Theological rants
of a liberal Christian

Book review: The End of Christianity

Sunday, May 1, 2011 in Book Reviews | 5 comments

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by William A. Dembski

★★★★

It took me a while to get into this book, but once I did, I was hooked. Dembski is a proponent of Intelligent Design, and has written before on that topic. His conundrum is that he also is a believer in the biblical story of Genesis—the story of the Fall is particularly troublesome—and wishes to accommodate scripture into an old earth theology. But unless one refuses to recognize the evil in nature itself, evil came before the Fall, right? Evil (defined primarily as the cause of suffering) seems designed into the world. What do we make of human suffering, and how did evil enter the world? How are we to interpret the Original Sin?

In the book, Dembski methodically debunks one young-age creationism theory after another, and he’s right: It’s time that evolution be accepted as a given. Evolutionary geneticist Jerry Coyne defines biological evolution as follows:

There is only one going theory of evolution, and it is this: organisms evolved gradually over time and split into different species, and the main engine of evolutionary change was natural selection. Sure, some details of these processes are unsettled, but there is no argument among biologists about the main claims.

Dembski reasons that anyone without a stake in the age of the earth is unlikely to find young earth arguments persuasive. But at the same time, he holds fast to scriptural stories in Genesis, seemingly prepared to jump through hoops to preserve his belief, and that contradiction left my head spinning. I hardly find the Genesis creation stories plausible unless—as Dembski puts it—I “have a stake” in the Bible’s historicity.

So how does Dembski make sense of the creation? We have in our Bibles two distinct creation stories; Genesis 1:1-2:3 forms one, and Genesis 2:4-3:24 forms the other. Proponents of the Documentary Hypothesis (see my book review at The Bible With Sources Revealed) explain that the two myths were written by two different authors, and collected side by side in the Bible. Dembski proposes a different solution, suggesting that the second story can be seen as a sort of second creation; the planting of a Garden of Eden billions of years after the first creation was begun. The formation of humans occurred within that Garden, by imparting a soul; the breath of life. Whatever makes humans distinctly human (thereby separating them from the rest of the animals and infilling them with God’s image) happened at the precise moment when they enter the Garden. There, in a segregated tropical paradise, where natural evil is not evident, mankind’s love for God could be fairly tested. And mankind still fell, as God anticipated.

If we accept that God was able to anticipate the Fall, we can accept that God built a world to accommodate that Fall. Even though the first humans dwelt in perfect, evil-less surroundings, they still sinned, and were banished to the world prepared for them over billions of years. Thus Dembski preserves the traditional view that natural evil is a consequence of the Fall, even though God—who creates outside the boundaries of time—prepared retroactively for mankind’s sin.

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Revelation 11:3-14, The Two Witnesses, V of V

Saturday, April 30, 2011 in Bible Commentary | 0 comments

These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth. … But after the three and a half days a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and terror struck those who saw them. Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here.” And they went up to heaven in a cloud, while their enemies looked on.

//Moses & Elijah, Peter & Paul, Ananus & Jesus. How did all these pairs get so tangled in John’s head? Who are the real two witnesses? Let me bring it all together with one final comparison. John may have put coincidences together in a way that conceals an under-the-surface meaning.

1 . First, you must understand that many rabbis taught that there would be not one Messiah, but two: A prophet and a king. Today’s reference of two olive trees and two lanpstands, which refers to the two witnesses, directly quotes from Zechariah, a primary text of the two-Messiah doctrine. The original “two witnesses,” from the book of Zechariah, are Zerubbabel, the king, and Jesus/Joshua, the high priest (Joshua is Jesus, both names English derivations of the same Hebrew name, Yeshua).

2 . As we saw in part IV, wartime priests and martyrs Jesus and Ananus became the inspiration for Revelation’s two witnesses.

3 . Merging (1) and (2), we end up with Jesus the king and Jesus the high priest, both of whom die ignominiously as the earth rumbles its displeasure and then rise from the dead after three days to ascend to heaven.  Does this sound a little like the entire New Testament theology wrapped up in one sentence?

I’m sure an entire book could be written about these two witnesses:  their fulfillment of the return of Elijah and Moses; their relation to the two-messiah doctrine spelled out in the book of Zechariah; their place in history as the priests Ananus and Jesus; the legends they helped inspire of Peter and Paul; and, finally, their merger into one, the Lord Jesus.  John certainly grinds a lot of mileage out of these few verses! John’s Gospel explains further that Jesus himself is the fulfillment of the expected arrival of both Moses and Elijah.

If you’d like a further discussion of this topic and how it intertwines with the message of Revelation, it’s all in my book: Revelation: The Way It Happened

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Revelation 11:3-14, The Two Witnesses, IV of V

Friday, April 29, 2011 in Bible Commentary | 5 comments

And I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days … Their bodies will lie in the street of the great city, which is figuratively called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.  For three and a half days men from every people, tribe, language and nation will gaze on their bodies and refuse them burial.  The inhabitants of the earth will gloat over them and will celebrate by sending each other gifts, because these two prophets had tormented those who live on the earth … At that very hour there was a severe earthquake and a tenth of the city collapsed.  Seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the survivors were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.

//So far, we’ve met Moses & Elijah, and Peter & Paul, as two pairs of candidates for the Two Witnesses of Revelation. But there are a few events in the story that just don’t add up. If later tradition is any indication, the early Christians may have considered Peter and Paul the two witnesses, but who was John really writing about?

A study of the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus provides either the answer or an eerie coincidence.  In The War of the Jews, published just before the book of Revelation, Josephus heaps praise upon two priests in Jerusalem, Ananus and Jesus the son of Gamala.  He narrates long, grand speeches for both men to their enemies:  Ananus to the Zealots and Jesus to the Idumeans.  This all occurs during the war, which lasted about three and a half years (1,260 days). Then the two priests are killed, and the Idumeans, standing upon their dead bodies, ridicule them.  Eventually they cast away the bodies without burial, the ultimate way to disgrace or shame someone.  “And this at last was the end of Ananus and Jesus,” Josephus wrote. Here’s how it happened.

As the Zealots of Jerusalem were fighting amongst themselves, a storm brewed and the earth rumbled.  Josephus describes a great earthquake like this:

During the night a terrific storm arose; the wind blew with tempestuous violence, and the rain fell in torrents; the lightnings flashed without intermission, accompanied by fearful peals of thunder, and the quaking earth resounded with mighty bellowings.  The universe, convulsed to its very base, appeared fraught with the destruction of mankind, and it was easy to conjecture that these were portents of no trivial calamity.

Taking advantage of the panic caused by the earthquake, the Idumeans, in league with the Zealots, succeeded in entering Jerusalem, and a massacre began.  Says Josephus, The outer court of the Temple was inundated with blood, and the day dawned upon eight thousand five hundred dead.  Close enough to Revelation’s number.

Curiously, just as Revelation says, this great earthquake did occur the “very hour” the Idumeans murdered, ridiculed, and left the two great priests, Ananus and Jesus, unburied in the streets of Jerusalem. Oops!  Now what should we believe about the identity of Revelation’s two witnesses? Can this possibly be a coincidence?

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Revelation 11:3-14, The Two Witnesses, III of V

Thursday, April 28, 2011 in Bible Commentary | 9 comments

Now when they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the Abyss will attack them, and overpower and kill them. … men from every people, tribe, language and nation will gaze on their bodies and refuse them burial. … The second woe has passed; the third woe is coming soon.

//Revelation and the Gospels all indicate that the Messianic age is either upon us or just around the corner. In part II of this series, I introduced the two witnesses as a type of Moses and Elijah, how these two figures were expected to return and herald the arrival of the Messiah, and how the Gospels portray this as having happened. Revelation’s wording seems to confirm this; the death of these two witnesses corresponds to the time in which Revelation switches from past tense to future tense.

But if the witnesses have already arrived, who are they? One obvious answer is John the Baptist, who is referred to multiple times in the Gospels as the new Elijah. Even Jesus makes this association. However, if you believe Revelation was written by the same author, or at least the same community, as the Gospel of John, then we have a problem, because in this Gospel, John the Baptist flat out denies that he is Elijah. He also denies he is “the prophet,” the Moses-like second figure.

Who, then, does Revelation have in mind for the two witnesses? Maybe James and John, the two “sons of thunder?” They seem to fit the image. But whoever John meant his “Moses and Elijah” to be, the early church would likely think first of Peter and Paul, the two most prominent and animated leaders spearheading the Christian movement.  They are also the two apostles known for performing miracles. When both leaders died nearly simultaneously under the reign of Nero (the beast of the Abyss; see Revelation 13:18, it would surely bring catastrophic effects upon the church. Peter was crucified, Paul beheaded.

Tradition suggests Paul’s grave sits beside the Ostian Road, Peter’s in the Vatican, but the Romans usually merely abandoned their crucifixion victims on the cross for the dogs to pull down or buried them in a shallow grave, which the dogs would then dig up.  Therefore, they may have left both bodies lying by the road for a time, as Revelation indicates.  I don’t know how or when the tradition evolved that their bodies lay unburied, but in the sixth century, John Malalas vouches, “Nero ordered that the bodies of the holy apostles should not be handed over for burial, but should remain unburied.”

Are Peter and Paul the reincarnation of Moses and Elijah, then?

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Revelation 11:3-14, The Two Witnesses, II of V

Wednesday, April 27, 2011 in Bible Commentary | 0 comments

And I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth … If anyone tries to harm them, fire comes from their mouths and devours their enemies. … Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here.”  And they went up to heaven in a cloud, while their enemies looked on.

//John surely means for his two witnesses to fulfill the prophecy of Malachi that Moses and Elijah would make their appearance before the Messiah returned.  To this day, Jews leave a special chair empty during the Passover ritual, expressing their hope that Elijah will return and announce the coming of the Messiah, and they also once shared a widespread belief in the return of another Moses-like prophet based on Deuteronomy 18:15.  But John insists the two revered prophets have already arrived by giving his two witnesses similar powers.  These two reenact the judgment ministries of Moses and Elijah.  Fire came down from heaven at Moses’ command and consumed the false worshipers who had rebelled against him, and fire fell from heaven and consumed Elijah’s enemies in like manner.  Jewish tradition held that neither Moses nor Elijah died, but that God lifted both up to heaven, like these two witnesses. And a 1260-day drought occurred during the time of Elijah.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke agree with Revelation that Moses and Elijah have already returned, appearing on a mountaintop with Jesus.  When the disciples ask whether Elijah will arrive to usher in the final age, Jesus even declares Elijah has already once made his return in the form of John the Baptist.

Understanding this basic expectation, and the fulfillment in the Gospels of Malachi’s prophecy, sets the stage for further analysis in part III.

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Revelation 11:3-14, The Two Witnesses, I of V

Tuesday, April 26, 2011 in Bible Commentary | 0 comments

One of the most fascinating passages in Revelation is the beginning of chapter 11, where two witnesses are introduced. I’d like to cover this topic in several parts; let me give just a brief introduction today, starting with the verses about these two men. Here is how the NIV reads:

//… And I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.”  These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth.  If anyone tries to harm them, fire comes from their mouths and devours their enemies.  This is how anyone who wants to harm them must die.  These men have power to shut up the sky so that it will not rain during the time they are prophesying; and they have power to turn the waters into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they want.

Now when they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the Abyss will attack them, and overpower and kill them.  Their bodies will lie in the street of the great city, which is figuratively called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.  For three and a half days men from every people, tribe, language and nation will gaze on their bodies and refuse them burial.  The inhabitants of the earth will gloat over them and will celebrate by sending each other gifts, because these two prophets had tormented those who live on the earth.

But after the three and a half days a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and terror struck those who saw them.  Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here.”  And they went up to heaven in a cloud, while their enemies looked on.

At that very hour there was a severe earthquake and a tenth of the city collapsed.  Seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the survivors were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.

The second woe has passed; the third woe is coming soon.//

John writes to the seven churches of Asia, and speaks without introduction of God’s two witnesses (often translated not as “witnesses” but as “martyrs”). Who are these two people, and why does John write of them as if they are already well-known to the churches? Over the next few days, I’ll discuss various interpretations, none of which are “wrong,” but all of which are different aspects of the same scripture. Like looking at different colors of a prism as the light shines through. I must caution you, though: It is not light reading.

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Book review: The Path of a Christian Witch

Monday, April 25, 2011 in Book Reviews | 0 comments

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by Adelina St. Clair

★★★★

Joyce called me to the center of the circle. I walked up to her, my heart pounding in my chest. Our eyes locked. She said, “Adelina, have you chosen your deity pair?” I answered, “I have.” She continued, “Who have you chosen?” I took a deep breath, bathed in the energy of this holy gathering and stated for all to hear, “Jesus of Nazareth and Mary of Magdala.”

If you’re reading this from a Christian perspective, may I make a suggestion about how to approach this book? Don’t read critically. Suspend disbelief, set aside your arguments, and enjoy the journey of this Christian-turned-Witch-turned-ChristianWitch as if reading a fantasy novel. As you approach the end of the book, gradually let it sink in that you’ve been reading a biography, the life-journey of a real person.

I know little about the Wiccan religion, but my take on the book is this: Adelina St. Clair, the book’s author, discovered two basic truths in life. Christianity is real. Wiccan magic and practice is real. Both are good, both are healthy, Adelina needed the connection both to Christ and to nature’s rhythms, but the two religions are oil and water. Christians teach that witchcraft is evil, and Wiccans are polytheistic in practice. So what did Adelina do? She embraced Wiccan truths, but chose as a patron deity the Christian God and His pantheon (Jesus, Mary, the saints, the patriarchs, the angels).

God is Love, writes John the Apostle. As a witch, Adelina agrees, saying “I believe in love, always and above all,” and hopes for a “new community of people, who will cultivate their light in a new-old way and spread a new wave of love into the world.”

She turned to me briefly, let out a sigh, and said, “The answer is to love.” And she went on her way. There was something special about the way my angel told me the greatest secret of my life. She did not take on airs of mystery or make dramatic pauses to emphasize the importance of the message. Her attitude seemed to say, “There. You have it. Why are you so intent on finding something else? That’s all there is.”

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Mark 16:1-8, the First Easter Story

Sunday, April 24, 2011 in Bible Commentary | 0 comments

When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of Jesus, and Salome brought spices so they could embalm him. Very early on Sunday morning, as the sun rose, they went to the tomb. They worried out loud to each other, “Who will roll back the stone from the tomb for us?”

Then they looked up, saw that it had been rolled back—it was a huge stone—and walked right in. They saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed all in white. They were completely taken aback, astonished.

He said, “Don’t be afraid. I know you’re looking for Jesus the Nazarene, the One they nailed on the cross. He’s been raised up; he’s here no longer. You can see for yourselves that the place is empty. Now—on your way. Tell his disciples and Peter that he is going on ahead of you to Galilee. You’ll see him there, exactly as he said.”

They got out as fast as they could, beside themselves, their heads swimming. Stunned, they said nothing to anyone.

–The Message Bible

(So ends the first written resurrection story, as recorded in the book of Mark. The remainder of Mark’s Gospel was added to the scripture at a later date.)

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Book review: The Question of God, C. S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex and the Meaning of Life

Saturday, April 23, 2011 in Book Reviews | 4 comments

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S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex and the Meaning of Life

by Dr. Armand M. Nicholi, Jr.

★★★★

A great book. I hated it.

This isn’t really a “debate;” it’s a biography of three men: the pre-conversion Lewis, and the post-conversion Lewis, and Freud. Nicholi does a great job of portraying both Lewis and Freud, perhaps two of the greatest minds of the last century.

Could any two men have needed religion more than Freud and Lewis? Both experienced suffering, as do we all. Freud was a noted atheist his entire life, yet the question of God continued to preoccupy him. Lewis was an atheist for the first third of his life, and writes “I was very angry with God for not existing. I was also equally angry with Him for creating a world … why should creatures have the burden of existence forced on them without their consent.”

One embraced Christianity, the other did not. One died contented, the other remained forever trapped in misery, powerless to do anything about a world view that offered little hope of happiness, longing for death yet greatly fearful of it. Freud finally chose to end his life by morphine injection.

Lewis’ conversion brought inner quietness and tranquility. The book’s author, Dr. Nicholi, is apparently a Christian; subtle hints throughout the book make clear his approval of Lewis’ conversion to Christianity. Yet, whether Nicholi grasps this or not, his is not a book about choosing belief or unbelief. Freud and Lewis were both well-versed in the Bible. Freud could no more have chosen to believe than Lewis could have chosen unbelief. Experience, disposition, and impeccable logic developed the world view of both men.

As many of you know, I am a “liberal Christian;” I can no longer take the stories and promises of the Bible literally. By the end of Nicholi’s book, I had no idea whether to rail at God for the unfairness of life or sneer at Lewis for succumbing to a fairy tale so as to distract himself from life’s suffering.

One thing is clear: Lewis was happy.

Got an opinion? 4 comments

Book review: Biblical Archaeology Review

Friday, April 22, 2011 in Book Reviews | 1 comment

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★★★★★

Let me take a break from book reviews to plug my favorite magazine. Biblical Archaeology Review (BAR) is published bi-monthly, providing thought-provoking articles and touching on the latest biblical finds. I find it far from dry, enjoyable by laymen and hardened scholars both. BAR prides itself on objectivity, favoring neither believers nor unbelievers, but let’s face it: history is secular, and controversial writing sells, so you’re likely to find more controversy than inspiration. Yet, the scholarship shines, perhaps because any article’s illogical conclusion is likely to be ripped apart by argumentative experts in the next issue.

The most recent issue (March/April 2011) features the following topics:

Jerusalem Roundup: An up-to-the-minute report on the archaeological activity in Jerusalem.

Solomon’s Temple: Recent excavations of ancient Near Eastern temples shed light the structure of King Solomon’s temple.

“Revolt” Coins: During the Jewish revolt in 66 CE, Herod’s Temple Mount became a hub for rebel coin minting.

The Oxyrhynchus Papyri: You may have never heard of these priceless documents, discovered in Egypt over a century ago, portraying the beliefs and daily lives of ordinary Romans and Christians.

If you want your finger on the pulse of the latest thinking in Biblical studies and archaeology, this ‘zine is a must.

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