They shall be burnt with fire (various, burning)

So, because Steve Wells was not quite satisfied with my last post because he felt I didn't fully address the issue of What the Bible says about burning people to death (and I didn't, because I felt the burning in Isaiah chapter 33 was figurative language), I'm going to take a sidebar here and talk about that subject. I have already talked about capital punishment in Exodus and the nature of Hell in John, but I'm sure I'll need to revisit those topics.

Let's start with Genesis 38, and Judah's intent to burn his daughter-in-law to death. This is indeed cruel, and it is in fact unwarranted; this is not God's will, but Judah reacting in anger to a situation that he came to realize he was implicated in the matter. In Joshua 7, where we read about the killing of Achan, yes, he and his family were burned up, but note they were stoned to death first; this is not burning someone to death. 2Samuel 23 is David talking about certain "sons of belial" who are not explicitly identified; it seems reasonable that David is simply saying that evil people will see judgment, perhaps he's even talking about the fires of Hell, although the idea seems iffy.

With all that aside, the two verses from Leviticus are definitely capital offenses that are to be dealt with by burning the offenders. I don't think there's any getting around it, but it's possibly worth noting that both of these offenses are easy to avoid (and a woman who is a prostitute who isn't the daughter of a priest has committed adultery, and would also be put to death, I assume). For some reason, these particular acts--both of a sexual nature--are considered serious enough by God to warrant this punishment, and I don't know why. So what can be said about it? Well, some commentaries point out that the passage in Joshua about Achan suggests that these offenses are trated by first killing the offenders (probably by stoning) and then burning the bodies afterwards. Of course being stoned to death isn't painless either, but it's likely much less painful than being burned.

Okay, so God burned some people to death himself? Let's see those verses. In Leviticus 10, while it says God sent fire to burn Nadab and Abihu to death, if you look at the immediate context, their bodies had to be carried away afterwards, showing that there bodies were not consumed by the fire. This very likely was some sort of supernatural fire, and tradition has it that their bodies were actually unharmed; their death may have not been painful. While I of course can't say that with complete certainty, it is a possibility, and so it may also be the case in these other verses. (Remember Moses and the burning bush that wasn't consumed? It seems there is something that is a manifestation of God that looks like fire, but technically isn't fire.) The Numbers 16 and 1Kings 1 passages do say the men were consumed, so perhaps that's definitely real fire. The Deuteronomy 32 passage definitely sounds like figurative language, especially since it says "burned with hunger". Psalm 21, like much of the Psalms, is being poetic, not necessarily prophetic. Isaiah chapters 24, 33, and 47 are likely symbolic of destruction rather than literal fire, and also the Ezekiel 15 and Jeremiah 49 passages.

Now as I said above, I already addressed the subject of hell, and in that post, I believe I did find that Hell is a place full of fire. However, I also discussed two possibilities with respect to Hell: (1) it is possible that Jesus's death on the cross meant that Hell is no longer a place where people go, because Jesus paid the price for the sin of the world; and (2) it is possible that the burning in Hell is only temporary, and souls are consumed by the fires of Hell. However, I don't think it can be denied that there is an experience of burning on the part of (at least some of) the souls that are in Hell.

Whosoever curseth his God shall bear his sin (2Kings 2:23-24)

Not really a post here, but a link to a guest post in Dwindling in Unbelief.

Thy speech bewrayeth thee (Judges 12)

Judges 12 is a short chapter with few comments from the SAB. It's funny, but I was reading this on my own over the weekend, and I anticipated what the comments would be; that's not always easy to do, as the SAB can be full of surprises.

Anyway, as yet another sad footnote on the time of Jephthah's rule, we see a bizarre and bloody fallout of this war that shows itself in some sort of intertribal warfare. I think this is the first time we see such a thing in Israel, but unfortunately it won't be the last. Men from Ephraim come to Jephthah and complain that they didn't get to take part in the battle. (Most likely, they wanted a share of the spoils of war.) Jephthah points out to them that the trouble had been going on a long time before the fighting broke out, and they had been asked for help before, a request that was ignored. Fighting breaks out, and a lot of slaughter ensues. In the midst of this, the infamous "shibboleth" event happens. Apparently, in those days it wasn't so easy to tell who was an ally or enemy. In this case, however, a known difference between these two tribes was that the Ephraimites apparently don't use the "sh" sound in their speech. So when a soldier came to the river to cross, he might pretend to be whoever he wanted to be, but the soldiers on Jephthah's side would ask the person trying to cross to say the Hebrew word for "stream". Ephraimites would give themselves away by pronouncing it "sibboleth". The guards would know they were an enemy and pluck them out of the water and kill them. Violent? Most definitely. Unjust? Well, the Ephraimites were waging a completely unprovoked war against the men of Gilead, so what can you say?

By the way, I expected it might be said that 42,000 were killed in this manner, but I also realized upon reading the passage that such a guess was probably a misunderstanding of the text, for what it's worth. I think the intended meaning is that 42,000 Ephraimites were killed in total on the whole battlefield; the thought of killing them one by one as they crossed the river seems unlikely, and the text does not expressly say that.

The chapter closes with short and quick notes on three judges that follow Jephthah. Abdon in particular is apparently funny to Steve Wells for another mention of donkeys. It might be worth noting that while the KJV says "forty sons and thirty nephews", I'm not sure where that translation comes from. The Hebrew says literally "sons' sons", which surely ought to be "grandsons" as other translations render it.

And next time, we come to Samson, one of the oddest characters the Bible has to offer.

There were giants in the earth in those days (Joshua 12-15)

Throughout the next few chapters, the notes get rather sparse. A lot of the book of Joshua is pretty much an accounting of which cities were destroyed, how many kings vanquished, and who got the real estate.

In chapter 12 however, the SAB finds one thing noteworthy: giants. Once again, there is little given in the way of explanation, only the icons for absurdity and science/history. Oddly enough, there is nothing scientifically wrong or absurd about the notion of giants, as we know they live among us today. Robert Wadlow came up on a quick Google search as the tallest man to have been verified to have lived, and he was just under nine feet tall, only a few inches short of Goliath. There may indeed have been giants in Canaan, and there isn't even need to appeal to the supernatural to explain them.*

Following no notes in chapter 13, the SAB brings up an interesting question in verse 14 that is of particular interest to me. Does the Bible condemn gambling? I'm going to come down on the side of "No" for this one. The two verses on the "Yes" side are not really very convincing to me at all, although it's still an issue worth considering, as a lot of Christians condemn it. Personally, I would advise against gambling in general, but don't consider it to be outright sinful. I have in the past rather enjoyed a good game of poker, and probably would still, but I think the principle of the Proverbs 28:22 verse is a good one to keep in mind. Get-rich-quick schemes rarely live up to their promise.

It's of particular interest to me because my college major was mathematics, and my final project (I sometimes call it a "thesis", although it's a stretch of the term) was on gambling theory. I was very interested in the mathematical principles behind various casino games, and as an avid Contract Bridge player, the general question of how probability governs card games. In my studies, I came across some interesting facts that not everyone is aware of, namely that the history of religion and gambling are intertwined. You'll find many instances in the Bible of the practice of "casting lots" which is another way of saying "letting random chance make the choice for you". In many societies where they had religion, they had no voice of God speaking to them out of a cloud to give them specific directions, so they'd find some equivalent of asking their God(s) a yes-or-no question and flipping a coin. Some societies used a method of divination that involved throwing small pieces of bone that were the precursors of modern dice. In any case, before such things were used in games of chance, they were common forms of divination.

In chapter 15, there are a handful of notes on various topics. Caleb offers to give his daughter away to the warrior who can successfully destroy the city of Debir, and the winner is his nephew Othniel. While the SAB notes the violence inherent in destroying a city, and we have already discussed that time and again throughout this book, it also makes a few other notes that are not entirely clear, but I think I know what's being implied. The real issues that the SAB has with this story on top of the violence are those of women's rights and incest. Taking the latter first, even in today's culture marrying one's cousin is not illegal, despite what most people seem to believe. The issue that exists with marrying cousins is more of a social taboo in some societies than a legal or even genetic one. The Bible certainly never condemns it as far as I know.

As for the rights of this young woman Achsah, well, arranged marriages for one reason or another were common in those days, and it simply was the case that a woman married the man that her father chose for her. A lot of people take issue with this custom, but in this context, I don't think there's anything to address, since this is simply stated as a fact, neither praised nor condemned by the author. It may be notable however that immediately following this, Achsah comes to her father and asks him to give her a portion of land with fresh water on it, which would be precious real estate indeed in the Middle East. He gives it to her.

I really have to hand it to Steve Wells for his thoroughness for noticing some tiny details at times. I would have never noticed among the ongoing lists of place names the repetition of Eshtaol and Zorah. I checked the Hebrew, and indeed, while the KJV varies the spelling slightly, these two verses reference the exact same names. As Wells has said in his blog, however, contradictions are often very easy to explain one's way out of, and this is no exception: The key is in the term "coast" used in 19:41, which indicates a few possibilities. Looking at only the English, I suspected that there might be multiple cities in Canaan with the same name, and two in the central valley of Judah's territory happened to have the same name as two on the coast of Dan's territory. Looking further into it, I suspected, and it turned out to be true, that the Hebrew term translated as "coast" actually means "border" more or less, and sure enough, according to a map I have of ancient Canaan, the city of Zorah (Zoreah?) is on the border between Judah and Dan. It may be that these cities formed the boundary between the two tribes, and they may have either shared them or simply knew that arriving at those cities implied that Dan's territory was ended.

Chapter 15 ends with the first mention of a tribe of people that the Israelites did not manage to defeat. Why did this happen? Who really knows? Other than the things that I commented on before, something worth noting here is that this lack of victory comes after the Israelites start divvying up the land. Why are they trying to settle all of this before the conquest is complete? I suspect that once they started settling into the land and building it up as their own, they didn't bother to try so much. Go fight the Jebusites? Why? Don't we have enough land already? I don't think that God only wanted to give them land, He wanted them to deal with the previous inhabitants fully, and they didn't. It's really a shame, as it leads to struggle for years and years to come.

* A reader commented on the previous chapter that while nonetheless giants do exist today, there is some belief that certain groups of giants were the result of supernatural breeding of human women and fallen angels. Those who believe this (and I don't consider it outside of the realm of possibility, myself) will remember that it was one of the main reasons that God brought the flood in Noah's time. It may be that the existence of the giants in Canaan is once again one of the main reasons why the people of Canaan had to be exterminated.

The foolishness of God is wiser than men (Joshua 5)

Oh, I gotta tell you, I've actually been looking forward to this one a great deal. The SAB marks Joshua 5 in two places with the "Absurd" icon, and indeed, this chapter is full of weirdness. This is as excellent a place as any to put forward my personal theory on God's modus operandi when it comes to the Jewish people: God wants the Jews to be "weird" so that other nations will notice them, and thus notice God.

As I said before, there was already a certain amount of fame that preceded the Israelites into Canaan. The people of the land heard about the plagues on Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, and a handful of battles that had been fought while they were wandering in the desert. Imagine an inhabitant of Canaan hearing about all this.

So those Israelites? The ones who came up out of Egypt few years back? They're headed this way! What's more, the trick they did with the Red Sea? They did it again with the Jordan River! The river just stopped, and they walked across on dry land! And then get this: they set up camp and all the men gathered together and cut the tips of their penises off! I'm telling you, those guys serve a God who is powerful, and apparently friggin' batshit insane!

Seriously, these guys are being watched, I have no doubt, by people from all over the region who want to see what craziness they will do next. These are a people who, along with their God, mean some serious business, and everybody knows it.

This is an important prelude to the whole issue of Holy war, which we are about to start into, and get up to our necks in throughout this book. This bizarre behavior, this series of miraculous events, it's all a way to send a message to the people of Canaan. It's a message that unfortunately very few of them understood, like Rahab did. Time's up for you people, and you now have to choose from three options: repent, evacuate, or die. While it is not my intention at this time to yet delve into the morality of the book as a whole, I think one thing that should be noted is that those nations which came to be destroyed were all forewarned, and as we later see in the case of Nineveh, God spares those who repent.

With all the miraculous happenings that center around the Israelites, however, one might wonder at the sort of "anti-miracle" that occurred to them. Indeed, it took them 40 years to complete a journey that conceivably could have been done in ten days. Now there are various aspects to consider like the fact that with such a large group of people, travel is difficult; everyone is forced to go the speed of the slowest member of the group. Furthermore, one must remember that they had to make a pit stop to pick up the Law, which must have taken some time to write down. That's hardly enough to slow them by a year, much less forty.

I don't like to say things that will come across as insulting to Steve Wells, who strikes me as a very intelligent and dedicated individual for all the work he's done with the SAB, which as I have said, is really quite an impressive body of work that I actually admire. It's no secret that there are a lot of Christians who haven't put half the time into studying the Bible that he has. Still, there are occasional points in the SAB where I wonder what Wells is thinking. Why do the Israelites wander in the desert for forty years? Because God made them do it as a punishment. It's a pivotal moment in the story of the Exodus that you could hardly miss, (and Wells doesn't miss it, but puts the same note on that passage) and it seems it would be difficult to miss the meaning, either. It's neither absurd nor technically flawed that this should have happened; if any of the SAB's icons really should go there, it might be "Cruelty", but there are certainly worse punishments than having to walk around aimlessly for several years.

Another "anti-miracle" that happens in this chapter is that right after the crossing and circumcising, they celebrate the first Passover in Canaan, at which point God ceases to bring them manna, telling them that they have now moved in, and they will eat off of the land as inhabitants.

Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee

I figure I have about four posts to go to get through the end of Exodus 22, and I really hope to finish them before the month is out. My output has slowed down greatly as of late for various reasons, some of which are beyond my control. However, I wanted to take a break to talk once again about my aims for this blog, mostly for my own benefit. (Partially that's because I don't think most readers will care much about this, and partially it's because the greatest portion of my readers come through here from links on the SAB which will probably have no reason to link to this post. Then again, maybe I'll link this in the discussion forum in hopes of feedback; we'll see.)

What I wanted to muse upon is the nature of the categories of notes in the SAB, and the different ways that I feel a need to respond to them in turn. As I touched on in an earlier post, there are some categories like the "Sex" category regarding which there may be differences of opinion that need some meta-discussion. As both Steve Wells and I agree, sex per se is not a bad thing, but it's a charged issue, and the way people approach on both a personal and societal issue are important. I want to address some of the ways that I feel Steve Wells and I may differ on many of these issues.

Anyway, the categories of notes listed for the SAB are: Injustice, Absurdity, Cruelty and Violence, Contradictions, Intolerance, Women, Family Values, Prophecy, Science and History, Sex, Language, Homosexuality, Interpretation, and Good Stuff. Wells feels that these are all important categories, and I agree for the most part. However, I may have a vastly different understanding of the way to approach these issues as a Christian, and I think it's important to articulate this difference.

In starting the blog, my main intent was to offer reflection on the matters of Contradictions, Prophecy and Interpretation. I feel most of the time that those are the most important categories from a logical point of view. If the Bible can be found to be clearly wrong in any area, it would be found in one of these, and logic is the basis for understanding what may or may not be a problem with these categories. Science and History is a close relative, but as I have said time and again, I'm not really an expert in either area, so I may not be able to address many of those particular issues.

The problems I have in trying to deal with the SAB is often in the other categories. The trouble is, all of these things are very subjective to your own world-view. "Injustice?" What makes something just or unjust? "Cruelty and Violence?" What is a clear criterion for something being "cruel"? While violence is generally well-defined, there are many specific cases where people don't see eye to eye, such as the case of capital punishment. Some people think capital punishment of any sort is cruel and violent, while others feel that there is a big difference between, say, a firing squad and lethal injection. And of course capital punishment is a big place where people split sharply on the matter of "injustice", some people feeling that to not have capital punishment would truly be injustice. While I will respond to items marked as "Injustice" or "Cruelty", it's really me pitting my opinion against Wells', and the reader will probably accept whomever has the opinion that fits their own. On the flipside of that, the same goes for "Good Stuff".

"Absurdity" is definitely something in the eye of the beholder. One of the things that I've run across several times in the SAB is the claim that a certain verse is absurd, usually with no explanation. On the one hand, it makes me ask what the point of the label is, but on the other hand, I realize that by nature one usually cannot explain absurdity: either something is absurd to you or not. What can you say?

"Family Values" and "Women" are two categories that seem to me to be titled in a sarcastic manner. Note that "Honour thy father and thy mother..." is not marked with either of these icons, although this is clearly a matter of family values, and is notable in that the mother is specifically mentioned, I think. (The Bible certainly can be sexist at times, and it would not have surprised me if this verse simply had said "father".) The point of these categories is to point out matters pertaining to these two issues where Wells feels the Bible is coming up short. Sometimes I may agree; more often I will disagree, although in such cases, it may simply be a matter of personal opinion once again.

Likewise, "Homosexuality" is an issue that I suspect is mainly used to bring up instances of supposed homophobia in the Bible, although there are certainly more than a few verses quoted that are pertaining to supposed homosexual interaction between characters in the Bible, such as King David and his friend Jonathan, whose relationship many have hypothesized about. In such cases, though, once again little commentary is given, although perhaps it is not so necessary, and only serves to be food for thought? The trouble with dealing with the issue of homosexuality is that there are varying societal norms when you compare ancient Israel, first-century Greco-Roman culture and modern times. A Christian is likely to assume that throughout all times and places, God's standard for sexual morality does not change. Of course, that doesn't mean that even every Christian understands it the same way.

But closely related to the issue of homophobia in our society, (maybe less or at least differently so in Hebrew society) is the issue of "Intolerance", which is a more difficult but vital issue to address. The thing is that yes, the Bible is intolerant. I won't try to argue against that (at least in general), but I will argue that there is a reason for it, and it can be seen to some extent to be a logical approach to building a new monotheistic religion.

In the Old Testament, there is a certain amount of intolerance in the form of God instituting punishments, even up to death, for false worship. While the New Testament is not so bold in that manner, there are frequent reminders that the only way to enter into God's salvation is through Christ. In both cases, the context is that God is trying to create a new understanding among His people of His nature and will. Why does God want pagans cast out of society or put to death in ancient Israel? Because He does not want His people to be led astray into false worship. As it happened, we'll see that even with these safeguards put in place, they often were led astray nonetheless.

God wants people to do the right thing, and as He knows ultimately what is that right thing, He has no need nor desire to do things halfway with the Israelites. The Bible is not about political correctness or tolerance of relative points of view; it's about God. When it comes to God and our dealings with Him, in a spiritual sense there is no room for tolerance, only room for being right.

But this I confess unto thee (transitional post)

Well, after asking for suggestions as to where I might go with my blog both here and at the SAB discussion board, I only got one real response.

I guess I'm not too surprised, as I didn't expect too many people to be interested enough to chip in even two cents worth. What did surprise me was that numerous people suggested I simply give up the whole thing, as it was a waste of time. Well, I was actually not surprised at that, but surprised at how many people don't see the illogic behind it, at least as I think I do. If indeed the Bible is a document that is so full of problems that a comprehensive reading of it will lead one unmistakeably to see it's nothing but junk, then I'd think someone wanting to convince me out of believing the Bible would want me to keep up the work until I inevitably become Steve Wells' ally in debunking Christianity.

Well, I do think of Steve as my ally, as I said previously, and not just for the reasons I set out before, but because he was the guy who gave me my one and only constructive suggestion. You can go back to the previous post and read it in full if you want, but in summary, he suggested I drop the sort of narrative format I've used up until now and write individual posts on the most difficult issues of the Bible first. I responded that selfishly, I'd like to pace myself, as trying to respond to the hardest stuff all at once would surely be wearying for me, and make me look far more foolish than I'm sure I already do to many reading here.

I am, however, going to take his advice in a partial manner, and switch styles for most of the rest of Exodus through Deuteronomy, focusing smaller posts on individual issues from the law. Hopefully this looser style won't make me get sloppy and skip over more stuff than I did before and have to keep tracking back.

Yet now that I have announced this, I am going to use this post as an occasion to track back, and in the interest of fairness, dig out the issues that I was unable to address fully in the preceding chapters, partially to admit once again that I don't have all the answers, and perhaps to allow somone who might have the answers on those issues to comment. If someone knows of ones I missed, please let me know. Actually, it's getting late, and it's Friday, so I'll add the list on Monday, either editing the post, or putting it in the comments section.

He asked them, saying, Whom say the people that I am?

While it seems that the large majority oif the traffic I receive to this blog is coming through links from the Skeptic's Annotated Bible, and doesn't really care about the "blog-ish" nature of my posts here, there may be some people who are enjoying reading this as a daily offering of opinion on the Bible. I don't know. Either way, I'd like to get back to work on completing a bit more of the Bible, as I've only gone through one and a half books of a much, much larger work.

I haven't posted here in over a month for a number of reasons. I've been busy, and while I've taken some time to post occasionally on my other blogs, I've let this one languish in the midst of my overwhelming time constraints. The other reason has a lot to do with why I've let this one in particular languish: Exodus gets a lot more boring for the most part from here on out, and throughout the rest of the books of Moses, while there is some amount of plot, it's mostly long lists of laws and their related punishments and procedural applications.

Don't get me wrong, if I keep this up, eventually I expect to cover the whole Bible, but as I've said before, I don't feel it's necessary to tackle in a straight linear fashion from beginning to end. After all, most people don't read it that way. Anyway, what I'm thinking is that in order to revitalize this a little, I could switch to another book that was a little more interesting. Judges comes to mind as very jam-packed with action, but it's honestly a very difficult book to address, due to excessive sex and violence throughout the book. Eventually, covering that cook is going to be largely a droning repetition of "The Bible records this, but does not condone it." Ruth is one of my favorite books, but the SAB has virtually nothing to say about it, so it leaves me with little to say if I'm focusing on replying to objections. I considered spicing it up with Song of Solomon, since who doesn't enjoy reading ancient Hebraic erotic poetry? Still, it seems sort of gimmicky.

So, in the end, I'm going to appeal to any readers I may have: PLEASE post comments to give me a good suggestion! What do you think I should do? Jump to the New Testament? (I was considering Matthew, but it seems like I need to maybe hit all four Gospels simultaneously with a harmonization. I don't know.) Do some Psalms or Proverbs? A prophetic book? What might be nice is if Steve Wells would let me know if he has stats on which pages on his site are most popular, and I might start there. I don't know, just give me a suggestion or two so I can feel a bit more enthusiastic about moving forward.

And received in the same year an hundredfold

Partially by coincidence and partially by design, this is the anniversary of the first post of this blog, and the 100th post as well. I suppose I'm happy to hit this milestone, but would have been a bit happier to have had something more like 200 posts right now, but I guess I've been busy this last year.

Thanks to Steve Wells for being good sport about this, and I hope I've been civil enough about it myself, not engaging in unfair attacks on him, and being honest in stating that I don't know the answer to every question that the SAB raises.

Just as the atheist blog I have been occasionally guest-posting on, Goosing the Antithesis, doesn't completely share my values, but has in its mission statement, if you will, something that I can partially agree with ("We attack Christians who claim to monopolize epistemology and values..." I tend to do that as well, believe it or not.) the SAB has something of value in the purpose it serves. To quote from "About the SAB":

Millions of such Bibles are published and distributed each year by believers in their tireless and tiresome effort to propagate their beliefs. Consequently, nearly everyone, whether believer or skeptic, has at least one copy in his or her possession. Among these Bibles will be found many different versions, but all have one thing in common: all are believer- friendly editions that support, promote, and defend the Bible.

The Skeptic's Annotated Bible attempts to remedy this imbalance. It includes the entire text of the King James Version of the Bible, but without the pro-Bible propaganda. Instead, passages are highlighted that are an embarrassment to the Bible-believer, and the parts of the Bible that are never read in any Church, Bible study group, or Sunday School class are emphasized. For it is these passages that test the claims of the Bible-believer. The contradictions and false prophecies show that the Bible is not inerrant; the cruelties, injustices, and insults to women, that it is neither good nor just.

It is my very purpose (other than the already stated one of self-imposed (near-)daily Bible reading) in writing this blog to also remedy such imbalance. While I do not intend to show that the Bible is a bad book that should be disdained, as Wells begins to say in this last paragraph and continues throughout the rest of the page, I think it fosters a healthy, thinking faith to not put one's head in the sand in regards to what is in the Bible. The footnotes in a Bible should focus on both the good and the bad.

In the book of Revelation, John meets with an angel who is holding a book. The Angel offers the book to John, and oddly enough, tells him to eat it.

And I took the little book out of the angel's hand, and ate it up; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey: and as soon as I had eaten it, my belly was bitter. (Revelation 10:10)

Now, the "book" spoken of here (probably a scroll, actually) is probably not actually the Bible, but it's always seemed to me to be very appropriate symbolism. To the Christian, the Bible should be sweet in your mouth. Once you really start to dig in, though, and you think you've really digested it, if it doesn't give you a bit of indigestion, maybe you missed something.

Unlike Wells, who thinks there is more bad than good in the Bible, I think there is more good. Yet, I cannot honestly say that there is no bad. Sometimes, it's that bad that we really need to focus on in order to understand the deep things God is trying to tell us. Is it really better to have a gang of perverts rape your virgin daughters than your houseguests? Is it really a good thing that some young men were mauled by bears for taunting a prophet? Should believers respond to questionable religious activity with physical violence, and then respond to capital crimes with complete forgiveness? There are definitely many, many questions that we should be asking ourselves about this volume that forms the structure of our faith. If we truly have faith, then we should expect to find answers.

I am hoping to find ways to make this blog a bit more accessible. I've noticed that some blog websites have tools that allow you to organize and index things within your blog to make it easier to find topics from the archives. While some of those tools that I think I would like to have are not available here as far as I know, I am trying to come up with something of my own. one thing I do have is a complete list of all posts here (site no longer available). That unfortunately is not set to automatically update, so it may not always be up-to date. On the other hand, most of the recent posts should always be available on the sidebar. It may not matter, though, as the great majority of the traffic I receive seems to come through the SAB itself, from links on appropriate pages.

Thanks for reading, all three or so of my devoted fans.

In the beginning... (Introduction)

Okay, this may be more of a test post than anything else.

Not having written a blog before, I'm not sure what the standards are. Honestly, I still don't quite understand what a blog is, whether it's different from a web journal and if so, how. Yet here I must post an introduction to this project I'm undertaking, so I guess I'll just say what's on my mind.

I'd been intending for some time to try to dedicate a little more time to Bible study. I really haven't done nearly enough of it lately, and I think the practice of my faith is suffering for it. It occurred to me that one of the things I'd always enjoyed greatly in the past was taking the Bible as an intellectual study; pulling it apart and analyzing it as best I could and dealing with the issues it raises. I don't think an unexamined faith is a healthy one, and whatever religion a person happens to subscribe to (and I include atheism in the category of "religion", whether the reader agrees or not) they should take time regularly to ponder whether it really stands to reason.

One of the more interesting ways that I have done this in the past was to discuss Biblical matters with people who were not Christians. The fact is that while discussing the Bible with fellow Christians is something that every Christian should spend some time doing on a regular basis, no matter how much we try to be intellectually honest, when a bunch of Christians sit down to discuss the Bible together there's a tendency to settle into a state in which we all nod our heads and say, "Isn't God great?" and move on, because it's a rhetorical question when we all already share that belief. I don't think it's intellectual dishonesty per se, but just something akin to the way we don't notice the smell of our own house, even though every house does have a distinctive odor. You invite an atheist in, and they say, "What's that smell?!" You reply, "Oh, it's 2 Kings 2:23-24; I totally forgot I left that there..."

So, getting to my point after several awkward run-on sentences and a questionable metaphor (probably par for my writing), I intend to work my way through the Bible in study, essentially using the Skeptic's Annotated Bible as my study guide. Well, assuming that editor Steve Wells approves of my doing so, which I think he will. I have contacted him via e-mail, and he seems to be pleased with the idea. If not, I'll find another source, I suppose, or use some of the concepts in the SAB without direct quotation so as to avoid any form of theft of his intellectual property. Oh, and I'll have to change the name of the blog, which I might do anyway.

Well, off to play a bit with the settings to see how this stuff works. My next post or two will be an overview of what I'm thinking rather than hitting any particular passage, but I hope to hit Genesis 1 by early next week.