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.

Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom (Exod 20:18-26)

After the declaration of the Ten Commandments is complete, the people get a bit freaked out. Apparently, they find the overt presence of God in the area to be a bit much for them, and ask Moses to relay messages to them rather than having God speak directly to them. Moses tells them something that is an interesting turn of phrase,

Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not.

So, don't have fear of God, because He's come here to give you fear. Huh? You can't get out of this one by referring back to the Hebrew, since both words are from the same root. What you do have to appeal to in order to understand this is that "fear" in Biblical terms has different shades of meaning. You can fear something in that you can be terrified of it, or you can fear something in that you can have respect for its power. While it would be nice to have separate words for these different concepts in the Hebrew and in the English, we really don't. (The Amplified Bible inserts the word "reverential" before the second instance.) Oh well.

Then God starts to tell Moses some laws, which is largely the beginning of God dictating the whole of the Mosaic law that will be committed to paper over the course of the rest of this book and the three following, interspersed with commentary about important moments in their journey to the Promised Land. The Mosaic Law is admittedly fairly tedious reading, is often repeated (note the first thing God brings up is concerning idolatry), and isn't arranged in the sort of organized fashion we expect in modern times from legal documents, but it is important to a full understanding of the Bible and the nature of God. It's also full of SAB marginal notes that I'll have to address, so no skipping for me.

I have already commented on sacrifices, which I also considered to be a good answer to the issue of burnt offerings, so all that remains is the note on the "nakedness" of priests serving at the altar. Um, yeah, I guess it is sort of a funny concept, that if they go up high people might be looking up their robes. What's the question?

He commanded you to perform even ten commandments (Exod 20:12-17)

In the transition between commandments about God and commandments about interpersonal relationships, we find the fifth commandment:

Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.

This is an interesting commandment for numerous reasons. First of all, its place within the list is interesting. Many have suggested that the commandments are in order of importance, and in the case of the last five, most likely even atheists would agree. However, even if you accept something important about God that trumps other issues here in the material world, one may well wonder why honoring your parents is considered more important than even avoiding killing. It's been said that there exists an issue here that parents, while not God, are representing a God-like authority over their own children. Very often the New Testament writers use the relationship between a child and parent as a model of the relationship between a believer and God.

As the Bible comments on itself in Ephesians 6:2, this is the first commandment that comes with a promise attached to it. It may be that the promise is a special supernatural blessing given by God, but on the other hand, there may be a perfectly natural explanation for this promise that parallels the explanation I gave for the curses mentioned elsewhere. Reject authority, and you and your children will have trouble as a natural consequence. Obey authority, and things will go well.

Now, the SAB has two comments on this verse, one that's vital, and the other that's, well, just sort of odd. How should parents be treated? The answer is pretty obvious; one should honor one's parents. The difficulty comes in the interpretation of the verses that seem to suggest otherwise. The two verses that have the infamous quote by Jesus of "Who is my mother?" is a toughie, really a matter of personal interpretation. Jesus spent a large portion of his ministry working on identifying himself with the people he was ministering to, and to God the Father. I tend to think that those verses are his way of saying that his family is bigger than just his blood relatives. The "Let the dead bury their dead" quote is one often misunderstood. The man Jesus was talking to did not have presently dead parents, but was saying essentially, "I'd like to follow you, but I think I'll wait until my parents have passed away, is that okay?" The answer was, "No, not really." Of course, as misunderstanding goes, few verses are as often misunderstood (and with good reason) as the "...hate not his father, and mother..." verse. The standard explanation, which is definitely true in part at least, is that one's love for Jesus should be so strong that all other relationships should seem like hateful ones in comparison. I think it's possible that there may be more to it than that, however, to be generous to the skeptic who can't quite buy this explanation. The Bible has a confusing way of describing the life of the Christian in terms of a series of love/hate relationships. We're told that we can't love the world, but we're told that God loved the world; what gives? The fact is, there are people in the world who are loved by God, and should be loved by you, but at the same time, they do things that are not lovely. If the people you love are keeping you from realizing your full potential, then you'd be better off hating them than loving them. This even goes for your parents.

Is it OK to call your father (or anyone else) father? Wow, what a question! The fact is, I have actually met a guy who took Matthew 23:9 fully literally and did not call his biological father "father". I don't think there is a call to take it that way, though. The point of the passage in Matthew is not that titles are somehow inherently evil, but that people shouldn't be looking to show off with fancy titles. Does anyone really think that Jesus is advocating referring to your biological father as "dear old Mom's sperm donor" or some such nonsense? I'll admit, this is a confusing issue, but I don't think it's meant to imply something absurd.

Thou shalt not kill.

This one seems very straightforward. But of course, it's not. The SAB points out numerous verses that seem to place a stamp of approval on killing. The first thing to note is that it appears that the SAB has avoided one of the usual pitfalls in misunderstanding this verse. It's my understanding that in the Hebrew, the word for "kill" is clearer, and means something more akin to "murder"; the implication is that this commandment doesn't apply to things like killing animals for meat, killing attackers in self-defense, or killing enemy combatants in war. Instead of dragging out no doubt hundreds of verses that would deal with those issues, the SAB brings up a handful of very pertinent ones that are likely among the most troubling.

The Exodus 32:27 passage is troubling because these are Israelites killing fellow Israelites, at a point in time just a little over a month after our current moment we're studying in chapter 20. In Numbers 15:35, just a short time later, we see another instance of Israelites killing Israelites. In both instances, there was no act of aggression on the part of the person(s) attacked, and the attackers were ordered by God Himself to do the attacking. (The third verse cited on that page could conceivably fall under the heading of war, but I'll address it further when I get to it, as there are special circumstances there.) There's no getting around it that this is more than a bit disturbing. I used to know a guy who, when cornered on a debate concerning the Bible would often retreat to: "Do you think it's right to stone a man FOR GATHERING STICKS?!?!" It was seldom apropos, but a good question nonetheless. The fact that both of these things happened in the very early days of Israel being established as a nation seems significant to me. I think that this was a time when God was in the process of teaching the nation as a whole that He was serious about His devotion to them, and He wanted them to be serious in their devotion to Him. So, He made examples of a few key people at this early time; it's the only way it makes sense to me. These people seem to have just heard the Ten Commandments spoken to them by God Himself, and yet there they are, breaking most if not all of them just a few days later.

Thou shalt not commit adultery.

It's interesting to me that the SAB gives this one the thumbs up. A lot (well, some, at least; I don't know what portion) of atheists are against the idea of sexuality between consenting adults being considered wrong. Attitudes towards sexuality are hardly universal among either atheists or Christians. "Is it wrong to commit adultery?" the SAB asks. The answer is a very clear "Yes," although admittedly, the term "adultery" is never very clearly defined, and must be gathered from contexts. The verses cited by the SAB are really stretching. Numbers 31:18, while sounding rather offensive to the much more feminist culture we live in, is not adultery. It's fair to assume that if they were going to sleep with these women, they would be married to them. As for the verses from Hosea, the prophet Hosea was ordered by God to marry a woman who was an adulteress. This is not the same as ordering him to commit adultery at all. (Why was he ordered to do so? Like a number of the prophets, he was made to live out an allegory in his life. Check out the book, it's one of the easier prophets to read.)

Thou shalt not steal.

Is it wrong to steal? Once again, I think this one is clear. The verses brought up by the SAB to suggest the Bible supports stealing are all matters of people taking back what rightly belongs to them. I discussed this some back in a previous post.

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

This tends to be interpreted as "Don't lie." If you read it carefully, it's not so broadly about lying so much as it is about slander. Still, it's reasonable to treat it as though it were about lying in general. The SAB asks Is it OK to lie? As I said way back at the beginning of the book when this question first surfaced, lying is wrong in general, but there are cases in which lying may be justified, such as in order to save a life.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour'swife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.

Last one! Coveting is a bit set aside from the other ones in that rather than an action, it's about the way a person thinks. If you're breaking this commandment, nobody but God will know. Why is it included at all? And why are there passages that seem to command coveting? Well, most obviously, one can look at what is being coveted and realize a fundamental difference. Coveting somebody else's stuff vs. coveting to be a better Christian? There's a clear difference there. The command talks about coveting things that do not belong to you, whereas Paul is talking about things that do belong to the Christian. He's saying, "This really is rightfully yours, so be excited about God giving it to you!" On a less obvious note, the Greek word that is rendered "covet" here is never rendered "covet" in any other passage. Generally, it refers to being zealous about something, and in fact, is the root word for zealous; in both places the Greek is zeloute.

Oh, and slavery is a side-issue that I have already discussed (and discuss again in a later post in greater detail.)

The ten commandments, which the LORD spake (Exod 20:1-11)

So God speaks, and tells them the Ten Commandments. (I'll refrain from using quotes now, as I will mean Exodus 20:2-17 by the phrase from now on unless I need to return in the future to the discussion of my last post.)

The first phrase in verse two is debated most often as to whether or not it is one of the commandments, perhaps by itself or part of the first commandment.

I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

Well, grammatically, it's not a command, is it? As a child, it occurred to me that while it isn't grammatically in the form of a command, it does imply something of a command, that being that God is demanding recognition as God. For this reason, some people like to group it as part of the first commandment, which seems to be on this subject. (Actually the first three or four commandments are largely about God and who He is and what sort of respect He demands from His people.) My personal take is that this verse serves the same sort of purpose as the Preamble of the U.S. Constitution. God starts out the list of commandments by stating who He is and what He has done for this nation of people. This is to make sure we remember why these commandments hold force. Some people don't find it a convincing argument, but in a sense it's true: God makes the rules because He is God. In the specific case of the Israelites, He has not only created them, but He has worked a series of miracles to redeem them from their state of slavery. So because of who God is and what God has done...here's a list of important rules, starting with

Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

Not as straightforward as one might hope. Sure, it's a simple statement, but when you unpack it, the inevitable question arises: "Other" gods? How many gods are there? Well, in the most important sense, there is only one, but there are other ways to approach the question that I have already addressed. So what else?

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

This is a big one, and once again, we are presented with many issues. Some people take this in a fully literal sense, that you can't make images of any kind whatsoever. The SAB points out that if this verse is meant in that way, God is contradicting Himself. I suspect that what's really going on here is a grammatical construct that doesn't translate well into English, like a double negative (completely acceptable in many other languages). The issue here is not the images themselves (although admittedly the Hebrew word here is never used in a positive manner in the Bible) but the way in which they are responded to. One has to always remember that God is our creator and our redeemer, and never mistake a hunk of metal for Him.

Idolatry is a topic that has many layers to it, and causes a number of people to get squeamish about certain things. A Jewish friend of mine once remarked that He didn't understand why Christians worshipped the cross, and to him, it looked like idolatry. I pointed out to him that as a child being raised in a synagogue, it often seemed to me that if someone from the outside were to watch us as we worshipped, they might get the mistaken impression that we worshipped the Torah, which is kept in a fancy box in the front of the congregation, taken out and paraded around, people don't touch it with their bare hands, but occasionally kiss its cover. This is the fine line between worshipping and revering. There is nothing wrong with having respect for things that we know are important to God. Among some sects of Christianity, this comes up in discussions of the distinction between idolatry and iconism.

What about that last bit concerning God punishing children for the sins of their fathers? Does God really do that? Well, I discussed it some back here, but there is more to be said, I think. It really is an issue that has to do with the whole of the first three commandments, and the statement that God is "jealous". Is it okay for God to be jealous? I'm a bit surprised that it hasn't come up yet, nor is it commented on here, but many people have a big problem with God's "attitude", if you will. Why does God care so much about whether or not people worship Him? Well, it's because, for whatever deeper theological reasons that I won't go into here, since it could be a post unto itself (and maybe will be some time), following God is the right thing to do. Not following God and listening to His commandments is a recipe for disaster. God is jealous not in the sense that he feels put down by people who don't worship Him, but that He knows what's best, and He is sad for us when we make poor decisions, including not following Him. So back to what I had said before about punishing children for their parents' mistakes and tying it in here, not only will people who do not follow God find troubles in their life (and afterlife) as a result, but they will lead their children in their ways. Children of abusive parents tend to grow up to be abusive parents themselves. Children of alcoholics tend to become alcoholics. And here, I think the implication is that children of idolaters will tend to be idolaters.

Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

Hmm, no comment from the SAB, so perhaps it's taken as clear? This is a deeper one than most realize, though. It's not about swearing per se. It's about using God's name in any way that is short of the full respect God demands. As I said before, a "name" is often synonymous with a reputation. If you use God's name as a curse word, then you are equating God with something base, which is wrong. But you are also in trouble if you go around telling people that God has said things He has not, and you misrepresent God in any way. The full implications of this commandment are tough to fully fathom, I think.

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

The SAB has quite an interesting bit to say on this commandment. As for whether the Sabbath must be kept, I point back to a previous post, but as for the question of interpretation of "days" and the scientific implication thereof, I plead artistic license. While I argued throughout the early chapters of Genesis that I don't think it entirely logically inconsistent to assume six literal 24-hour days, I also don't think that this passage demands that interpretation.

There is a passage in the New Testament in which Jesus refers to the prophet Jonah being swallowed by a whale (fish?), and I have heard pastors point to this and say, "See? Jesus is saying that Jonah was a real person, and really was swallowed by a whale!" I don't buy it. If you're going to assume that every time Jesus (or somebody else of authority in the Bible) mentions a person or thing, that implies an endorsement of that thing as being real, then we're back to the problem of the first commandment, in which God mentioning "other gods" would therefore be confirming the truth of polytheism. Just as I could refer to myself cutting down a tree "with the might of Paul Bunyan", so could Jesus refer to a well-known myth of Jonah, and God could refer to the allegory of a six-day creation. It's all in the matter of making a point, not necessarily driving home a tangential factoid.

These four commandments are the ones dealing with our relationship with God. Tomorrow, I will hopefully get through the ones dealing with interpersonal relationships.

The words of the covenant, the ten commandments (Exod 20 intro)

Wow. There's a lot that could be said here. In a very straightforward way I could answer just the issues the SAB brings up with this chapter (ignoring the cross references to the Book of Mormon) and call it a day. But of course, I'm not going to do that. This is a very important chapter of the Bible, if for no other reason than it's commonly believed to be so.

Which is definitely one of the issues that needs to be discussed. Some people have suggested that what we commonly call the "Ten Commandments" are not the real Ten Commandments. Well, it depends on what you mean by "real". In one sense, it is true, and important to note that the words "Ten Commandments" don't appear in this chapter of the Bible. You can judge for yourself how vital that is to their understanding, but for myself, I think the vital aspect of this passage isn't about the label one puts on it, but its context. "Ten Commandments" is a phrase that, while the Bible lacks it in this immediate context, still refers to this passage. I'm a firm believer in the concept that usage determines meaning, and when a person says the phrase, 99% of the time, they are referring to Exodus 20, even if they aren't fully familiar with the ins and outs of the content of it. (Check out this post in Steve Wells' blog, which I just discovered the other day. If you're wondering about the claim made in the title of the post, my short answer is that Jesus wasn't attempting to name them all.) Arguing that it is not acceptable to refer to this passage as the "Ten Commandments" is just a non-issue, as far as I'm concerned.

As to the numbering of the commandments, I think that's also a red herring. Although my preferred understanding is essentially in line with the Protestant numbering system (and I'll use it to refer to the individual commandments in the future), I don't think numbers matter so much as understanding them well. Is there one commandment to not covet, or is there two? I don't care; so long as you understand that coveting is considered wrong, you can subdivide it into eight coveting commandments (Don't covet your neighbor's (A) wife, (B) house, (C) land, (D) manservant, (E) maidservant, (F) ox, (G) donkey, (H) various other possessions that are none of the above). There are various commandments and sub-commandments here, and the numbering of them is not important, only the meaning. Jesus of course claimed to have summed up all of God's law in two commandments (Matt. 22:36-40).

Tempting though it may be to just leave the accusations towards the Book of Mormon dangling here (I don't personally believe in the book, nor in the faith built upon it) there is something that I think should be said in the book's defense. Steve Wells' commentary on the Book of Mormon adds two categories that are not found in the Biblical commentary. Those two categories are "Plagiarism" and "Changes in the BOM". I can find no commentary on the nature of these two categories, but as far as I can tell, the former is concerning passages in the Book of Mormon that completely synch up with passages in the Bible, while the latter is passages that have been changed from the original version of the BoM. I'm not sure what to make of the latter category, as some of the changes quoted seem rather minor, but I can see that some are indeed significant. The former category is one I have a big problem with. Sure, as skeptics, we can approach the BoM as nothing but a cheap knock-off off the Bible, and as such, we can point out some striking similarities and call it "plagiarism"; but if the BoM is really in essence written by the same God that wrote the Bible, then can't it be chalked up to similarity in writing style? I've got reasons for doubting the validity of the Book of Mormon, but its similarity to the Bible is not one of them.