Category Biblical Exegesis

Christianity is fundamentally opposed to freedom of speech

In reading Richard Carrier’s excellent chapter in John Loftus’ superb Christianity is not Great in which I have a chapter myself, there is much to glean concerning matters of democracy and the American Constitution in the context of the Bible and religion.download
It is funny how so many libertarians/right-leaners and political commentators in the US are fans of both religion and freedom of speech. Freedom of speech seems to be something which, though actually complex and problematic, is intuitively argued for by many who also favour free market economics and general human liberties.

Star of Bethlehem: Methodological Difficulties

Aaron Adair wrote a superb book which I edited called The Star of Bethlehem: A Skeptical View. It is well worth reading, and you will learn a number of gems. I thought I would give you a taste with part of the second chapter detailing methodological difficulties involved with the Gospel of Matthew and accounts and claims of the star. The book is available from the sidebar over there>>>>>>>

Guest post: The problem with when you are born

In Jonathan’s post titled, “Inter-Testamental Moral Relativism,” a hypothetical exchange between an atheist and an Xian highlights the morally relativistic nature of a fundamentalist worldview that defends the idea that executing a man for picking up sticks on a Saturday is obligatory at time T, but morally impermissible at T+1. In the exchange, the snarky hypothetical atheist wants to know exactly when T occurred in order to know exactly when people became morally obliged to refrain from executing Sabbath breakers.

Reply to Matthew Flannagan on Biblical Moral Relativism

Apologist Matthew Flannagan has criticised my points made on the recent post “Inter-Testamental Moral Relativism” which can also be expressed as “Covenantal Moral Relativism” as Justin Schieber has stated it. In this post I declared that the moral obligations being different between the Old Testament (OT) and the New Testament (NT) amounted to moral relativism (MR). Here is what Flannagan had to say:

First Biblical Contradiction

I haven’t done a post like this for ages. Reading, as I mentioned in a previous post, a book sent to me for review, Franz Kiekeben’s The Truth About God, the author takes a whistle-stop tour through inconsistencies in the Bible (not so much to list them all, as he only mentions a few, but to illustrate the types of defences that Christians typically use). He details the inconsistency which starts the Bible off, namely the six day creation story.

Do the Bible and Qu’ran need commentaries?

Over on a recent thread about the challenges I have met in my claims of Islam, a Catholic commentator asked this question:

I agree with you that Islam has problems. I have a quick question: do you read commentaries and theology books written by Muslims to offset your bias?

To which I said:

The Claimed Mummy Gospel Fragment

As has been all over the news recently, there is an alleged scrap of the first written Gospel from the Bible, the Gospel of Mark, as found inside of a papier-mache mummy. This has the potential to be a boon for New Testament studies, but there has been significant controversy about how this discovery has been revealed and how it was done. Even the mummy mask that is the source for this scrap of papyrus looks uncomfortable with how things are going.

On the Skepticism of the Resurrection (part 3)

Having looked at points 1) and 2) it is time to see if there is a more plausible explanation for the data from a naturalistic perspective than the Christian claims. Before setting out the positive case, I want to spend a little time going over some of the data from the Gospels and how they are problematic. Really, this belongs in the first post under point 1), but it sort of required its own post for reasons of length.

Quote of the Day, epicurus on Herod

In my post on Herod, epicurus brought up a great point with regard to the news of the Messianic prophecy which shook Jerusalem at the arrival of the MAgi:

In the same way that the resurrection story tosses out a verse that should cause a revolution, then moves on as if no big deal (the dead coming out of their graves and walking around the city -Matt 27:52-3), the assertion that Herod and all of Jerusalem being “troubled” at the wise men following a star to come worship the new King of The Jews (Matt 2:3) doesn’t seem to mean much for a fair size city.

Islam vs Christianity: the core differences

I have articulated this many, many times, but never yet as a full blog post, so here goes. What is it that differentiates the two major world religions, and how does this translate across to the behaviour of their adherents?

This is a pretty vital question for understanding the state of affairs with world religions and worldviews, especially in present day context…

The Doctrine of Atonement – Robert Ingersoll

I have elsewhere talked about how the Doctrine of the Atonement is simply nonsensical. Well, here is the eminent thinker Robert Ingersoll on the subject.

According to one of these gospels, and according to the prevalent Christian belief, the Christian religion rests upon the doctrine of the atonement

Joseph of Arimathea; a rich prophecy fulfilment

I have spoken about Joseph of Arimathea before, in the videos linked below. Just reading a chapter by Robert M. Price in The End of Christianity, I came across this very simple aspect which shows, to me at any rate, that Matthew’s sole job seemed to be to contrive as many random prophecy fulfilments from the Old Testament as humanly possible.