery (2 Kings 9:22) and had a personal war with Israel’s prophets by attempting to kill them off (1 Kings 18:4).
At times Judah to the south ended up being worse than the nations it destroyed after taking possession of their lands: “Manasseh led Judah and the people of Jerusalem astray, so that they did more evil than the nations the LORD had destroyed before the Israelites” (2 Chron. 33:1–9). Listen to the prophet Isaiah here: “O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the LORD. For thou hast rejected thy people, the house of Jacob, because they are full of diviners from the east and of soothsayers like the Philistines, and they strike hands with foreigners. Their land is filled with idols; they bow down to the work of their hands, to what their own fingers have made” (Isa. 2:6–8). Filled with idols? That’s what it says. (Since Isaiah speaks about the Philistines here, see what they once did in 1 Sam. 6).
When we look at Israel’s history, we see how quickly Israel can follow the God of Moses during the lifetime of a “good” king, and then when an “evil” king arises, turn and follow other gods and goddesses and their worship practices. This happened in both the divided monarchies of Israel and Judah. How could they so easily reject their “history,” unless there was no real history to reject? I’m suggesting that much of their history rested on the same foundations as all the other nations. It rested on myths, legends, and superstitions.
Christians might object that America has changed drastically over its more than two hundred years, too. But consider this. Look for yourself in the book of Judges to see how quickly, in terms of a few short years, the people of Israel went back and forth between gods. The same thing goes for “good” kings and “evil” kings throughout the monarchies of both Israel and Judah. Yes, we’ve changed in America over more than two hundred years, but there are some things on which we still all agree, like that democracy is the worst form of government until you compare it with all the others. Our changes have been significant because of the rise of industry, globalization, the sciences, and the electronic media. A better comparison would be the minimal changes in medieval European society, which remained substantially unchanged for over a thousand years before the rise of science. The medieval world didn’t change much, so why did biblical Israel change back and forth repeatedly between the God of Moses and the gods and goddesses of the neighboring nations?
When Israel was finally destroyed by Assyria in 722 BCE, here are the stated reasons why: “They followed worthless idols and themselves became worthless. They imitated the nations around them although the LORD had ordered them, ‘Do not do as they do,’ and they did the things the LORD had forbidden them to do. They forsook all the commands of the LORD their God and made for themselves two idols cast in the shape of calves, and an Asherah pole. They bowed down to all the starry hosts, and they worshiped Baal. They sacrificed their sons and daughters in the fire. They practiced divination and sorcery and sold themselves to do evil in the eyes of the LORD, provoking him to anger. So the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them from his presence” (2 Kings 17:14–18). “Only the tribe of Judah was left, and even Judah did not keep the commands of the Lord their God. They followed the practices Israel had introduced” (2 Kings 17:18–19). So in 587 BCE the remaining tribe of Judah was conquered and taken away into slavery in Babylonia (2 Kings 25).
According to Robin Lane Fox, when the Jews were defeated by Babylonia in 587 BCE, “a realistic response to the fall of Jerusalem would have been to accept that the God of the Jews was in fact less strong than his neighbors.” But the “Jews whose writings survive did not take that route: they interpreted events in defiance of the facts. The authors do not blame Yahweh; they blame the Jews’ own sins.” They “had brought ruin on themselves.”24 And since their God Yahweh brought down upon them the mightiest empire of the world from a distant foreign land, they concluded Yahweh was the only God. Consequently, this is how monotheism was born, and this is what later editors wrote back into their own sacred texts, making it difficult to see that the Israelites began as a thoroughly polytheistic people.
So let’s briefly look at the development of the monotheistic notion of God. Isaiah 40–55 most likely shows the culmination of God’s teaching to the Israelites that he alone is God. However, the word for God, elohim, is plural, “gods.” And, in Genesis 1:26, God says: “Let us make man in our image.” Christians were able to use this to argue for the doctrine of the Trinity, but as Alan Hauser argues, “The concept of the trinity could not have been in the mind of the writer or the writer’s audience.” And, “‘wind,’ not ‘spirit,’ is the best translation of ruah in Genesis 1:2.”25 In the first commandment we read, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” They were not to worship other gods, divine beings presupposed to exist by the commandment itself. In some of the Psalms we read only that the Hebrew God is the “God of the gods” (Ps. 86:8; 95:3; 96:4,9; 135:5; 136:2; 138:1). Why didn’t the text deny the existence of any other gods at this point? The Hebrews started out believing in a plurality of gods, which was progressively brought down to the belief in just one God.26
<A> Magic, Divination, and Dreams
When the Jews were held in captivity in Babylonia, King Nebuchadnezzar had a dream. Never mind for a minute that it’s claimed Daniel told him the dream and also interpreted it, because whether he did this or not is what’s in question here. I want us to consider the religious culture surrounding the ruler of a great empire. We read, “In the second year of his reign, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams; his mind was troubled and he could not sleep. So the king summoned the magicians, enchanters, sorcerers and astrologers to tell him what he had dreamed. When they came in and stood before the king, he said to them, ‘I have had a dream that troubles me and I want to know what it means’” (Daniel 2:1–3). Nebuchadnezzar believed that dreams came from the gods as divine communication. And he had magicians and sorcerers upon whom he depended to advise him and help run his country (see Dan. 5:7). How would it go over today if the president had such advisers? But it was acceptable to the ancient people Nebuchadnezzar ruled. Unlike Nebuchadnezzar’s advisers, modern presidential advisers think through the problems and try their best to come up with reasoned answers. But what if one adviser were to say, “I read my tea leaves today and they say we should attack Iraq”?
Since Daniel himself was appointed by King Nebuchadnezzar to be in charge of his “wise men” (Dan. 2:48), which included magicians, enchanters, astrologers, and diviners (Dan. 5:11), let’s take a look at two of these practices and ask ourselves how Daniel, supposedly a monotheistic Jew, could be in charge of them when they practiced the arts of magic and divination.
<B> Magic
According to Harper’s Bible Dictionary, “Magic is the means by which humans attempt to secure for themselves some action or information from superhuman powers. Magic is an attempt by human beings to compel a divinity, by the use of physical means, to do what they wish that divinity to do.” It continues:
<BQ>
A host of intermediary beings called demons exist between gods and humans. Depending on their proximity to the gods, demons possess divine power in diminishing measures. Those closest to the gods have bodies of air; those closest to humans, bodies of steam or water. Because of this descending order, the unity of the cosmos can be preserved. Otherwise, human and divine would be irreparably separated and no communication between the two would be possible. Everything is connected through the demons who mediate between the divine and the material. Magic rests upon the belief that by getting hold of demons in physical objects, the divinity can be influenced. The magician’s art is to find out which material (metal, herb, animal, etc.) contains which divinity and to what degree. Thus magic can achieve either blessing or curse. The magician knows the secret and knows how to use it in the correct way with the best results.27
</BQ>
Biblical people themselves practiced magic. Rachel used mandrake plants in order to bear a child (Gen. 30:14–24), and the text doesn’t say they didn’t help her to conceive. Jacob made his flock of speckled or spotted sheep to increase over Laban’s sheep by pealing branches from poplar and almond trees and placing them in the water troughs so that when the flocks mated in front of the branches they bore young that were speckled or spotted (Gen. 30:25–43). Samuel’s pouring out water to induce a storm in 1 Samuel 7:6 is often thought to denote sympathetic magic. Samson’s long hair gave him strength. There are some stories from all parts of the world in which the soul or the strength of someone resided in his or her hair. Job asked that the day of his birth should be cursed by those who curse the day, who are ready to rouse up Leviathan, a mythical beast (Job 3:8). Here might be a reference to magicians who were thought to rouse up a dragon to swallow the sun at an eclipse.
According to Harper’s Bible Dictionary, under the “Magic and Divination” entry: “It was believed that great power rested in those holy men who were in close proximity to God. Physical contact with such a person would have beneficial consequences.” We see this with Elijah (1 Kings 17:17–24), Elisha (2 Kings 4:31–37), and Jesus (Matt. 8:14–15; 9:29). “Anything in connection with such holy men absorbed and transmitted a portion of their power. Elijah’s mantle parted the waters of the Jordan, and when Elisha put it on, Elijah’s spirit rested on him (2 Kings 2:8–15). The garment of Jesus radiated and transmitted healing power (Mark 5:28–29), as did the handkerchiefs and aprons that people carried away from the body of Paul (Acts 19:11–12). Some believers even attributed beneficial properties to the shadow of Peter (Acts 5:15).”28
<B> Divination
What about divination? Pagan diviners are also mentioned in 1 Samuel 6:2, Isaiah 44:25, and Ezekiel 21:22, and in Acts 16:16 a girl has a spirit of divination. According to Harper’s Bible Dictionary, under “Divination,” “With divination, in contrast to magic, one does not seek to alter the course of events, only to learn about them. The ancient world developed many devices by which the veil of secrecy covering future events could be lifted.”29 Divination may take many forms. According to the New Bible Dictionary, also under, “Divination,” the following forms are mentioned in the Bible:
<BQ>
</BQ>
Even among God’s people we see divination through the casting of lots. In the Old Testament the lot was cast to discover God’s will for the allocation of territory (Josh. 18–19, etc.), the choice of the goat to be sacrificed on the Day of Atonement (Lev. 16), the detection of a guilty person (Josh. 7:14; Jon. 1:7), the allocation of Temple duties (1 Chron. 24:5), and the discovery of a lucky day by Haman (Esther 3:7). The Urim and the Thummim are lots used to make important decisions where the answer was either yes or no (1 Sam. 14:41; 28:6; Exod. 28:29; Deut. 33:8; Lev. 8:7; Num. 27:21). In the New Testament Christ’s clothes were allocated by lot (Matt. 27:35). The last occasion in the Bible on which the lot is used to divine the will of God is in the choice of Matthias to replace Judas Iscariot (Acts 1:15–26). Can you imagine any judges today casting lots to divide up land or to make any decisions?
<B> Dreams
Dreams in the ancient world were believed to be communication from God, or gods (see Gen. 20; 21:32; 24; 31:24; 40–41; Judg. 7:13–14).26 <Note that I missed this note when I renumbered. To avoid renumbering all other notes, it would be easiest simply to delete this one. Also, you really don’t need a citation to justify a statement such as this. Please advise whether it is okay to delete.—okay.> Pharaoh had two dreams and demanded that someone interpret them, and it’s claimed Joseph accurately interpreted them for him (Gen. 41); Solomon had a dream where he asked and received his request for wisdom (1 Kings 3:5–15); the gospel of Matthew records five dreams in connection with the birth and infancy of Jesus, in three of which an angel appeared with God’s message (Matt. 1:20; 2:12–13, 19, 22; 27:19), and one records the troubled dream of Pilate’s wife that Jesus is innocent, and this dream was considered as at least enough evidence of Jesus’ innocence to mention it. On occasions there is virtually no distinction between a dream and a vision during the night (Job. 4:12ff.; Acts 9:10; 10:10, 30; 16:9; 18:9ff.). There is a very close connection between dreams and visions and prophecies: “And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions” (Joel 2:28; Acts 2:17, cf. Num. 12:6).
Today’s modern educated people simply don’t accept that view of magic, divination, blessings, curses, or dreams. Dreams, for instance, are the combined product of memory and sensation running wild while the rational parts of our brains are unconscious. CAT scans and probes tell us which parts of our brains are “asleep” and which parts are awake when we are sleeping. The Bible contains far too many things that people living in our day and age simply cannot accept any longer. It is unreasonable and superstitious, in the light of brain science, to consider dreams as any communication from God, gods, or the dead.
<A> The Old Testament Prophets
The Old Testament prophets had to battle with the Israelite tendency to worship the gods of other nations in both the northern and southern kingdoms (Isa. 47:11; Jer. 27:16–22; 29:8–9; Ezek. 13:2–9; 14; 22:28; Mic. 3:6–7; Zech. 10:2; Mal. 3:5). For what I consider a typical look at the evidence of a prophetic word, take a look at the prophetic story in Jonah. Although I do not believe there is a shred of historical evidence for this story, let me treat it as if it were historical in every detail. Try to put yourself in the shoes of each of the characters involved, including Jonah, the sailors, the police in Tarshish, the king of Ninevah, and his people. Read the story as if you are each of these characters, respectively. What would you think and do? In fact, do this with every story you read in the Bible and you won’t read it the same way ever again.
Prophets received their prophecies by means of dreams and visions (Num. 12:6). Several of the prophetic books claim to be based upon visions (Isa. 1:1; Ezek. 1:1; Obad. 1:1; Nah. 1:1), while most all of the rest of them start out either with “the word of the Lord came to me” (Jon. 1:1) or simply, this is “an oracle.” I have known Christian people just like this in the Pentecostal tradition who have claimed to receive communication from God. One lady “prophesied” to a group of us that we’d start a Christian rock band (I played the drums) and we’d name it “Walk by Faith Not Sight.” Such a band never came about. (Maybe it could still happen?) She was wrong.
In the Old Testament there were many prophets (1 Sam. 10:10–13), and they sought guidance from God in dreams and visions. So how did any of them know for sure their prophecies were truly from God? They had a dream. They saw a vision (which probably is indistinguishable from a dreamlike state anyway). The tests of the prophet laid down in Deuteronomy 13 and 18 merely demand that prophets speak in God’s name, and if they prophesied about the future, the things prophecied should come to pass. I take it that Jonah was upset at the corruption in Ninevah, much like Christians today are upset at the corruption in America, had a dream about it, and just felt certain about it.
When God purportedly called Jonah to preach against the city of Nineveh, he tried to flee from God by sailing to some place called Tarshish (verse 3). Even though Jonah felt certain about the prophecy, he didn’t like it. He didn’t want to warn the Ninevites of their impending destruction, because as later explained, he thought they might repent and escape God’s judgment. But the kind of God he believed in when he fled was a tribal, localized god, and certainly not the later monotheistic omnipotent creator God.
<BQ>
Then the LORD sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship. (Jon. 1:4–5)
</BQ>
Of course, any sailor back then would blame the gods for the wind and the storm, but this is also Jonah’s belief, since this is supposedly his writing; that is, he believes that his God sent the storm to prevent him from running away from his prophetic duty. Is that what we do today? Do we blame ourselves or someone else for a storm?
<BQ>
But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. The captain went to him and said, “How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us, and we will not perish.” (Jon. 1:5–6)
</BQ>
The captain didn’t care which god Jonah prayed to, so long as no god was left out of their prayers. This is true polytheism.
<BQ>
Then the sailors said to each other, “Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity.” (Jon. 1:7)
</BQ>
They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. This is a form of divination. Do you want to cast lots to see who’s to blame for any hurricanes that come our way? Jonah accepted the results too.
<BQ>
So they asked him, “Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? What do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?” He answered, “I am a Hebrew and I worship the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land.” This terrified them and they asked, “What have you done?” [They knew he was running away from the LORD because he had already told them so.] (Jon. 1:8–10)
</BQ>
Jonah expresses a view of God here that is at odds with his running away from God earlier. It’s hard to reconcile the fact that he thought he could run away from God with his belief that his God is the “God of heaven, who made the sea and the land,” except that Jonah may have truly realized this for the first time in the storm itself. But he states it as if he thought this all along.
With the casting of lots and the fact that he was running away from this kind of God, it terrified these sailors. These things would not terrify us today. Does God zap people who disobey him today, like Ananias and Sapphira, Uzzah, or Lot’s wife? What if the lot had fallen instead on some follower of Zeus who was running away from him, or fighting against him, like Odysseus in Homer’s Odyssey? These sailors would still respond in the same exact way, because the proof was in the casting of lots, in the storm, and in the story. They didn’t need any other proof or evidence. Does this type of gullibility describe any thinking person today?
<BQ>
The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, “What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?” “Pick me up and throw me into the sea,” he replied, “and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you.” (Jon. 1:11–12)
</BQ>
Yep, that’s what Jonah concluded. Kill me and it’ll be okay for you. We learn at the end of this book that he was suicidal anyway. In any case, Jonah believed the storm was his fault. Have you ever blamed yourself because of a storm? Does God or nature act that way?
<BQ>
Instead, the men did their best to row back to land. But they could not, for the sea grew even wilder than before. Then they cried to the LORD, “O LORD, please do not let us die for taking this man’s life. Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man, for you, O LORD, have done as you pleased.” (Jon. 1:13–14)
</BQ>
Here they faced an ethical decision. They “know” Jonah is to blame for the storm, but does Jonah’s God really demand they kill him? If they kill him, will Jonah’s God be more upset with them for doing so? But Jonah eased their minds, because he himself said that’s what they should do.
<BQ>
Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm. At this the men greatly feared the LORD, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows to him. (Jon. 1:15–16)
</BQ>
These sailors should be tried for attempted murder. Surely they had a list of the people on board. And when they docked to a port, someone would have noticed that Jonah was missing. What would the police in Tarshish do then? Anything comparable to what our police would do? What would these men say to the police? Would their story hold up in today’s courts? Absolutely not!
<BQ>
But the LORD provided a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights. (Jon. 1:17)
</BQ>
With a person like that telling the first part of this story, I doubt that he can be trustworthy telling the rest of the story. And if people were superstitious enough to believe God caused a storm to stop Jonah in his tracks without any evidence but nature and the story itself, then others would believe he was swallowed by a great fish simply because he told them it happened. If no evidence is required to believe the first part of the story, then no evidence is required to believe the last part.
At the end, after the fish puked him up:
<BQ>
Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.” Jonah obeyed the word of the LORD and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very important city—a visit required three days. On the first day, Jonah started into the city. He proclaimed: “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.” The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth. (Jon. 3:1–5)
</BQ>
Jonah obeyed his vision or dream and preached the message he felt certain about, that “forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.”
That’s what he said. Remember this.
<BQ>
When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. Then he issued a proclamation in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let any man or beast, herd or flock, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.” (Jon. 3:6–9)
</BQ>
In the first place, what evidence did the king of Ninevah have for believing Jonah? We are simply not told. Presumably none was needed because of the supposed fame of the Hebrew God. But if that’s the case, then why didn’t they already believe in this God? Even with the supposed fame of the Hebrew God, how would the king know that Jonah was his true prophet? That’s a fair question, isn’t it? Even Moses supposedly had wondered how the pharaoh would know he was sent from God, didn’t he?
Still, how would America react to the same prophetic message by none other than Billy Graham: “Forty more days and America will be overturned.” The laughter would be constant. Jay Leno and David Letterman would have a field day with this. That’s because today we would demand some evidence. And there have been some prophets of doom in America too. Just listen to Jack Van Impe. But for the last thirty years or more Van Impe has always been wrong, and he’s still getting donations to stay on the air!
I just don’t see Ninevah repenting simply because the Ninevites probably didn’t think they were doing that much wrong. And I see no further reason to suggest that at Jonah’s preaching they would’ve turned and believed in the Hebrew God either, since they were polytheistic to the core.
<BQ>
When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened. (Jon. 3:10)
</BQ>
What? I’m sure I read somewhere that the test of a prophet was whether what he said comes to pass (Deut. 18:22). Didn’t he say Nineveh would be destroyed? But it wasn’t destroyed after all, was it? What if Billy Graham used this excuse to explain why America wasn’t destroyed? Laughter again. What would you say about Jonah then? After all, there were a great many prophets running around proclaiming that God spoke to them. If what Jonah prophesied didn’t come to pass, then is there any evidence at all that he was really called to speak God’s word? And how should we now think about Jonah? After all, his prophecy failed the test of a true prophet! But yet his book is in the Bible. (For more on this see chapter 16).
What’s missing in this story is evidence. No evidence was offered for any claim, except that Jonah said it was true. Without a doubt no Christian today would believe the same type of story if it were told in the modern era, unless there was some hard evidence.
There just isn’t any historical evidence that Nineveh became monotheistic and righteous in following the Hebrew God. If the Ninevites remained polytheistic and failed to worship the Hebrew God, that wouldn’t be enough for Jonah’s God, would it? If the problem was just their moral behavior, then cities and countries all go through regular cycles of “revival” all the time, so it might be that Jonah was taking credit for something that happened on its own anyway. And where’s this purported fish, anyway? The ancients had the superstitious belief that mythical beasts and fish lived in the seas. This is what I mean by superstition. Little or no evidence is required. All that’s needed is a good story based in fear, along with the storms of life.
<B> Who Spoke for God?
The Old Testament prophets argued for their God over the gods and goddess that vied for the attention of the Israelites. Christians claim that anyone who worshiped these other gods was doing wrong. After all, Moses and the prophets warned Israel to stay away from other gods and the practices that went with them, like sorcery, magic, witchcraft, and divination (e.g., Lev. 19:26; 20:27; Deut. 18:10–14). However, if God condemned these things over and over again, why did the people practice them over and over again? My suggestion is that with a history mixed with so many myths, Israel was engaged in a battle over the correct message of the divine will and also the correct methods for discovering it. It was a constant battle for the hearts and minds of the people, precisely because the so-called history from Genesis through Joshua contained far too many nonhistorical myths to be reliable enough as evidence. On the one side, you had the magicians, sorcerers, and diviners, and on the other, you had the prophets, all vying for the people’s hearts.
Who said idol worship and sorcery were wrong in the first place? The prophets said so. They simply condemned all other methods but their own for knowing God and his will. They gained their prophecies by means of “visions” and “dreams” (Num. 12:6). There is power in advocating that how you do things is the only way they should be done, isn’t there? It was a power struggle over who could know the divine will and which methods were appropriate for doing this.
There were many prophets in the land (1 Sam. 10:5), as I’ve said, but one person’s false prophet was another person’s true prophet, and vice versa (Jer. 23:9–40; 26:7–9). There were also many challenges between prophets to see who was a true prophet of God (1 Kings 18; Jer. 28). The reason was because people didn’t automatically know the true prophets from the false ones. Let’s look at one such confrontation.
<B> Elijah on Mt. Carmel, 1 Kings 18:16–40
<BQ>
So Obadiah went to meet Ahab and told him . . . summon the people from all over Israel to meet me on Mount Carmel. And bring the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table. (1 Kings 18:16)
</BQ>
Jezebel was Ahab’s wife, who was the “daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians.” It was a political marriage orchestrated for the purpose of preventing a war and saving lives. Ahab “began to serve Baal and worship him. He set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal that he built in Samaria. Ahab also made an Asherah pole and did more to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger than did all the kings of Israel before him” (1 Kings 16:30–33). Queen Jezebel practiced sorcery (2 Kings 9:22), and she attempted to kill off the other prophets (1 Kings 18:4; cf. Jer. 20:1–2). She amassed to herself many prophets of Baal and Asherah. There were 850 of them. Why so many? Where did they work and live? They practiced sorcery, magic, divination, and probably astrology. That’s a great number of “false” prophets, and for each one of them there were many people who went to them for divine guidance. I’m sure these prophets would’ve warned the people not to be misled by the other prophets, so the people had a great deal of difficulty knowing which prophet(s) to trust, didn’t they? Most Christians would say they wouldn’t have had a hard time with this at all; they would’ve just rejected Baal. But that’s claiming to be more knowledgeable than these ancient people were, and I never said they were stupid, just superstitious. It’s always easier to decide which prophet is the true prophet after the war is over—that is, if you consider success the key characteristic of which god was the true god like they did, and that’s probably all they had to go on.
Who are these gods that Ahab accepted? According to Harper’s Bible Dictionary:
<BQ>
Baal is a weather god associated with thunderstorms. Baal was said to appoint the season of rains. Clouds were thought to be part of his entourage. Lightning was his weapon, and it may have been his invention. The windows of Baal’s palace were thought to correspond to openings in the clouds through which rain flowed. Rain was important to Canaanite agriculture, and Baal was consequently a god of fertility—a prodigious lover as well as the giver of abundance. . . . The gods are regarded as the children of Asherah and El. Her relationship with Baal is perplexing. Baal’s assault on the offspring of Asherah is once narrated, yet Asherah advocates for Baal the role of king and judge among the gods.31
</BQ>
And here we have many people in Israel believing this? Was there any evidence for it? I cannot think of any, since we know something about rain, lightning, and thunderstorms. So why did they believe this? If there was any solid evidence for the God of Moses and what he supposedly had done, then why would the Israelites so easily believe these other myths? Unless, of course, as is my contention, the stories told about the God of Moses were on an equal playing field—that there was no evidence for believing those stories either.
<BQ>
</BQ>
Now let’s think about some challenge like this occurring in the modern world. Would anyone even show up to see it? Would any Christian issue such a challenge? If challenged, would any Christian accept it? I can’t imagine them even showing up in today’s modern world, except to laugh at the result.
Elijah said: “I am the only one of the LORD’s prophets left.” Boy that sure sounds like a minority of one here. So again, how is it possible that the people of Israel had so fully rejected the God of Moses to the point where there was only one faithful prophet of God in the northern kingdom of Israel? The answer is that they were a very superstitious people who were swayed very easily to believe stupendous mythical stories that lacked evidence. That is, there was no evidence either way, just religious experiences and stupendous stories. These stories competed for the hearts and minds of the people because there was no historical evidence to provide a basis for choosing among them.
<BQ>
Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “Choose one of the bulls and prepare it first, since there are so many of you. Call on the name of your god, but do not light the fire.” So they took the bull given them and prepared it. Then they called on the name of Baal from morning till noon. “O Baal, answer us!” they shouted. But there was no response; no one answered. And they danced around the altar they had made. At noon Elijah began to taunt them. “Shout louder!” he said. “Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened.” So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed. Midday passed, and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice. But there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention. (1 Kings 18:25–29)
</BQ>
Apparently these prophets thought they were up to the challenge, so they tried and they tried. Would you have tried? And even if it was for show, to save face, how long would you try? Look how they tried, by shouting and slashing themselves, “as was their custom,” and by prophesying. There is every indication here that they thought they could do it. If I’d been there and had been challenged by Elijah, I would simply have said, “I don’t think it will work, so you go ahead and show me.” That’s because I am not a superstitious person. I live in the modern world of science, where lightning is properly understood as a meteorological event produced in a thunderstorm.
<BQ>
Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come here to me.” They came to him, and he repaired the altar of the LORD, which was in ruins. . . . Elijah stepped forward and prayed: “O LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. Then the fire of the LORD fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench. When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, “The LORD—he is God! The LORD—he is God!” (1 Kings 18:30–39)
</BQ>
If this truly happened, then I would probably fall on my face and worship this God as well, so long as I had certain evidence that it wasn’t a magician’s trick. But I’m trying to establish that such an age as theirs was highly superstitious and hence unreliable as a testimony to understand what actually happened. Christian thinker Clark Pinnock admits that “the problem for us is that the Bible was written long before the time when a clear line was drawn between strictly historical and storylike narrative. Whereas we are eager to distinguish the factual from the nonfactual, it cannot be said that the Biblical writers always were.”32 Just look at any modern introduction to 1 Kings and you’ll know that, at best, this account was compiled no earlier than 180 years after the event supposedly happened. Even in modern society we have developed myths surrounding our heroes, like Paul Revere’s ride, George Washington and the cherry tree, or Abe Lincoln walking for a mile to return someone’s penny. These myths are small ones among less superstitious people, but think about the myths that could be generated surrounding the Mount Carmel event by superstitious people over a 180-year span.
David L. Edwards wrote that when it comes to Elijah and Elisha, “the story-telling has become fanciful . . . the stories are so colorful that we cannot tell exactly what took place in the time of Elijah and Elisha.”33
<BQ>
Then Elijah commanded them, “Seize the prophets of Baal. Don’t let anyone get away!” They seized them, and Elijah had them brought down to the Kishon Valley and slaughtered there. (1 Kings 18:40)
</BQ>
It’s no wonder that Jezebel waged war against the other prophets who claimed to speak for the God of Moses. A lot of killing was going on, depending on which religion you practiced. It was indeed a war; the war of the prophets. And this story ends with 850 prophets dying at the hands of Elijah’s new converts.
Since 1 Kings was compiled either at the time of Jerusalem’s demise or afterward, the people finally concluded that the prophets of Baal and Asherah were the false prophets, so their whole history was written and compiled from hindsight with this lesson in mind. And with it came their monotheistic belief, as I’ve already said.34
<A> The New Testament Period
Now we turn to the various events and superstitions we find in the New Testament. I’ll skip over several superstitious beliefs like the virgin birth, incarnation, atonement, and resurrection of Jesus, along with the belief in Satan and Hell, since I’ll cover them in detail later.
In the New Testament, miracles themselves are sometimes seen as the result of magic. The pagan world certainly regarded many miracles as magic (Acts 8:9–11), and on at least one occasion Jesus used magic when he put mud in a man’s eyes to heal him of blindness. In John 9:6–7 (from the New American Standard Bible) we read: “Having said this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. ‘Go,’ he told him, ‘wash in the Pool of Siloam’ (this word means Sent). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.”
For the magical properties of the “pool of Siloam,” look at John 5:1–7:
<BQ>
Now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew Bethesda, having five porticoes. In these lay a multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, and withered [waiting for the moving of the waters; for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool and stirred up the water; whoever then first, after the stirring up of the water, stepped in was made well from whatever disease with which he was afflicted.] A man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had already been a long time in that condition, He said to him, “Do you wish to get well?” The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I am coming, another steps down before me”
</BQ>
The part in brackets was pseudonymously added by a later Christian to explain why these people were there. A “multitude” of them believed in the magical properties of this pool, when it was stirred. Where is a pool like that today? Although archaeology has found this pool in Jerusalem, it doesn’t have any magical properties. It sounds to us like the mythical “fountain of youth.” No scientifically literate person could ever be brought to believe in such a thing.
Speaking of magical properties, the New Testament writers held to the ancient superstitious belief in the “evil eye.” Are we to actually believe that people have a powerful “evil eye”? In Matthew 6:22 (and Luke 11:34–36) Jesus says, “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is generous, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is evil, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” Later, Jesus mentions the evil eye in the parable of the laborers in the vineyard (Matt. 20:15). The landowner asks the worker, “Do you have the evil eye because I am generous?” In a dispute with the Pharisees over the issue of purity (Mark 7:1–23), Mark’s Jesus lists the evil eye among several evil things that emerge from the human heart that contaminate a person. Paul writes: “O foolish Galatians! Who has put the evil eye on, you before whose eyes Jesus Christ was proclaimed crucified?” (Gal. 3:1).
Bruce Malina and Richard Rohrbaugh describe what the ancients believed about the evil eye. Here is an excerpt:
<BQ>
Fear of the evil eye was widespread in classical antiquity. Because the eye was considered the “window of the soul” (Plato), it could act as a conduit through which internal feelings and desires could be (voluntarily or involuntarily) projected onto the external world. As Plutarch explains it, odor, voice, and breath are all caused by streams of particles emanating from the physical body. When these emanations encounter another physical body, they excite the sense organs and produce a real physical effect. In the same way, he argues, an actual (the most active) stream of emanations comes from the eyes, and like other bodily emanations can produce actual physical effects, in whatever they happen to strike. Thus envy, greed, covetousness, jealousy, and any of the other negative attitudes that originate in the heart, when projected outward through the eye and onto other persons or things, could do real physical damage. . . . In essence it is the belief that certain individuals have the power to physically damage whatever they look upon. Avoiding the glance of those possessing the evil eye is thus a very serious matter. “Fascinators,” persons possessing the evil eye, come from all stations in life, including both genders, all ages, all social classes, all occupations, all cultural and ethnic groups. Often rivals or enemies, strangers, the physically deformed, or persons deemed socially deviant were considered like possessors. And one motivated by envy or greed would be especially suspect.35
</BQ>
This brings me to demonology in the New Testament.
<B> Demon Possession in the New Testament
There were many exorcists in Jesus’ day: “Some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon-possessed. They would say, ‘In the name of Jesus, whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out.’ Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this. One day the evil spirit answered them, ‘Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you?’ Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them and overpowered them all. He gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding” (Acts 19:13–16). There were many sorcerers too. We find them in Samaria (Acts 8:9–11), and in Paphos on the island of Cyprus there was a sorcerer “who was an attendant of the proconsul, Sergius Paulus” (Acts 13:6–8; see also Rev. 21:8; 22:15).
In the Gospels we often read that Jesus’ opponents say he is demon-possessed (Matt. 9:32–34; 12:24). Sometimes Jesus is called demon-possessed simply because he says things that seemed to his hearers to be just plain crazy: “‘Has not Moses given you the law? Yet not one of you keeps the law. Why are you trying to kill me?’ ‘You are demon-possessed,’ the crowd answered. ‘Who is trying to kill you?’” (John 7:20). “At these words the Jews were again divided. Many of them said, ‘He is demon-possessed and raving mad. Why listen to him?’” (John 10:19–20; 8:48–51). Even John the Baptist was thought to be demon-possessed (Matt. 11:18). It was easy to claim someone was possessed in those days. Whenever Jesus acted contrary to what was normally expected, or his teaching sounded strange or weird, his audience simply concluded he was a demon-possessed person, much like someone today might say, “You’re crazy.” We simply do not think this way today.
Look how Jesus responded to these charges: “Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them, ‘if I drive out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your people drive them out? So then, they will be your judges’” (Matt. 12:27). There were lots of Jewish exorcists and lots of demon-possessed people in those times, and Jesus didn’t deny what these exorcists could do. “‘Teacher,’ said John, ‘we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.’ ‘Do not stop him,’ Jesus said. ‘No one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, for whoever is not against us is for us’” (Mark 9:38–40). We just don’t think there are demon-possessed people in our world today, certainly not as often as it appears Jesus did.
Look at the close connection between healing and exorcism: “The Twelve were with him [Jesus], and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out” (Luke 8:1–2). “Jesus said, ‘Go tell that fox, “I will drive out demons and heal people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal”’” (Luke 13:32). “Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Christ there. When the crowds heard Philip and saw the miraculous signs he did, they all paid close attention to what he said. With shrieks, evil spirits came out of many, and many paralytics and cripples were healed. So there was great joy in that city” (Acts 8:5–8).
Today we just don’t think sick people are demon-possessed. With the advent of modern medicine we treat the physical causes, and with psychology we treat the mental causes of illnesses the best that we can. And while it can be argued that Luke was a “physician” (Col. 4:14) and that he knew the difference, we simply have to consider how much of the science of medicine he knew in his day. As a child of his times, it would seem reasonable to suppose that those illnesses he couldn’t cure with the medicine at his disposal would be thought by him to be caused by demon possession. According to Harper’s Bible Dictionary, under “Physicians”: “As with other ancient cultures, there was in Israel no necessary conflict between belief in divine, demonic, and/or human causation of illness or between requests for divine assistance and the application of practical therapy.”36
All I can say here is what a mixed-up world the superstitious first century must have been! Formerly epilepsy was viewed as demon possession. But now we know some of the causes and can minimize the effects. Mental disease also has its known causes, and some specialists can help with brain surgery. There is a whole lot less demon possession today simply because of the progress of modern science. As science progresses demon-possessed people become fewer and fewer.
Some Christians will argue from the book of Revelation that Satan is bound and cannot hurt us like that anymore (Rev. 20:1–10). But if Christians believe this, then it also says that Satan will be bound for one thousand years. When did those thousand years start so that I may know when they end? If they say that the thousand years are not literal, then how can they take a literal view of Satan being bound at all?
<B> Is the Heart the Seat of the Mind?
The Bible is filled with claims that a few of our bodily organs are the seat of emotions. The Old Testament understands the liver, bowels, and heart to be the seats of emotional and mental states. Later, in the New Testament, the heart became known as the emotional center. What Jesus said is typical: “For out of the heart comes forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, sexual sins, thefts, false testimony, and blasphemies” (Matt. 15:19).
One scholarly reference tells us:
<BQ>
There is in the New Testament a rich usage of heart (kardÃa) for a. the seat of feelings, desires, and passions (e.g., joy, pain, love, desire, and lust; cf. Acts 2:26; John 16:6; 2 Corinthians 7:3; Romans 10:1; 1:24); b. the seat of thought and understanding (cf. Matt. 7:21; John 12:40; Acts 8:22; Mark 11:23; Revelation 18:7; Rom. 1:21); c. the seat of the will (e.g., Acts 11:23; 2 Corinthians 9:7; Luke 21:14); and d. which determines moral conduct (e.g., Luke 16:15; Romans 5:5; 8:27; Ephesians 3:17; Hebrews 8:10; 2 Peter 1:19; as the heart of the sinner, Mark 7:21; John 12:40; Ephesians 4:18; James 1:26; as the heart of the redeemed, Matthew 11:29; 1 Timothy 1:5; 1 Thessalonians 3:13; Colossians 3:22; 1 Peter 3:15; James 4:8, etc.).37
</BQ>
Most prescientific ancient cultures believed the heart was the seat of emotions simply because it beat faster or slower depending on the emotional state of people. They concluded that a person used it to feel and to think. The process of mummification by ancient Egyptian priests, for instance, involved saving all the major internal organs in urns (including the heart), but the brain was removed through the nasal cavity and thrown away because it was thought to be totally useless.38 We now know that our brain is the seat of thinking and of our emotions. Modern artificial heart transplants now adequately debunk these beliefs, for we can do just fine without our own hearts. Therefore, it is nonsensical to believe in a “sinful heart” or in asking Jesus “into our hearts.”
<B> Visions in the New Testament
From the New Bible Dictionary:
<BQ>
VISION. The borderline between vision and dream or trance is difficult, if not impossible, to determine. This is reflected in the biblical vocabulary of “vision.” The NT uses two words in this connection: horama (Acts 9:10, 12; 10:3, 17, 19) and optasia (Luke 1:22; Acts 26:19; 2 Cor. 12:1). They signify “appearance” or “vision.” The circumstances in which the revelatory visions came to the seers of the Bible are varied. They came in men’s waking hours (Dan. 10:7; Acts 9:7); by day (Acts 10:3) or by night (Genesis 46:2). But the visions had close connections with the dream-state (Num. 12:6; Job 4:13). . . . In the NT Luke manifests the greatest interest in visions. The supreme set of visions in the NT is that in the book of the Revelation.39
</BQ>
Luke’s usage of the word group for “vision.” Zechariah, John the Baptist’s father, didn’t actually see angels; he saw a vision (Luke 1:22). The women who went to the tomb of Jesus said they didn’t see angels; rather, they reported seeing a vision (Luke 24:23). According to the prophet Joel, the apostle Peter, and the Acts of the Apostles, dreams, visions, and prophecies have a close connection with each other: “In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams” (Acts 2:17).
Ananias saw visions and followed them to speak to Saul/Paul: “In Damascus there was a disciple named Ananias. The Lord called to him in a vision, ‘Ananias!’” (Acts 9:10). “So Ananias departed and entered the house, and after laying his hands on him said, ‘Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared [i.e., gave a vision] to you on the road by which you were coming, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit’” (Acts 9:17). At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius who was “a centurion in what was known as the Italian Regiment.” He received a vision “one day at about three in the afternoon,” and followed it (Acts 10:1–3). Then the apostle Peter himself has one and learns from it that “God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life” (Acts 11:5–6,18).
Luke also tells us that Peter received his “vision” while “in a trance.” A trance? Paul also received a vision while in a trance (Acts 22:17). Ancient people, especially those considered prophets and priests (and apostles), would put themselves in a trance to gain divine knowledge. How often did Peter and Paul do that? The Enhanced Strong’s Lexicon tells us that “trance” equals “ecstasy . . . throwing of the mind out of its normal state, alienation of mind, whether such as makes a lunatic or that of a man who by some sudden emotion is transported as it were out of himself, so that in this rapt condition, although he is awake, his mind is drawn off from all surrounding objects and wholly fixed on things divine that he sees nothing but the forms and images lying within, and thinks that he perceives with his bodily eyes and ears realities shown him by God.”40 (On “trance” in the Old Testament, see also Dan. 8:18; 10:9.)
Paul’s missionary journeys are said to have been directed by visions, which happened in the night (hence, dreams). “And a vision appeared to Paul in the night; there stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia, and help us. And after he had seen the vision, immediately we endeavored to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto them” (Acts 16:9–10). In Acts 18:9 it is said that Paul was once again in a trance. Paul even seems to equate his Damascus Road conversion experience to a vision, “So, King Agrippa, I did not prove disobedient to the heavenly vision” (Acts 26:19). Could this vision of Paul’s have been just a dream?
<B> Paul in Lystra of the Galatians, Acts 14:8–20
<BQ>
In Lystra there sat a man crippled in his feet, who was lame from birth and had never walked. He listened to Paul as he was speaking. Paul looked directly at him, saw that he had faith to be healed and called out, “Stand up on your feet!” At that, the man jumped up and began to walk (Acts 14:8–10).
</BQ>
I know that this is difficult to dispute, since the story is written by Luke, “the Physician.” What I do know is that such things are claimed by Benny Hinn’s followers all the time. I also know that Luke was a believer and that he wanted to tell a story that would cause other people to believe. So I reflect back and remember how Christians would regularly inflate their claims of healing, and I wonder if this is what we see here. But the bottom line is that I require more evidence to believe something like this than a mere report by someone in the ancient past who lived and breathed among people who were wildly superstitious. Anyway, are there any other clues?
<BQ>
When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Lycaonian language, “The gods have come down to us in human form!” Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul they called Hermes because he was the chief speaker. The priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the city, brought bulls and wreaths to the city gates because he and the crowd wanted to offer sacrifices to them. (Acts 14:11–13)
</BQ>
The crowd? The word here indicates “a multitude of common people.” Not the educated classes, but we are hardly ever talking about the educated classes in the New Testament. It’s almost always the common classes or lower classes that Jesus and Paul reached, unless otherwise specified. And those classes of people were overwhelmingly superstitious.
Wait a minute? “The gods have come down to us in human form!” What? They believed it was possible for the gods to come down in the human forms of Paul and Barnabas? Isn’t that also what Paul and Barnabas believed about Jesus? Hmmm. And they wanted to offer sacrifices to Paul and Barnabas? This is all so strange to us today.
<BQ>
But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of this, they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting: “Men, why are you doing this? We too are only men, human like you. We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them. . . . Even with these words, they had difficulty keeping the crowd from sacrificing to them. (Acts 14:14–18)
</BQ>
Paul did a great miracle and yet the people had a hard time believing what these two gods said? That too is very strange. If I thought someone was a god, I’d listen to what he said. But they were in a frenzy.
<BQ>
Then some Jews came from Antioch and Iconium and won the crowd over. They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead. But after the disciples had gathered around him, he got up and went back into the city. The next day he and Barnabas left for Derbe. (Acts 14:19–20)
</BQ>
How would it be possible for the Jews to have “won the crowd over” after what we were told about the miracle Paul had just done? The usual response of rational people would be to reject what the Jews said, rather than what Paul said, since they already believed Paul was a god. And Jews? This polytheistic crowd listened to Jews? My, how quickly they were swayed back and forth, according to this account. And the author of it wants us to believe him? That’s very strange too.
They stoned Paul. The only reason they might have listened to what the Jews said is that they might think Paul and Barnabas were demons or were possessed by demons. But Paul and Barnabas would have been right there denying it. So who would you believe? Paul supposedly did a great miracle, and the next moment they stoned him. Maybe the miracle wasn’t so great after all. And it shows once again that the people Paul spread the Gospel to were superstitious to the core. No evidence was needed. They just believed the person who had the best story. Why would they turn Paul over to the Jews to kill him or attempt to kill him themselves? Again, it’s because they were fearful that with these two demons in their midst, the gods would be displeased with them and not send rain, or not allow their women to bear children, or send fire from the sky. No wonder the message of Paul spread. It was quite literally the best story out there. Nothing could top it. But the evidence? Who needs that when you’re dealing with superstitious people like this? All you had to be concerned about was being stoned.
<B> Paul in Athens, Acts 17:16–31
<BQ>
While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. (Acts 17:16)
</BQ>
Athens was full of idols? These people were overwhelmingly superstitious people. There are rites and sacrifices that go with each idol. There are priests and diviners, sorcerers and magicians, that go with each one, and there are even temples that go with each one.
<BQ>
So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. (Acts 17:17–18)
</BQ>
Of course, whoever writes the story frames the discussion. Paul “reasoned” with them, it says. Did they not reason with him too? They had to. It’s just that the author considered Paul’s arguments much better. Does that mean we should? Look at how some of them responded: “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They were referring to the god “Jesus” and the god “Resurrection” here. Their polytheism was so entrenched that they couldn’t understand what Paul was even talking about. But they were concerned about these two “foreign gods.” They liked their own gods and may have felt threatened by the missionary who wanted to advocate other foreign gods.
<BQ>
Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean.” (Acts 17:19–20)
</BQ>
<BQ>
Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.” (Acts 17:22–23)
</BQ>
This was the milieu of Athens. The King James Version uses the words “very superstitious” instead of “very religious” here. “Very religious” or “very superstitious,” it doesn’t matter. They were so superstitious that they even had an idol “TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.” Apparently they didn’t want to offend any god at all!
<BQ>
The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. “For in him we live and move and have our being.” As some of your own poets have said, “We are his offspring.” (Acts 17:24–28)
</BQ>
Of course, Paul here really misunderstands the nature of idols. The truth is that these idols represent the gods. They are images of the gods. This analysis can be borne out, I think. But still, look at what their own poet said: “We are his offspring.” Very religious, and very superstitious.
<BQ>
Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by man’s design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead. (Acts 17:29–31)
</BQ>
The ignorance Paul refers to may be his own, about the divine nature being like gold or silver or stone—an image made by man’s design and skill. I grant that any image of any god can be mistakenly worshipped, and Paul’s point here isn’t that far off the mark. Those adherents who were educated about their idol worship would know the difference. But the fact that many people in Athens may not have known the difference is itself telling. How much more superstitious are the people who think the man-made idol is itself the god they worship? All I’m pointing out here is the nature of the people in Athens at the time of the spreading of Paul’s Gospel. Superstitious people like the ones described here in Acts do not need evidence for their beliefs. They just need to hear a believable story told by sincere people and have some corresponding religious experiences.
<B> The Riot in Ephesus, Acts 19:23–41
<BQ>
About that time there arose a great disturbance about the Way. A silversmith named Demetrius, who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought in no little business for the craftsmen. He called them together, along with the workmen in related trades, and said: “Men, you know we receive a good income from this business. And you see and hear how this fellow Paul has convinced and led astray large numbers of people here in Ephesus and in practically the whole province of Asia. He says that man-made gods are no gods at all. There is danger not only that our trade will lose its good name, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be discredited, and the goddess herself, who is worshiped throughout the province of Asia and the world, will be robbed of her divine majesty.” (Acts 19:23–27)
</BQ>
While it’s probably an exaggeration to say that this Greek moon goddess, believed to be the daughter of Zeus, “is worshiped throughout the province of Asia and the world,” certainly most all people in and around Ephesus did. There were undoubtedly many people throughout the known world who did.
<BQ>
When they heard this, they were furious and began shouting: “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” Soon the whole city was in an uproar. The people seized Gaius and Aristarchus, Paul’s traveling companions from Macedonia, and rushed as one man into the theater. Paul wanted to appear before the crowd, but the disciples would not let him. Even some of the officials of the province, friends of Paul, sent him a message begging him not to venture into the theater. (Acts 19:28–31)
</BQ>
Even though the text attributes financial motive to Demetrius, the overwhelming reaction is that the initial crowd believed in Artemis.
<BQ>
The assembly was in confusion: Some were shouting one thing, some another. Most of the people did not even know why they were there. The Jews pushed Alexander to the front, and some of the crowd shouted instructions to him. He motioned for silence in order to make a defense before the people. But when they realized he was a Jew, they all shouted in unison for about two hours: “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” (Acts 19:32–34)
</BQ>
Even if some of these Ephesians hadn’t known why they were there, they did know what they believed—with fanaticism!
<BQ>
The city clerk quieted the crowd and said: “Men of Ephesus, doesn’t all the world know that the city of Ephesus is the guardian of the temple of the great Artemis and of her image, which fell from heaven? Therefore, since these facts are undeniable, you ought to be quiet and not do anything rash. You have brought these men here, though they have neither robbed temples nor blasphemed our goddess. If, then, Demetrius and his fellow craftsmen have a grievance against anybody, the courts are open and there are proconsuls. They can press charges. If there is anything further you want to bring up, it must be settled in a legal assembly. As it is, we are in danger of being charged with rioting because of today’s events. In that case we would not be able to account for this commotion, since there is no reason for it.” After he had said this, he dismissed the assembly. (Acts 19:35–41)
</BQ>
Here’s a pragmatic clerk in the midst of fanaticism. But can you imagine any town clerk in America dealing with the same problem—and admitting the things he did: “these facts are undeniable.” That’s the difference between them and us today, I think. These people were definitely overwhelmingly superstitious, and had no evidence for the existence of Artemis except religious experiences that could be interpreted according to their own beliefs. These people would believe any good story if told sincerely, wouldn’t they? And so it would seem that the competition among religious truth claims would be decided by who had the best story, even if old beliefs die hard, like in Ephesus. The Christian story had to win, because no story could top the story of a God who loved humankind so much that he sent his only son to die for them and will reward them with eternal life if they believe. Who can resist such a story when compared to all other competitors in a world like this! And Paul established a church there.
<B> Paul in Malta, Acts 28:1–6
<BQ>
Once safely on shore, we found out that the island was called Malta. The islanders showed us unusual kindness. They built a fire and welcomed us all because it was raining and cold. Paul gathered a pile of brushwood and, as he put it on the fire, a viper, driven out by the heat, fastened itself on his hand. When the islanders saw the snake hanging from his hand, they said to each other, “This man must be a murderer; for though he escaped from the sea, Justice has not allowed him to live.” (Acts 28:1–4)
</BQ>
I don’t think the incident occurred as reported. It says the snake “fastened on his hand” and that later he “shook it off.” Most snakebites are very quick. And if it was quick, maybe the venom wasn’t enough to kill or even hurt Paul. Even if this wasn’t the case, who actually was there to see it happen? How many people could actually see it when it happened? Surely, not that many people saw it. Maybe Paul merely told them what happened? Or maybe one other person saw something and told the others. So when it says the “islanders” saw it, how many people does that mean? And if it actually means most of them, then the rest of the islanders believed it based on what others told them. And if the snake fell into the fire afterward, who knew exactly which kind of snake it was that bit him? Nonetheless, they concluded that Paul was a murderer and that the god “Justice” had not allowed him to live.
<BQ>
But Paul shook the snake off into the fire and suffered no ill effects. The people expected him to swell up or suddenly fall dead, but after waiting a long time and seeing nothing unusual happen to him, they changed their minds and said he was a god. (Acts 28:5–6)
</BQ>
They changed their minds? All of them? Back and forth and back and forth. If a bad thing happened, then a god was angry. If a good thing happened, a god was pleased, or the person himself was a god. This is much too fickle for me, and we’ve seen this before. Just see for yourself how these people reached conclusions that few educated modern people would reach. I tell you, if I could go back in time I would be able to convince them I was a god. I would also be able to convince them that Jesus arose from the dead, which is the point.
<B> The New Testament “War of the Teachers”
In the New Testament, like the Old Testament, we see numerous warnings against false prophets, teachers, and ministers. The following warning comes from Jude:
<BQ>
Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints. For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord. (Jude 1:3–4)
</BQ>
This warning is from 2 Peter 2:1–3:
<BQ>
But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping.
</BQ>
The author says, “with stories they have made up.” This is spoken from the author’s perspective, of course. But apparently many people did make up stories back then, didn’t they?
My questions here are threefold: First, since we already know that prophets received their prophecies by means of dreams and visions (Num. 12:6), how did any of them know for sure their prophecies were truly from God? Just go back and read Jonah. The only way they could tell that a “vision” was from God was when something they did afterward corresponded to it, much like self-fulfilled prophecies, or horoscope readings, or Chinese fortune cookies. If something didn’t correspond with their vision, they merely concluded they misunderstood it, or this particular vision wasn’t from God after all. It’s like counting the hits and discounting the misses. But a miss wouldn’t stop them from considering future dreams and trancelike states to be visions from God. And given the numbers of superstitious people in the ancient world, many people considered their dreams to be visions, so some of these “visions” seemed to be vindicated, if for no other reason than the odds themselves.
Second, why are there so many warnings about false teachings in the New Testament if these people had solid evidence to base their faith upon? It seems obvious that many Christians, much like those who believed in other gods, were led astray, beginning with Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5). Many in the Corinthian church rejected Paul’s apostleship, tolerated immorality in the church, doubted the resurrection of Jesus, accepted “false apostles,” and the list goes on and on. They even doubted the resurrection of Jesus (1 Cor. 15).
And if we have trouble with these questions, then, third, how did the authors of the Bible know they themselves were teaching divine truths? As we shall see later, there are many apocryphal and pseudonymous books that were written back then. But again, the winners of the New Testament “war of the teachers” decided which books went into the canon, a decision that occurred centuries later.
When outsiders look at Christian history, they will find so many disagreements down through the years between different denominations and inside of each one of them that it becomes quite a tangled mess to figure out which branch of Christianity adheres faithfully to the spirit and/or beliefs of the first Christians. Even the earliest Christians, including the apostles themselves, had internal debates about what beliefs and practices were truly Christian ones, along with who their true leaders were. They had debates over accepting Gentiles into the faith (Acts 15 and Gal.); and see Paul’s answers to Chloe’s household (in 1 Cor.). There were people in the early church who wanted to discredit Paul (2 Cor.), and so on.
According to James D. G. Dunn, “Earliest Christianity was quite a diverse phenomenon. The Christianity established by the first apostles was little different from Christianity since then—the same sorts of tensions and differences, even divisions, such as we know all too well today!” There were three branches of early Christianity that vied for dominance: Catholic, Jewish, and Gnostic. Concerning Gnostic Christianity, Dunn acknowledges that “much of the twentieth-century scholarly debate about Christian beginnings has focused on the question of whether Gnosticism was already in full flower before Christianity and whether Christianity borrowed its ideas about Christ as heavenly redeemer from Gnosticism, rather than the other way around.”41 One thing seems likely, according to Dunn, most of the evidence and documents from Gnostic churches were suppressed and/or destroyed as Catholic Christianity gained in popularity.42
Bart D. Ehrman agrees that the theological diversity in the second and third centuries “was so extensive that groups calling themselves Christian adhered to beliefs and practices that most Christians today would insist were not Christian at all.” He enumerates several of these disputed beliefs and then asks, “Why didn’t these other groups simply read their New Testament to see that their views were wrong? It is because there was no New Testament . . . there was no agreed-upon canon—and no agreed upon theology. Instead, there was a wide range of diversity: diverse groups asserting diverse theologies based upon diverse written texts, all claiming to be written by apostles of Jesus.” Eventually, one group won out over the others, and it was “this group that decided what the Christian creeds would be” and “which books would be included in the canon of Scripture.”43
<A> Four Last Objections
<B> Objection 1
Christians might claim that modern people are just as superstitious as the ancients were, that is to say, modern people still read their horoscopes, have a lucky rabbit’s foot, or are worried about seven years of bad luck if they break a mirror. But my claim isn’t that modern people are not superstitious. Many of us are. My claim is that even most of us would not have accepted most of the things that the ancient people accepted. I further maintain that with increased scientific literacy there are fewer superstitions to accept.
If Christians want to maintain that modern people are just as superstitious as the ancients, then what does that gain them in terms of what I’m claiming here? The whole reason I’m discussing this is because I’m questioning the knowledge claimed by the biblical writers and early Christians. I’m saying that their knowledge was largely based upon ancient superstitions, which even modern Christians would reject if those same things were claimed by someone today. I’m arguing that Christians have a nonhistorical double standard when they evaluate the superstitious knowledge claims of people in our day in comparison to how they evaluate the knowledge claims of biblical writers.
<B> Objection 2
A second objection is that modern scientifically educated people have their own myths: rationality comes from irrationality, order comes from chaos, morality comes from amorality, life comes from non-life, complexity comes from simplicity. But these beliefs are the result of weighing all of the religious and nonreligious alternatives—these beliefs are the result of the process of thinking and weighing evidence, not from reading tarot cards.
A point of clarification might help here. There are several branches of scientific study. Philosophy of science is the area where science and philosophy interact the most, because in this branch of study, the whole question is what constitutes science, a subject I dealt with in the last chapter. There is a branch of science called theoretical physics, which is almost completely mathematics. But the branch of science I’m mostly referring to here is applied Newtonian science, along with its implications for modern people. We can see how applied science has impacted us (in no particular order) in the areas of medicine, biology, earth science, computer science, engineering technology, zoology, geology, electricity, botany, genetics, dental technology, rocket science, astronomy, forensics, meteorology, chemistry, laser surgery, hydraulics, and X-rays. It has increased the number of elements in the periodic table of elements, as well as aided our understanding of the nervous and muscular system, brain science, the whole notion of friction, and so on.44
Compare the above scientific disciplines with such things as divination, casting of lots, dreams, visions, trances, magic, exorcisms to heal people, astrology, necromancy, sorcery, prophets for every religion, idol worship, gods and goddesses for every natural phenomena, human and animal sacrifices, priests, omens, temples, festivals, and sacred writings, and you’ll see quite plainly what I’m talking about. There is no comparison at all. We live in a much different world than the ancients, primarily because of applied (or Newtonian) science.
<B> Objection 3
It’s claimed from the writings of the educated classes that Rome was not that superstitious in Paul’s day. The Roman government (and usually Rome itself) was “atheistic” in that the gods were used in order to manipulate people either in Rome or outside of Rome (typically the latter). Roman religion was all about enhancing the power of the state. Thus what mattered was an outward action that showed service to the state. Many of the different Greek gods were adopted (under Latin names) into the Roman pantheon for the purpose of conquering through diplomacy rather than arms. When a cultural group joined the Roman Empire, the group’s god(s) were often honored by adoption under a different name into the pantheon of Roman gods.
So what does this prove? Rome was adoptionistic in practice, and as a political system among superstitious people, it worked very well. How is this any different than American practice, except for the so-called separation between church and state? American people are very religious, but our government is democratic, allowing people to practice their faiths as they will. This doesn’t automatically make Rome atheistic any more than it makes America atheistic. We are just not a theocracy. I don’t see how the political structure of Rome and how the Romans handled the various religions shows anything nonsuperstitious about the nature of the people of ancient Rome, whom Paul reached with his Christian message. It only tells us about the Roman political system. Christianity initially converted the lower classes of people anyway, and they are the ones who were overwhelmingly superstitious.
<B> Objection 4
Some might say that I am intolerant when I harshly judge superstitious people. In reply, let me mention just one example. Consider the witch trials that the church conducted.45 Once accused by a priest, there was basically nothing that could get the accused witch off the hook. The investigators would look for the “signs” of a witch, like an unusual birthmark that was thought to be put there as Satan’s mark. The accused witches, most often women, would be stripped and examined by “celibate” priests who could rape her and claim she was lying if she told anyone about it. Anyone who came to her defense was thought to be deceived by her. So the only thing to do was to force her to confess and burn the demon out of her. And the torture was more intense against accused witches because it was believed they could withstand more pain due to their incantations.
This kind of superstitious thinking is very dangerous. It is what I strongly object to. Since I believe this is the kind of thinking the Bible is based upon, this is the stuff I reject. So I don’t feel maligned when someone calls me intolerant, if being intolerant is condemning superstitious ways of thinking that can be used to convict people without evidence of crimes they didn’t commit. It goes against educated, logical, and scientific reasoning.
<A> Conclusion
Throughout this brief study we find that the Gentile pagans believed and practiced many superstitious things. This is undeniable based on the Bible itself. My contention is that ancient people weren’t stupid, just very superstitious. Much of Israel’s history rested on the same foundations as all the other nations; it rested on myths, legends, and superstitions. This explains how they could so easily reject their “history”—there just wasn’t a real history to reject. Most superstitious people like the ones described in the Bible would probably believe any good story if told sincerely.
The Christian big picture assumes that ancient people were no more superstitious than people are in our day, and yet this flies in the face of the results of modern science. Moreover, their big picture has a double standard when looking at the ancients. Their big picture assumes that the “faithful” people in the Bible were different from their contemporaries—that they were not as superstitious as their contemporaries. Their big picture acknowledges how many people in the ancient past claimed divine knowledge, and yet they arbitrarily choose to accept the divine knowledge claims of the “faithful” people in the Bible. I merely want to know why they apply a double standard here.
From what I’ve argued in this chapter, I can legitimately and rationally ask whether I should believe the things claimed in the Bible, if the people in biblical times were superstitious to the core like their neighbors. Why should I believe what they believed? I cannot do so.
---------------------
Chapter 13. Endnotes
1. Karl Barth, The Word of God and the Word of Man (New York: Harper & Row, 1928), p. 33.
2. Rudolph Bultmann, Kerygma & Myth: A Theological Debate, ed. Hans Werner Bartsch (New York: Harper & Row, 1961), pp. 1–7.
3. Sam Harris, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason (New York: Norton, 2004), p. 19.
4. Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: Why Religion Poisons Everything (New York: Twelve, 2007), p. 64.
5. This can be found at www.infidels.org/library, or see his Sense and Goodness without God (Bloomington, IN: Authorhouse, 2005), pp. 209–52.
6. Richard Carrier, “The Spiritual Body of Christ and the Legend of the Empty Tomb,” in The Empty Tomb, ed. Robert M. Price and Jeffery Jay Lowder (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2005), p. 171.
7. Tim Callahan, Secret Origins of the Bible (Altadena, CA: Millennium Press, 2002).
8. On Canaanite divinities, see Walter A. Elwell, et al., eds., Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1988). On Egyptian mythology, see Anthony S. Mercatante, Who’s Who in Egyptian Mythology (New York: Crown, 1978). On Babylonian and Assyrian mythology, see Gwendolyn Leick, A Dictionary of Near Eastern Mythology (London: Routledge, 1991). On Greek and Roman mythology, see Catherine Avery, The New Century Handbook of Greek Mythology and Legend (New York: Appleton, 1972), and Michael Grant, Myths of the Greeks and Romans (New York: Meridian, 1995).
9. Edward M. Curtis, “Image of God (OT)” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. David Noel Freedman (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 3:391.
10. Thomas R. W. Longstaff, “Image of God” in Harper's Bible Dictionary, ed. Paul J. Achtemeier, (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1985), p. 418.
11. Gordon Wenham, Genesis 1–15 (Dallas: Word Incorporated, 1987), p. 141.
12. Donald E. Gowan, From Eden to Babel (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1988), p. 82.
13. Gleason Archer, The Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1982), pp. 79–80.
14. F. B. Huey Jr., “Are the ‘Sons of God’ in Genesis 6 Angels?” in The Genesis Debate, ed. Ronald F. Youngblood (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1990), pp. 188–91. On this, see I Enoch 6–11; 2 Enoch 18; Jubilees 5:1–11; Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs; and Genesis Apocryphon for starters.
15. Wenham, Genesis 1–15, p. 138.
16. Ibid, pp. 237–39.
17. See Wenham’s discussion of this in ibid., pp. 27–29.
18. Tikva S. Frymer-Kensky, “Rahab,” in Achtemeier, Harper's Bible Dictionary, p. 850
19. Jeremiah Unterman, “Leviathan,” in ibid., p. 557.
20. John Day, “Leviathan,” in Freedman, The Anchor Bible Dictionary, 4:295.
21. David Mills, Atheist Universe (Berkeley, CA: Ulysses Press, 2006), p. 150.
22. Ronald Youngblood and Walter C. Kaiser, contributors for the notes on Exodus in the NIV Study Bible, ed. Kenneth L. Barkergen. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1985), note on Exodus 32:4, p. 133.
23. Joe E. Holman, Project Bible Truth: A Minister Turns Atheist and Tells All (Lulu.com, 2008), pp. 225–31.
24. Robin lane Fox, The Unauthorized Version: Truth and Fiction in the Bible (New York: Knopf, 1992), p. 71. See also Robert Wright’s excellent discussion of this in The Evolution of God (New York: Little Brown & Company, 2009), pp. 165–87.
25. Alan J. Hauser, “Is the Doctrine of the Trinity Implied in the Creation Account? No,” in The Genesis Debate, ed. Ronald Youngblood (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1990), pp. 110–29.
26. See Jonathon Kirsch, God against the Gods: The History of the War between Monotheism and Polytheism (New York: Viking Compass, 2004).
27. Stephen Benko, “Magic and Divination” in Achtemeier, Harper's Bible Dictionary, p. 594.
28. Ibid.
29. Ibid., p. 595.
30. D. R. W. Wood, in New Bible Dictionary, 3rd ed., ed. I. Howard Marshall et al. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996), p. 279.
31. Robert M. Good, “Baal,” in Achtemeier, Harper's Bible Dictionary, p. 84.
32. Clark Pinnock, The Scripture Principle (New York: Harper & Row, 1984), p. 119.
33. David L. Edwards and John Stott, Evangelical Essentials: A Liberal-Evangelical Dialogue (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1988), p. 179.
34. For more on this, see Frank M. Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), and Hershel Shanks, Ancient Israel (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1999).
35. Bruce Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 2003), pp. 357–59. See also Bruce Malina, The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001). I thank Matthew J. Green for this insight.
36. I. Tzvi Abusch, “Physicians,” in Achtemeier, Harper's Bible Dictionary, p. 796.
37. G. Friedrich Kittel, G., and G. W. Bromiley, eds. Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995), p. 416.
38. I thank Harry McCall for this analogy and for pointing this issue out to me.
39. J. G. S. S. Thomson, “Vision,” in Marshall et al., New Bible Dictionary, p. 1227.
40. James Strong, The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, electronic ed. (1996), G1611.
41. James D. G. Dunn, Evidence for Jesus (Louisville, KY: Westminster Press, 1985), pp. 97–99.
42. For more on this see, James D. G. Dunn, Unity and Diversity in the New Testament: An Inquiry into the Character of Earliest Christianity, 3rd ed. (London: SCM, 2006), and Bart Ehrman’s, Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).
43. Bart Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus: The Story behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (New York: HarperCollins, 2005), pp. 152–53. See also Ehrman’s Lost Christianities.
44. Ian Barbour, Religion in an Age of Science (New York: Harper & Row, 1990), deals with these relationships. See also the popular treatments in Patricia L. Barnes-Svarney, New York Public Library Science Desk Reference (New York: Macmillan, 1995), and James Trefil et al., eds. Encyclopedia of Science and Technology (New York: Routledge, 2001).
45. On this, see Brian Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe (London: Pearson Education, 2006).
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